Even Keel

In the wake of this week's tsunami warning, I began searching for middle ground. I need a consistent stretch without the ebb and flow of life's fluctuations. A long, invariable range with enough leverage to see the approaching storms and still sunsets on the horizon.

All I can find is peaks and valleys; it's been a long time since I've had a prairie period.

Although I once had a naval pierced to Jane's Addiction in a far away place in my teenage life, it's taken me thirty three years and counting to realize I've never had a middle.

Two weeks ago, I was at one of those high peaks I'll remember from my elderly rocking chair: my first play opened. One week ago, I was with a 103.7 degree fever, Mono's diagnosis and a week under sea level, under the covers. Peaks and valleys.

Three times in my life I experienced a peak and valley at relatively the same moment. Three natural births produced three lovely ladies and a broken coccyx that required a walker to maneuver the newborn period. But, wow, birth. I read every book and every research study. I became obsessed. I can't handle a paper cut, bee sting or stubbed toe but bring on thirty-six and a half collective hours of pure surge for my babes because I believe it's best. Natural. Newborn bliss with a seriously messed up back? I still can hardly walk a mile. Peaks and valleys.

I got a shiny red guitar for my sixteenth birthday that has many stories to tell. I once played it every day, taught by an amazing Danzig lovin' teacher who, painfully in his opinion, scribed all the notes to Neil Young's anthology and one Dead song, The Wheel. I skipped all the boring beginner stuff and went right at the peak of interest. Years later, it sat, dusty at high elevation, in Montana while I skied and lived and breathed love and poetry. At Betty's birth, I picked up knitting needles and a guitar pick, once again, and learned Old MacDonald, Twinkle. Last year I dabbled in a college course (the instructor later became my play's leading man) until my gigantic belly got in the way. Now I'm back past midnight with a head lamp, sneaking out of the bedroom to master Avett Brother's Ten Thousand Words. If I was an in-the-middle kind of gal, I'd just of practiced an hour a day since I was a teen.

I don't even know how to pop my own hood (realized the other day at battery's death) or change a tire, so I have no business talking about car repair. But when I took car maintenance by the wings and tried to act like a lady who wouldn't be swindled in the big city of Billings, MT I was ferociously attacked by the dealership's parrot named Hundai Accent. It latched onto my long braids, my suede coat cuffs and perched like I was a toppling Amazon nest. They threw me out of the dealership claiming I provoked the cage-free bird and grumbled something about youth and teens. I was nearly twenty three.

At thirty three, the peaks and valleys remain constant. I'm either ridiculously exhausted or entirely rested. Our laundry piled high dirty, or toppling folded and clean awaiting drawer's slumber. I either sew for hours a day for weeks on end or abandon my Bernina buddy for months. I either have enough patience for an afternoon with paper mache, ten library books aloud and toddler/preschool kitchen prep instruction or barely enough to get me through to night's tuck-ins and repeated bedtime refusals. Or, barely enough to tie one more shoe, zip one more coat, wipe one more, well, you know.

I like to listen to my music incredibly loud or really, not at all. What's the point soft, really? I like to know everything about the people I let into my heart; I have a hard time keeping a lot of acquaintances. And I don't think I ever really had a crush. Even when the New Kids on the Block were the "it" boy band, I didn't just have a poster. I saw them in concert nine times. Nine times. Thank goodness I saw way more Phish and Dead shows. What if the New Kids had been my tour experience. So, yeah, never a crush just truly, madly, deeply in love.

All Salinger, all Nabokov. Entire collections of those I love.

And so goes Solo Mono Mama Week while Daddy skis in Taho with pals. All movies, all kid-friendly ITouch Apps or all art and sit-on-the-floor-and-play, play. Each day Luke was gone we created something amazing, and each night Luke was gone I wondered why I couldn't find enough patience to make it to midnight. Each night I snuck into the spare room and locked the door for five minutes, for what felt like an hour.

But this is about the peaks of having the ability to stay home with two crazy pets and three little ladies and pretend I'm not an adult. The love of playing with that much fur and that many kiddos I created. The love, oh, the love.

