The light in a smile

Hello there. The stars are spectacular this evening, the new moon arrived just the other night. Matt often finishes the night outside with the stars, but I don’t usually remember to do so before I crash into bed. Tonight I mulched just as darkness took over the day and watered the young seedlings under the bright stars. It sounds picturesque, but I would rather do it in daylight. Genevieve usually holds on until daylight has disappeared. I had the chance to garden alone this morning though. Matt took the girls out for a stroll on the boardwalk while I prepared garden beds for planting leafy annuals next week. It’s hard to stay on task when I see hundreds of other little tasks that need doing, but I did get a few spaces clear for winter planting. I can’t wait to have broccoli and spinach in the garden again. The seeds that I plant now will be ready to eat by the time my sister and her family arrive, a beautiful thought.

I spent a few hours cooking the other night while listening to a podcast of NPR’s Speaking of Faith. This is a show Matt and I loved hearing on Sunday mornings before church when we lived in Detroit. The topic was the Inner Landscape of Beauty, and was inspired by the ideas and poetry of John O’Donohue. None of the ideas were new. Making time for meditation and awe are necessary to enjoying life, basic concepts. His poetry hit a chord in me though, making me really contemplate what activities in my life are actually meditation. I don’t sit down and meditate. John spoke of those experiences that take us to a different place, that celestial zone in which, your soul triumphs over your mind and creates an uncontrollable physical response in your body. I then pondered, “I know what moves me to tears, what gives me goose bumps, what connects my soul to my body and REALLY moves me, but I don’t know this about the person with whom I am deeply in love.” So Matt turned off his psychological thriller. We agree on music as one of those, but totally different aspects of music. Harmony does it for me, being a part of perfect harmony, no matter the words. Words are more important to Matt. An amazing melody line on a guitar will also do it for him. Watching children do courageous things was one of Matt’s, whereas watching them do new things does it for me. New life in the garden and waterfalls have this effect on me. It says a lot about who we are and how deeply our admirations flow inside of us.

I wonder what will move our girls. I’m sure they are already deeply moved by certain things. Last night Mary and Keith came home to find a small hen wandering around with five newly hatched chicks. Finding them in the pen this morning surely moved Jacinta. Genevieve stops what she is doing when she hears us singing or dancing. She can’t yet join in, but pure joy overcomes her. At mealtime, we sing a blessing in French while holding hands. Genevieve can hold our hands now and after we have done the blessing once, she will reach out her hands for more. We did it three times in a row at lunch time the other day, just for Genevieve, to bask in the light of her smile. Jacinta loves to make her little sister smile. She is learning to sense Evie’s needs and fulfil them before I do, if she is in a good mood. We were out in the cubby house playing today and Jacinta needed help sweeping so I started with the big broom. Right away Genevieve started complaining, she was tired. Within seconds Jacinta handed Evie her little broom and she was happy again, doing what the “big people” do.

Lately Genevieve seems to want only the things she can not have like crayons, pens, pencils, ink pads, scissors, paints, beads, toilet paper, eggs, Jacinta’s art work, etc. Of course Jacinta enjoys taking things from Evie, playing the older sister who has more privileges. Genevieve reacts indignantly as if she is allowed nothing in this world, throwing a tantrum at the injustice. Sometimes Jacinta gets grumpy with Evie waiting like a vulture at the desk in anticipation of a crayon rolling into her reach. She can not always summon the patience required to deal with her little sister. But once in a while, she pulls up her shirt and says, “Look Evie! Belly button!” Genevieve gets a kick out of belly buttons so she digs in and they both smile and forget the frustration.

