Merry Christmas!

December 23rd, 2014

Tonight my Santa paid me a visit.  Though he still believes, I think Tristan is beginning to understand the broader concept of Santa Claus.  I hope that in carrying on this tradition with him I've fostered a life-long belief in magic and altruism.  And I hope that that's why he's dressed in his Santa pajamas and filling my stocking this night before Christmas eve.  It's about selflessness and anonymous giving, not just milk and cookies.  And carrots.  I hope.   

We are spending this Christmas in Iowa because I'm not ready to disrupt the intrinsic naivete that I've nurtured in Tristan all these long years.  I feel obliged to protect this inherent hopefulness and blind faith in magic and goodness and infinite youth and a life without loss.   I want to keep him innocent forever.  Or at least for just one more Christmas.

In January we're leaving.  Not forever; the logistics are chaos and explanations too tedious but suffice to say we'll be back to this house, though it will no longer be our home.  We'll be slowly displacing the earth from our deep roots here over the coming year, eventually tucking them into the still foreign soils of the Hudson Valley. 

Tristan is eight years old.  And I can't help but think back to the Christmas when I was eight, when everything was a shambles.  My dad had been killed in a car accident a month before, and my mom still lay broken, in body and in soul, in a hospital bed in his den.  My mom's eldest son (from a previous marriage) had left his family to care for her and play Santa for me.  Why his own family and children didn't deserve the same I'll never know.  And I'll never know how to feel about it.  It was a miserable, muddled, confusing end to a childhood that had been until then idyllic.  Everything was suddenly in such sharp focus, and no child should have to see life and its inevitabilities so clearly. 

I tell myself that it's only a coincidence that I'm about to drag my son away from the only life he's known, just now, when he's eight, but it probably isn't.  Not entirely.  Our traumas mark us for life.  That which we were subjected to becomes instinctive, reflexive, and maybe we're all designed to subject our children to the same.  But this unbelievably clear recollection of Christmas when I was eight also gives me solace and strength, because I know what Tristan can take.  He's not going to break. 

[no appropriate segue available]

Also here are some photos from Christmases past!  Be merry!  Think positive!!  TAWNY PORT! 

Merry Christmas!!  HO!

Basilica's Buddha Booth

Basilica Hudson Farm & Flea

In the shadow of Christmas and impending real estate transactions I'm finding it hard to calm my mind enough to sit down and write.  But I did finally get around to unpacking the bags from our Thanksgiving trip to New York (yes, ten days is pretty much standard for me) and rediscovered a few of the tasty purchases I made at Basilica Hudson's Farm & Flea!

my festive kitchen

The Hudson Standard concocts syrups and bitters using ingredients procured from the Hudson Valley and everything I tasted at Farm & Flea was amazing.  We brought home the Pear Honey Ginger shrub (I've used it in a salad dressing that I'm eating right now!) and I so wish I'd picked up their Spruce Shoot Bitters as well.  Even though shrubs and bitters are easy to make at home, the prices of Hudson Standard's products aren't by any means exorbitant, so I'd err on the side of laziness and buy everything. 

Lady Jayne's Alchemy is apparently a one [awesome] woman operation housed "in a barn in the woods" in Old Chatham, NY.  Her Worcestershire Sauce is phenomenal but she also makes things like perfumes and cold remedies from plants on her property.  Eau de Creeping Charlie.  I am not kidding.  She is nothing if not resourceful, this lady.  I love her.

Flowering Heart Farm had myriad felted toys very carefully and cleverly made and displayed at Farm & Flea.  All hand-made and plant-dyed, Tristan and I really fell hard for everything but came home with just one wee bunny.  He'll be lost in Tristan's bedclothes in no time but isn't that what happens to us all when we're loved? 