Around here, we love Flat Stanley and listen to his stories on audio CD on repeat for bedtime's first few hours into deep dreams.

Let's make real-sized Flat Furber Girls said Betty with a mouthful of oatmeal.

OK, let's do it I said instead of sure, maybe later and we left the half eaten bowls like Goldilocks.

We took turns tracing out the bodies with black crayon on paper, and after trials with our one pair of Kinder-Ease scissors (seriously, we'd still be cutting) I took my Fiskars and the girls ripped and stuck what Lucy calls maggic bue tape.

Betty was going to draw pictures of the things she loved, of the things that made up who she is. I thought Lucy and I could flip through some of the collage magazines I've saved and we could have a scissor lesson and she could cut out what she liked, what made her who she is. And the two were going to work together to "make Olive."

Lucy picked up an orange crayon from the shiny new box of 64 and made a mark she immediately wanted to erase. I was just thinking to myself this is going great. I'm on my own this day with these folks and I'm loving it. I wouldn't change it-- and Lucy freaks out. Nearly bangs her head on the floor in frustration and continues that way for forty-five teary minutes. We tell her crayons don't erase, Olive wakes up needs a diaper and needs to feed, get a darker crayon and we'll draw over it, Betty needs help in the bathroom, I say we can flip over the cut-out, I'm going to love this art project and be so glad I did it ten years from now I need to repeat this over again, and finally I take a teary Lucy into the other room and a breakthrough:

What happened with the orange crayon I ask.

Sometimes when I do art I get nervous Lucy whispers.

What do you mean? Nervous? I'm shocked.

Luke thought awhile back maybe she didn't like to draw, but then some days she'll do it for an hour. We never knew what set her off to set her crayons flying through the air, paper torn and tears falling, time after time.

My babes like art I tell Luke. They came out of me; they like art.

Sometimes when I draw it doesn't look like it does when I close my eyes and see it in the dark. And then she starts sobbing. She's still two years old, my old soul.

Then if it looks like it does in my eyeballs, it doesn't look like Betty's. Betty's is so good.

My poor baby. I had no idea she was such a tortured artist; I've been so busy. I was crying, hugging her in the kitchen. I'll make time to do art with you and just you every day. We'll practice.

So we all used the magazine cutouts. Lucy made "round and rounds and around" for eyeballs and "sailboat bottoms" for her smile. It's perfect. I have a kitty in my heart and my tummy is full of alpacas. That's funny. I'm really funny giggles a proud Lucy.

Betty made a real life nose and took the time to draw some bones and a real life heart. They don't look like Valentine's Day hearts, you know. Uncle Skippy told me so. Her heart is under a cut out picture of a doll bed because she loves dollies and is a really good mommy to her babies.

Betty worked alone on Olive. She also wore a hand-me-down Christmas dress she loves because art is special so I want to look special doing it. She only wanted to fill Olive with yellow Ursa Labrador puppies because, Mama, any baby this sweet must be full of love and puppies. Olive has really long eyelashes, like the long green part of a flower, see?

Olive also has waves of breast milk inside. See?

Yes, Betty. Nice job.

And then they napped and I searched the Internet for something I could buy. Everything cost more than the one dollar I felt I had to spend, so I got thinking crafty. But, I had to wait for another day. I needed a nap, too.

:::

Most often, I sew like Jamie Oliver cooks. No real measuring, no pattern. That's how I did it when I rearranged Barbie clothes while sewing at seven. It's how I do it now, still.

It's occurred to me several times a day that Olive's car seat insert needed a makeover.

I didn't like the yucky pilled fleece in the car seat insert someone graciously gave us. I wanted a new one, but they're almost half a hundred dollars (I've been thinking in hundreds lately). I found a fuzzy pink receiving blanket I wasn't using and some scrap fabric from my ebay-loving brother-in-law that was left over from a super hero cape project.

I free-hand traced the pink blankie over the insert and pinned and tucked over the existing fabric.