Genevieve is tuned in to her big sister’s whereabouts. She doesn’t want to miss a thing. This might explain why she took another two hour nap on Tuesday, the last being a week ago on Tuesday, Jacinta’s pre-school day. The rest of the week she survives on one nap a day, lasting less than an hour, waking as soon as either Jacinta or Keith make a sound or let on that fun is being had. This doesn’t say much for Matt and I, does it? Genevieve is sleeping well at night, this week. It fluctuates depending on my middle of the night energy. I suppose she knows her sister is sleeping, so there is nothing to miss. She doesn’t follow Jacinta around like a puppy though. The other night she decided she wanted to go outside while we were reading Jacinta’s bedtime stories. All the sudden we noticed complete silence. Our one year old had silently escaped out the screen door for the first time. Luckily Matt caught her quickly. Needless to say, we’ve come up with a way to lock it. She found a way to fall off the veranda later in the week anyway. She landed well, thankfully. Evie is constantly moving. Even while walking, she does this strange thing with her hands. It’s as if she thinks with her hands: sometimes pointing, rubbing something off, drawing circles with her fingers. Often it seems that she is trying to take off her clothes. Clothes seem to be somewhat of a nuisance for her. Hmmmm… Genevieve is a rough little chick.

Jacinta tells herself she is tough. Sometimes it’s wishful thinking, perhaps a goal to appease me. Little scrapes and bumps still cause major emotional breakdowns. She wants everyone to stop all activity, focus on her and instantly take away the pain. The hard part is that she insists that you don’t touch the injury, or even look at it. Today at the beach, Matt took her out for her first ride on a bike with training wheels. Unfortunately she fell pretty quickly and scraped her knee. As Matt loves making scenes (hee hee), Jacinta screaming in pain and insisting loudly that he couldn’t even LOOK at the scrape made for a great start. So the “bike ride” turned into a nice walk with Genevieve in the pram. To toughen up my big girl, I actually encourage the girls to play rough from time to time. Genevieve can take it and Jacinta needs some practice in getting bumped around and letting it go. I shouldn’t really care if she is tough, but having to cry and fear help for every little bump seems more painful to her than to us. It feels funny encouraging danger, but we all do funny things to try and protect our children from unnecessary anxiety and inevitable ridicule. One landmark this week was Jacinta’s first tearless pre-school day. She kissed me goodbye and had a lovely day. Knowing she is happy brings me great peace.

Although I feel as if I never rest, my week felt good. I found quite a few moments of peace within all of the activity. I have to redo a bunch of immigration crap thanks to my 93 day long trip out of Australia (3 days too long) so off I went to the police station for fingerprinting with the girls in toe. I thought they’d enjoy seeing a police station. No doubt, they did. I didn’t explain what the little lock up booth in the room was or who usually had their fingerprints taken at the Macksville Police Station. The police man was really nice. Unfortunately he spelled my name wrong and I had to go back and do the whole thing again the next morning. You might wonder where I found peace in this. The second attempt made me leave the house first thing, leaving the girls with Matt for breakfast. Being out of the house, alone, before 8am to drive through the misty hills into a busy town with school children getting on buses and people going to work was quite a thrill. Back when I was a part of that population bustling to get to work or school before 8am, I dreamt of escape. So now, I think it’s a novelty. Besides that, the Macksville Police Station is perhaps the most picturesque place to be locked up, if you were ever to have the choice. They might not give you a window out the front though to gaze out of the flowery courtyard onto the tree lined river bank.

Knitting and felting my first mushroom was peaceful and entertaining. Jacinta enjoyed her first felting experience. Unfortunately she is the only one able to ignore the fact that the finished product looks like a green penis. I don’t know why I am starting another one, a pink one. I am determined to make a non-phallic mushroom. What goals I aspire to. I did not aspire to be the new playgroup coordinator, but alas, on Thursday there were only three of us present at the meeting who were not pregnant. Hopefully I will be a better coordinator than I was treasurer. Playgroup will no longer be as peaceful, I liked floating along with no control. A few weeks ago I started singing with the kids for a few minutes anyway. I had to step up sooner or later.