And then there's this…

…which I almost certainly paid a hugely inflated price for and which will pretty much definitely mark the beginning of a stupid crazy collecting frenzy.  Being unfamiliar with these charming little Armed Services Editions I was rather intrigued, and whilst being enlightened by a thorough explanation from the bookseller (whose name I have forgotten) I was overcome with the feeling that this book was a personal welcome to New York from my beloved Walt Whitman.  So I bought it.  I am such a sucker. 

reflection is everything

Pool House Chronicles

I hate driving.  The only thing that I hate more than driving is flying.  Sure, one is active, one is passive (unless you're a pilot, I guess), but both modes of transport are just the worst.  Why everyone was looking forward to flying cars in the 80s I'll never know. 

I did a lot of driving and a little flying last week.  I am exhausted.  In homeschooling these past few days I've been especially encouraging of my son in mathematics so that he might work on future advancements in teleportation.  I'm ready to be molecularly deconstructed if it means I'll never have to get on a plane or the New Jersey Turnpike again.

In this haze of exhaustion and home-buying that I'm currently mired in, I keep forgetting that we had an amazing time in New York over Thanksgiving.  Our first destination after the Newark Liberty Airport was Manhattan Saugerties.  Saugerties is a gorgeous little village with this beautiful historic lighthouse on the Hudson River.  After stuffing our tummies to capacity with everything but turkey and napping contentedly we attempted to walk (which is the only way to get there) to the lighthouse at dusk on Thanksgiving. 

Did I forget to mention the snow?  There was snow.

It was unbelievably picturesque and eerily quiet and just sublime...

Holy crap, right?!

Which is saying a lot considering that WE DIDN'T EVEN MAKE IT TO THE LIGHTHOUSE!!  Either the tide or recent precipitation or both had flooded the trail just before we could reach it.

But it's just there, in the upper right corner!

There's a metaphor here about some mysterious obscured beacon guiding us toward our new home, but I can't quite find the words.  I'm having a hard time thinking of anything besides the possibility that I might be spending more than I'd like on this gorgeous property with a barn and a pool house and fallow land on which I'd like to establish a little biodynamic farm run by a cooperative of ladies that doesn't exist…yet.  Am I crazy?  I feel like I might be crazy.  Does anyone want to rent a pool house? 

First Thanksgiving in New York

Next week we're going to New York!  But we won't be eating any turkey or doing any black Friday shopping.  Instead we are scouting out a new home, taking an art class in a refurbished country school house, staying in what promises to be the best bed and breakfast ever and partaking of as much hand-hewn and home-brewed awesomeness as time allows.  And hopefully bringing home a suitcase full of lady-made Worcestershire Sauce. 

Of course Tristan and I are coming down with colds just in time.  I'm sure our fellow airline passengers won't mind the scent of garlic, eucalyptus and osha root wafting from us.  Making new friends is always best accomplished with a runny nose. 

Lick

We went to the Lick Observatory in California once.  Our friend Mike drove us there, on an old, nearly one lane road up the side of Mount Hamilton.  It is a truly historic and spectacular place.  Because we happened to be there at the same time as someone actually important we were able to see certain areas that are restricted to ordinary visitors.  Also while we were there a storm rolled in.  We quickly headed back down the mountain, stopping when we could so that I could collect giant pinecones, in the snow and rain, for an as yet unrealized wreath project.  The pictures I took are almost invariably crap, but here's this one:

Tristan at the Lick Observatory

And here's the conversation that took place when I showed it to Tristan today:

Tristan:  "I don't even remember that."
Marianne:  "You don't remember going to the Lick observatory?!"
Tristan:  "I remember throwing up."
Marianne:  "What?"
Tristan:  "On the drive down the mountain, I threw up!"
Marianne:  "Ohhhh yeah." 

I don't know what else to say.  This is probably not worthy of a blog post, but what is, really?  I suggest reading about the Lick observatory and visiting if you can.  If you can stomach the white-knuckle drive there and back, of course.

bonus crap photo of usually restricted activity

HELLO CLEVELAND!!!!!! I DON'T CARE IF IT'S A CLICHE!!!!!

The other day Tristan showed me how to make a song on my ipod repeat indefinitely.  I had no idea until then that this function existed.  This brand new information answered an old, nagging question of mine:  How could one specific song on a five-year-old's ipod have 500 listens in only a matter of months?  The song was 'Dry Bone Valley' by Mastodon and the excessive listens were discovered not long after I'd given him The Hunter.  Can you think of a single song you've purposely listened to 500 times?  In three months?  I got nuthin'.