Sew, sew, sew while carefully removing the pins. The next step was more challenging. I only had scraps of the seventies fish fabric I loved and the bottom insert had so much velcro for the car seat's straps, I felt road blocked. So, I cut random sized scraps and tucked and pinned the bottom segments.

I had to overlap the segments, but that was OK. It would look patchwork-y and would do the job of covering up the yucky old fleece. I roller cut the seatbelt slits, flipped it over and tucked in the extra edge and pinned a smooth seam.

I sewed in stages, like mosaic, with fun pink thread while carefully removing the pins.

Now Olive's got a good ride. I smile putting her in her car seat instead of thinking I should really get a new one with the money I don't have. The project took sixty-five minutes. And while it might not look like it origionally did "in my eyeballs," it's perfect.

Pure Joy

It's been an entire week since my first play closed and the flowers are still in bloom. Bouquets delivered to door and at curtain's close still unfold to celebrate on piano & table's edge: daisies, roses, snapdragons, lilies.

And outside, blossoms tell me snow will not arrive, no, not this year. Daffodils will open before week's end and our freshly mowed grass has left me sneezing.

I battled a bit of postpartum depression with my previous babes and I'm happy to report I am not a soldier for that fight this time around. Sure, it feels as though I crawled around in the trenches for a few weeks, a month or two ago, but I've added an element to my days that was missing before.

Pure joy. When I see it I say those two words aloud in its recognition. It seems simple, right? All around us, so often unclassified, unacknowledged. It's Olive's eyes, meeting mine with the sideways smile on her dimple-less face. It's listening to Betty and Lucy share a battery candlelit bubble bath while whispering stories to one another. It's so many things, really, that I know what it is NOT and choosing to give name to those moments, however small, are no help to me: sibling squabblery, laundry's dirty pile, dog's incessant bark. I'm choosing to breathe through those moments, tight lipped. They make less of an impression that way. This realization came after Betty said one feuding Monday morning,

"Lucy, Betty Said, "Don't you know you shouldn't repeat all the bad words mommy says?"

Now, don't get the wrong idea. I wasn't a tyrant with tourette's. I was just declaring every situation for what it was with a giant lack of sarcasm. Now, I only choose to declare the moments of Pure Joy. And since the announcement of each one, I realize how abundantly enriched we are.

Being serenaded on my grandmother's piano by a dear and talented friend as our reunited children play: Pure Joy.

Getting on the mossy ground beside little hands and tiny feet to witness an enormous slug's adventure: Pure Joy.

Visiting our friend's farm to meet day old lambs whose umbilical cords were still all pink and hangie. So new, those lambs. Such joy on the faces of babes meeting babes: Pure Joy.

Lucy May Meets a Lamb

Sam Smiles for the Lamb

Call me crazy, but you can even see it on the Mama Sheep, proud in her pen at ocean's side. The sheep's farmer told me she wasn't a good mom. As if I hadn't already known, I knew then I wouldn't make a good farmer. Shhhhh, don't say it so loud I wanted to say. She might hear you I wanted to say. Now, I don't know what makes a good Mama sheep but, there, in the sunlight by her newborn babes she looked fine to me.

Guard Sheep, San Juan Valley Road

I've had my fifteen minutes of fame and it was glorious. I savored each second. Life at Lighthouse, Light at Limekiln was in sold out's full bloom last week. 12 free verse poems, 52 pages: a memory piece in narrative verse about 1930s Limekiln Lighthouse residents: Pure Joy.

The Director brought the words from my pages to the stage with such craft and vision I am left astounded. The talented, talented Actors recreated these lives in history so beautifully I'm in awe. The Photographer who provided the projected stills, the Sound Technician who created the ambiance, The Theatre for paving the way to showcase history through story, and on, and on and on. Awe. Joy. My parents who traveled across the country, my brother-in-law and family who traveled across the county, my best gal pals who traveled from a neighboring island, and the editor/best friend who came from inland: Joy. Telephone calls from those in my heart who couldn't be near; the family I've created here on the island through friendship and acquaintances who came from the community leave me feeling so supported, so loved: Pure Joy.

