Making It Together

Am immersed in reading the impossibly good Daring Greatly. Life-changing philosophy, psychology and research on vulnerability, trust, human connection and overcoming shame. Brene Brown is officially on my list of most inspiring humans. Love it when brilliance becomes a best seller and shows up at every library everywhere. It's can't-put-it-down, divinely inspired, putting-in-missing-pieces-I've-been-puzzled-over-forever....type of good.


This morning I noticed that the snowdrops are blooming at the back door and the daffodils at the front door are showing healthy green shoots too. The grocery stores are selling dollar bundles of daffodils for a fix to tide us all over. I am super fixing my faith on the return of warm and leaning it mentally. Not much longer now. We are all going to make it.

We have made two expeditions to the beach this week. Somehow just sifting sand in our fingers and collecting shells together is enough of a recollection of summer and our recent trip to help hold us.

Came home this time with a collection of purple quahog bits, the parts that the local tribes used for money, storytelling, rank and all kinds of other signifiers. Amazing to finger these bits of shell smashed by seagulls and imagine people from another time gathering and trimming them to add beauty and value to their long ago lives too. We are all marching along together in this world, looking for beauty, holding on through the winters of our lives and standing shoulder to shoulder with historical and real-time peoples....a countless line of folks who making meaning together.




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The Rythmn of the Rails

There's something about trains. Little boys especially are obsessed with them thanks the bizarrely popular show about Thomas The Tank Engine coupled with the importance of the wonderful wooden train sets now so ubiquitous in toy collections. I was never a little boy, I never had a Brio train set and as a child I had never hear of Thomas and yet from my early childhood till now trains have been a  romantic notion.

We had a day trip recently, while Nana and Grandpa Alan were visiting to take in the Essex Steam Train and Riverboat in combination. I do recommend the outing if you get the chance. It is a bit expensive so it was a special splurge gift from the visiting grandfolks. If you are trying to trim costs, feel free to cut the riverboat section. It was nice to be out on the cool river on a blazing hot day (100 degrees at our house further south) but the actual boat itself didn't offer much in the way of a unique experience. I think you get the same feeling from any boating experience. The train is where its at.

When I was a little girl I remember being pretty impressed and swoony about the freight train that ran behind my grandparents house. Even though I didn't grow up anywhere near a rail I never found the sound of the train going by annoying or disturbing, it was all about romance. As an adult I found out that my maternal grandpa was a genuine boxcar jumping hobo for a while in his youth, riding the rails to California to seek his fortune. After that I always thought of him when I saw train tracks curving off into the distance. I still do.

The rides on the Essex Steam Train vibe exactly how you want a nostalgic souvenir train voyage to feel. They keep it short but long enough to feel real, they use original cars with original seats and decoration (albeit updated with modern lights and such) and the giant engine is painted black and belches smoke exactly like a painting. The boys were open-mouthed walking past it to board.

One of the things I love about train travel in general is the way you feel genteel and historic while partaking. Even Manhattan's modern trains run on rails and rock you rhythmically, and the conductor still walks through the cars taking tickets just the way that Laura Ingalls and Heidi describes. There's little something about rail travel that is so unchanged, so elementally the same as in "the olden days" that it seems completely possible that we could really be in Anna Karenina or The Orient Express.We ought to all carry valises and watch for our trunks at the station!

I love the surreal view out the window of an airplane at the Cloudland above it all but the running visual commentary out the window of a train is an integral part of the trip to wherever you're going. Trains take you past waterfalls and deep into canyons, smoothly through quaint town centers and along the sides of mountains. I don't think I'd ever nap well on a train or get any reading done....too much to see. And lots of it untouched by car travel or billboard advertisements.

When Nana and Grandpa Alan went home they left the boys a large box full of new wooden tracks and cars for their train set, so much so that a new giant box had to be purchased to house them all. I am not a toy collecting queen but I don't mind this one. Link those cars up boys and squint down the squiggle of tracks you're arranging on the living room rug....I'm all for dreaming in that direction!

wooden toy train bridge (Photo credit: uccemebug)

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Glimpses of History

Am thinking all the time about the history and story of our 1920's colonial. Who lived here through World War II? Who was born here? What did the gardens look like? How was it decorated? All those sorts of curious thoughts. I am inspired in my wistful wonderings by spending too much time looking through the pictures at the Flikr group "Looking Into The Past." 