Matt comes to choir now, to sing with us until Jacinta gets tired or loopy, and then takes her home, both happy for their own reasons. Genevieve is more easily entertained and eventually needs to be put on my back for sleep. So now, I can reach that celestial zone in the harmonies we sing with no distractions. Fiona has given me a couple of really fun leads to sing with the choir backing me up, all in different African languages. Last week she started us on a patriotic Cuban song, thinking of good old Castro finally giving up the reins. It’s funny being the resident “expert” on Spanish, as I really don’t know much, just a few words and basic pronunciation. The harmonies are so different in each language. It would be interesting to do a study on a culture’s harmonies in relation to the social fabric.

Another topic John O’Donohue spoke of was friendship and meditative conversations. He talked about the importance of friendship: getting beyond small talk, having someone with whom you can go deeper and have conversations that you remember later, weeks, months, even years later. I used to spend a lot more time having meditative conversations, before chatty children and discussing discipline. But this week, I found myself with more opportunities for those memorable conversations. I spent an afternoon with a friend and her little boy at the pool. Another friend came for lunch with her little girl and baby boy. Jacinta is learning to play without much guidance, when her friends are here. They may have little battles of will, but more often they create better together. Two or three imaginations put together make a better story. Likewise, two moms together seem to muster more energy for themselves and their four children than one mom can for two children. When the children play well together we don’t spend our time managing them and have time for energizing conversation.

Luckily I woke up with loads of energy Saturday morning because we had a big day. Genevieve woke up with a fever and threw up all over me just a few minutes before dance class. You’d think I’d have changed plans or asked for help from Matt, Keith or Mary, but a sick baby needs a mom and a big sister will hold a grudge if the baby either cancels dance or deprives her of the momma. So Jacinta danced happily with the other little girls, stopping once in a while to zone out and pick at her fingernails. Genevieve had me out of the house, all to herself, relaxed and able to sit, play with her, hold her, nurse her, and rock her to sleep. We spent the rest of the day at two different friends’ houses eating, talking and playing. Genevieve spent the day in our arms, napping, cuddling and playing. Jacinta ran herself ragged, finishing off the day by chasing chickens, jumping on the trampoline, playing hide and seek, burning sparklers, playing with flashlights in the dark and watching a movie. She even had her first “wine dip,” Matt tells me this is normal in Australia. Is that normal in the US? I don’t recall being three and sticking my finger in a wine glass for a taste, but I guess we come from Puritans. Jacinta giggled pretending something in her outdoor kitchen was wine. Hmm… Seems a bit strange to me.

We are strange though. The other day I was grasping for straws again, to excite Jacinta about gardening. Matt had suggested bringing paints down for her, so we did. We decided to do cucumber stamping, and tomato stamping. Jacinta enjoyed it, but the cucumbers were a bit moist to make a clear stamp. We just have so many! We jump on them for fun and see who can throw them the farthest. It seems terrible, but no one else wants them. I made some more pickles this week! Too bad I can’t send them to you all. And too bad you can’t send me some snow.

We are celebrating a new stereo today. To start off our busy Saturday, Matt went to the same organization’s annual garage sale that he bought our last stereo two years ago. As he hoped, he found a new one. This time it was a 6 cd changer and an amplifier for $35. Today he cleaned up our dusty music mess and installed the new system. Anytime he plays with sound, it reminds me of my dad and how excited he got changing around speakers and amplifiers in hopes of louder, better sound. We can listen to cds again and it sounds great. Matt had one day at the school this week, and did a lot of work on the book. He worked on the cellar, some long grass and started the long process of installing a fire place before winter. The hardest part of the process is planning out how and where it can go in our tiny house and that’s where he is at. It means a lot of work, but we’re excited to change around our tiny lounge room. It’s poorly arranged and almost useless because it serves as a walkway between the two houses with a couch on one side and a huge (out of tune) piano on the other.

Matt and Jacinta were talking about the stars the other night. He jokingly told her that a really big number was called a “Jacintillion.” She replied, “Do you want to know the biggest number of all?” Matt did, of course. “Twenty-two,” she proudly stated. The mind of a child is so beautiful.

As always, I wish you awe and beauty in your life. I’d love to know what brings you to that indescribable place of pure mindless, soulful elation. I also wish you spring, I hear winter is dragging on a bit. Take care.

Love,
Shana