Teacher Pals, Best Whidbey Buddies

Emily and Me

I've worn many invisible name tags throughout my adult life: tortilla chip & salsa maker, barista, Poet, Teacher, & Mama. And because I felt I had a story to tell, I can now add Playwright to the list.

Limekiln Lighthouse

In the 1930s a girl lived by the sea, beside a lighthouse. She was the youngest of five. Her name is Agnes, and she lives down the street from me now. Betty presented her with flowers opening night and all throughout the performance, I kept leaning forward to see what she thought of the show. Her grandson and date for the evening was rendered speechless. After time, he told me he missed his great grandmother so much; it was as if he had been able to listen to her wisdom again.

All Agnes said to me opening night was that I had made a few mistakes. As it so happens, I switched which brother joined up to fight in WWII first. Chuck went first, then Jack. Sure, just names to me but an absence in her heart remembered. How did I miss that? I apologized. It was hard to turn and accept flowers and handshakes swallowing the mistake. At least I told her story through poetry, through her best of times and through joy. I told it while carrying my final baby girl in a tough pregnancy and while caring for my two year old and four year old. Maybe that allowed for one mistake, overlooked and lingering.

For a long time, I only felt that. Not the applause, the teary patrons congratulating me, the other writers asking processes' specifics. Only that I made a few mistakes. That one line floated me out of the theatre on a wind of uncertainty. Well, Agnes called the next day and heartwarmingly thanked me for telling her family's story and for making her a celebrity. She went on and on. And for that, for people to come to recognize her as the lighthouse keeper's daughter, for that I am grateful. In that telephone call from Agnes what she could hear through my voice, that was Pure Joy. She never said that "mistake" word, only words of love. And what I heard from others in the following nights curtain's close applause, congratulatory remarks by theatre's door or grocery's check-out isle is, also, Pure Joy.

I am also grateful that the audience, night after night, got it. Twelve free-verse poems tell the story in a non-linear way, non-chronologically. Someone dies in the middle, then in the next scene they're dancing a jig. People weren't confused, as I feared. They followed. They really laughed at the funny parts, hung onto my carefully chosen words from scene to scene and, some, were actually moved to tears at curtain's close. It felt good to move people in the way that Agnes' story moved me. Seeing people react pleasantly to my fourteen-month labor of love: Pure Joy.

Betty Beside Agnes Linguist Settles Murray's Childhood Lighthouse Home

When Agnes arrived at the lighthouse, there were only roses in the house's eves, hollyhocks and one Western Red Cedar.

That One Western Red Cedar

Agnes would go down with her Daddy to wind up the light and wave to whales from lighthouse's deck.

My Family at Lighthouse's Door

And so goes the tale, only in narrative verse. It seemed fitting to visit The Light a day after production's close. We skipped stones at the tide pool beach around Dead Man's Bay:

Luke Skipping Rocks, Vancouver Island, British Columbia in the Distance

We talked about how calm & quiet it was with The Olympics 'round the bend and with The Olympic Mountains in front. So calm and quiet, hard to believe our Cincinatti guests would fly back inland at midnight. They soaked up as much of the Pacific Northwest as they could.

Sam and Emily Looking out at Haro Strait

Dead Man's Bay with The Olympic Penninsula in the Distance

Still...

02.10.10
In five o'clock's flurry of take-out pizza and familiar evening routines, I forgot to check my calendar.

As I stood breast feeding with coat, unzipped, at door's edge while Luke searched for truck's keys, I took in the sights of floor puzzles, half naked babes resisting bath tub's bubbles amidst my parents, Florida Grammy & Grandpop.

I couldn't hand our dreary infant over fast enough. It wasn't that I had a bad day; it was fine. Something just happened at that moment that made me want to run. I noticed the rare opportunity where Luke and I got to go out the door kid-less and I couldn't wait. I wanted to run. As the truck pulled away from our house I joked that we should see if there was a ferry leaving and just get on it and keep going.

Why? Luke asked.

Do we need a reason? Doesn't an adults only road trip sound enjo..

and I stopped mid-word.

I caught the pile of car seats in my peripheral. Futile pretend conversation I told myself as we pulled into the theatre for Dress Rehearsal.