Sure wish I had some authentic, black and white, pulled from the pages of history photos of our old place from its heyday. I wonder if somebody does, out there someplace.

This photo in particular strikes wishful chords for me. What a gem, to have that kind of a shot of the front of your place! Gotta get myself down to the historical society and look up our home's history and also call the previous owner's granddaughter for the interview she promised me about the house. So much journalism, so little time.

House Quirks

As far as I am concerned, an old house isn't worth diddly unless it has quirks. The more mysterious, humorous or confusing the better. Nothing enhances the idea of a place having a story more than a few unexplained bits and bobs.

Here's a tour of some of the things that make me scratch my head and wish the walls could talk around our "new" abode. If you can solve any of the mysteries, please speak out! I'd love to know whatever I can.

Whaddya think this doohickey is on the outside wall of the kitchen|? It's maybe a foot square or so.

Here's a little peek under a window sill where people re-paint less carefully. You can see at least the last two layers of paint the house wore before the current, white trim color. There used to be a lot of that mint green color all over, inside and out...all the trim.

There are two of these big "there once was tape on the wall" gummy residue x's in the master bedroom. Wonder why.

I am also curious about these little burn marks in the upstairs wood floor. They look the same size and shape as the radiator feet except they are in the middle of the room which doesn't make a lot of sense.

I have deciphered that this nubbin in the top of the kitchen door-frame means that there used to be a swinging door there.

What do you think this is? It has a little lever on the side there that can move up and down. The whole box is maybe four inches by three inches or so.

I'd guess smoke detector except it is older than one ought to be and has been painted over several times...now quite melded to the wall.

And that concludes our tour of the first round of "House Quirks." Thank you for joining us, please tune in next time to see a strange hole in the floor, a little button on the wall and an antique bottle from the basement.

Art Distraction

The drawing class that A and I are taking together through community ed. met again tonight. I am super, super enjoying it. I am not sure if it is because I am wildly learning things or more just that I so enjoy artistic people and artistic pursuits.

I feel myself let down and be able and free and empowered in this setting more than I feel in many other areas of life. Every week I get giddier and giddier as the class time approaches and then once I walk in the room I can feel myself relax so deeply. It is so hard to pack up and go home again. I always linger, talking and talking and talking to the teacher about anything...just to not leave.

She's lovely. I feel lucky to have her for my first non-high school art instructor. She's very warm and I bloom under warm.

Every week when I sit down to draw it takes me a while to get my focus zoomed in. The tables themselves on which we lean our elbows, stack our materials and arrange the still lives are such living works of art. I could almost imagine framing a corner of one of them. What stories they must have! I'm sure they've seen some amazing creations. It's lovely to me to think that small souvenirs of creation have clung on. I love how rife the world is with story.

Sweet Baby Nib

Sometimes, I can't believe how sweet Nib is. Heaven knows I love all my boys very dearly but there is just something so easy and uniquely sweet about him at this stage in particular.

He has learned pointing and it is his new hot trick. He points at everything, one dainty finger pinging out into space, clearly aware that it's an impressive trick. He also shakes his head no wildly now. I think he's the youngest of my children to learn to do that. Not that he understands what it means...I'm pretty sure he has no idea, honestly. But still...there he is, shaking his head wildly all the time: "No no nonono!"

He looks to see if I see him when he's about to cruise down the sofa or free-stand for a second. He loves books will come climb in my lap if I sit down to read the big boys a story and gravitates towards any storybooks he sees on the floor. He comes over to get hugs and give snuggles at all times of day, just because he suddenly thought of it. He lights up light a Christmas tree whenever I walk in the room and grins at me. He says "Dada" as clear as day and he's madly in love with my canned peaches.


Have you got a sweet someone at your house that you love at this moment in time for special small reasons? List 'em out. Why are you madly in love with them...at this specific point in history?