The door was open, the theatre was empty. We sat in the dim lit room, silent for about ten minutes in some sort of half awake half dreamy consciousness.

I peacefully declared: No laundry, no squabbles, no books to read, no baby to feed, no dog to tie out and wait, Luke added, no noise at all. We sat for another five minutes in silence. It seemed like the greatest date in a long time. We were just being, just still while just together. Just us. I loved it.

You know, it's occurring to me that we're here at the wrong time.

I think it starts at 7:30, not 6:00. I said.

So? Luke said.

And just like that, we held hands in the big quiet building.

Some time later, we remembered the Chess Ap on the iTouch. Oh, lovely technology. And, oh, how lovely it was to play in the giant room, so still.

The Father Daughter Dance is just another reason on the long list of reasons I love living here. It's almost a rush to get tickets; it nearly sells out. One is just as likely to see a decked out daddy boogieing with his two year old as one is to see a giddy daughter in her fifties dancing with her elderly father.

And, so, off comes the grease from daddy's fingertips and on go the wing tips. The ladies happily adorned in dresses with matching minis for their dollies couldn't wait to for their date. The Mullis Center, packed, with line out the door. Inside, dates are handed coursages from volunteers and a prom-type photo is taken against a blue foil background. Since Mamas aren't allowed inside, this is the only digital I got, red-eye and all..

We're so dressed up it's like Daddy is our prince.

Betty

After dropping them off, I wanted to spy in the bushes: ties and pigtails jumping to Chumbawamba and other beats. All daddies, all smiles and glee. I drove on with Olive to our mommy date at the seaside resturant. What a great night out for a gals night out. But I couldn't help but laugh. Could you imagine if I had asked Luke to attend some parent 'ball' and take me dancing to top 40 hits?! I barely got him to dance at our wedding to Etta James' At Last. He wore his wedding suit to the dance. Ahhh, what he does for those gals is so, so great.

I've forgotten how much babies get you down low on the ground for long periods of the day. My other ladies are growing up and with that it's just that, up with me on the furniture.

Betty and Lucy love setting up "baby tents" and "baby lands" on the floor. Bordered by infant books, rattling stuffed animals and other baby lovies, Olive lies kicking, drooling and cooling while her big sisters sing songs made up for her.

Tummy time, tummy time - well, it turns into watch me roll over time. I was lucky enough to capture the moment of mastery. Although the pictures aren't spectacular, the gist is here:

Ugh, tummy time is hard work.

Hi, there.

Here I go; let me swing my big noggin around...

What was that?

I really liked that.

Now, some kicks of joy.

Time still rolls on. What used to pass like weeks, now passes like months. Blink. Something new to celebrate. Today, I celebrate a babe, asleep, with arms above her head. Only last week she was still hands together at chest, in utero style. Now, Olive likes to snooze on the sofa, arms outstretched. Since her new rolling trick, we're hesitant to let her do so without a rolling baracade.

Sweet dreams.

In the Pan

Bread baked in a pan is the most common form. It slices well, jumps out of a toaster with ease and absorbs local honey and butter's dressing happily.

Luke and I will have been married for seven years this year, together twelve. It surprises me to say we are still learning things about each other. One new tidbit is his love of the true loaf form. I found out the other day. He figures that fresh bread four or five times a week (with a prenatal and postpartum hiatus, now returning) is nothing to complain about and it's only accidentally that I found out.

My stone was dirty with caked-on cornmeal from prior night's pizza, so I grabbed a few Pyrex and let the French Dill rise. I missed the shape it usually takes on, laying on the stone: giant hamburger bun, enormous Pirate's Booty, field stone (all Betty's descriptions). Once cooked, I had a hard time getting it out of the pan and an even harder time cleaning the pan. I missed the knock-on-wood solid top and side sound as much as I missed the foot long slice, toasted on broil. The loaf still tasted good, it just wasn't what I was used to.

Skiing in the cool rain and fog is still fun, just not what we're used to, either. I'm used to east coast's ice and heavy dumps, while Luke remembers Montana's ice blue sky and light, fluffy powder. Here, we own something called a Ski-Gee - a mini squeegee that fits on the thumb and un-slushes your goggles. Here, we ski Mt. Baker and her short lift lines, insane terrain and awesome sights. It isn't always fog-rain-slush, just like it doesn't always rain in The Pacific Northwest. But if you waited for the perfect day, you might not get outside.

You know you're out of shape (or just had a baby or both) when the act of gearing up in the parking lot is exhausting, not to mention time consuming. Actually zipping up my ski pants was a feat, while dressing two ladies, breastfeeding another, assisting in potty breaks, and caring for truck-bound Tilly, our Great Dane/Lab traveler, was a full time job for Luke and me during the fifty minutes it took to get ready and walk to the slopes. It was sooooo worth it once we heard Lucy's song:

Snow, snow, snow

I love snow

Snow angel, snow angel, snow angel

I love snow, I love snow, I love snow

[repeat for three hours to the tune of The Dead's Shakedown Street]

I didn't know what I was going to do with Olive, how she'd handle the cold and how I'd carry her.

Well, she slept slope side in The Moby and seemed unfazed in the chill. I walked along the run, camera in hand & stopped once and a while to build a tiny snowman with my little resting skiers.

Betty, true to her nature, was slow and steady and a bit methodical about the whole process. She kept saying the words, "So, I make a piece of pizza with my skis and I fall over if I go too fast and I keep my knees bent and my hands out in front like I'm steering a car..." She psyched herself out, almost, just like me. At first, it was between Luke's legs, then with a harness. Many sites sell a ski-wee harness that you steer like a stunt kite or leashed puppy. Luke fashioned one out of climbing rope and it worked OK, but held her back. She had fun, but she wasn't doing it on her own and she knew that she had before. I walked along side of her, letting go of her hand as she took off to Luke, and that produced a lot of happy giggles. But when she just started out the run along side Luke, she had it. Tiny steps to that point and, wow, was she proud.

And much to Lucy's nature, she wanted to do it all by herself. "Do it self!" to be exact. She was having so much fun on the snow her happiness was uncontrollable and infectious.

She giggled until collapse between Luke's legs and declared, "no pizza pie," to our hollered coaching. She skipped that whole learning process and got right down to it.

Olive didn't mind chillin' slopeside, and inside, she seemed to like the lodge and proved herself to be an adaptable little bunny and future skier.

Luke and I swap lodge time now, but I look forward to when we all ski together and study the trail maps on the drives up. It seems like that time will be easy, more managable - more restful. But, that will only mean that these days have gone and these are the ones we're used to. Each one is good, just different. For now, we'll celebrate the present.

And here they are, smiling after a good day on the mountain.

Here, it's a full on commitment to ski. An hour and then some red eye ferry ride, a two and a half hour car road from sea to ski, then a reverse with the milk run late night two and a half hour ferry ride home. Add some extra time for the unpopular traveler who forgot to get off at Orcas Island, making the ferry head back just a mile from our home's port. Aghhhrrrrr. Sure makes us miss the eight mile drive to the mountain when we lived in Red Lodge as season pass holders.

This year I'll have been skiing for twenty five years, Luke a tad shy of that. So, it's no wonder we believe skiing is in their blood. Proudly, we can say this is Betty's fourth year and Lucy's second. Matt, Luke's brother, no doubt wanted to break this record and took a bunny run with Wyatt. Big Sister Maddie was testing out mountain's top while Mama Shannon looked on, smiling approvingly of her new ski rabbit.

Wyatt Luke Furber, 2 months, snow sleep-angel

Ahh, the skiing coastal cousins. The day we're together skiing with Montana cousins Meritt & Piper will be a great one.

Wyatt, 2 months, sleep-skiing

I want our babes to be prepared. Here, I've learned the importance of outside time each day, what ever the weather. When it isn't ideal outside, we prefer rain boots and these lyrics Betty made up one stormy day on Whidbey Island, a place with a lot more rain than here:

Rain, Rain

Come and Stay

Make the Flowers

Grow Today.