Tristan loves Mastodon.  They were the first band he'd ever seen, in Chicago with Deftones and Alice in Chains in 2010.  He was four.  Since then the love has been non-stop, and has sometimes driven me bonkers ('Curl of the Burl', really?) but mostly towed me into fandom myself.  That they're pretty great live doesn't hurt, either.  The most recent record, the one with the swansong-sounding title, has been the soundtrack of choice during kitchen cleanup since it came out.  Which is high praise in this household.

Anyway, after that first concert, Tristan never seemed too interested in seeing another.  I took him to see Opeth and Katatonia at First Avenue in October of 2011 and he was having none of it.  Which was fine, we left the show and I managed to see Opeth and Katatonia play together again TWICE in 2013!  Unfortunately Katatonia played not a single song that I knew (and I have something like NINE of their records).. but I digress. 

So out of the blue in summer of 2013 Tristan asks to see Mastodon for his birthday!  It was such a proud moment.  At first I thought we'd be trekking to Europe to be able have the chance to see them in July, but they were actually touring the states that summer, playing some terrible outdoor festival.  BUT there was an off-date with MACHINE HEAD in Cleveland!!  We took the train, stayed in an historic hotel, ate amazing food, hit some "museums" and it was WONDERFUL.  Fucking Cleveland, man.. who knew?!

Tristan at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tristan at The Arcade

Nice cubby in our room at The Arcade

Tristan at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

NASA Glenn Visitor Center

pretty self-explanatory, I think

Tristan and Lake Erie

I don't have a picture of Tristan at the show because I didn't even take my phone.  I probably could have taken a picture of him with Mastodon's rad drummer Brann Dailor, who stopped to talk to us when we were eating outside earlier in the day at the awesome Greenhouse Tavern, but of course I didn't.  Brann is such a sweetheart, and Tristan was so confused as to who he was.  It took all sorts to stop myself flailing my arms and yelling "THIS IS THE MAN THAT WROTE THE SONG YOU LISTENED TO FIVE HUNDRED TIMES IN THREE MONTHS!!!!"

It might seem crazy to everyone else, but traveling for concerts makes all kinds of sense to me.  I have done it forever.  I flew to Canberra, Australia to see my very first show (Mr. Bungle) when I was seventeen.  I could produce a long list of bands I've traveled to see and dozens of reasons why concerts are the best reason to go anywhere, but basically it boils down to the fact that passion for music is universal and music is a universal language.  I know that I have friends in any given venue before I even walk in, it doesn't even matter what country.  I want Tristan to have the same passion and the same experiences I've had.  And he won't even have to endure being groped!  But he IS only 8, and maybe wants to pace himself.  Maybe he'll ask to see another show in another three years.  Stay tuned.

random things

Sometimes its hard to swallow the inherent narcissism behind actually bothering to write anything here.  I am swayed toward doing it mostly because of my beautiful friend Elizabeth who writes so thoughtfully and honestly about her family and her faith.  My first reaction to reading her blog was thinking that she was incredibly brave.  And I want to be brave.  Not cynical. 

Besides my friends and some random extended family I have no idea who reads this, although people do.  I can see the number of viewers and the countries they're viewing from and it never fails to perplex.  I can't help but wonder about who is reading this stuff and why.  More specifically I wonder WHO IN POLAND IS READING THIS?!?!  [edit: no one in Poland is reading this, thanks nerds for educating me on Eastern European spambots]  Not that it matters.  I can appreciate all things random and foreign as much as the next person.  Do people in Poland go out in the dark to shovel snow when it is still snowing?  I'm just curious.  Because my neighbors here in Iowa do, and I can't explain it.  They're going to have shovel again in the morning, right?  I'm feeling a little self-conscious about my snow-covered sidewalk, but I'm not about to shovel it TWICE in twenty four hours, especially on a weekend.  The mail carrier isn't even coming tomorrow!  Hey, maybe the neighbors are just really excited about the first snow of the season and being able to use their new shovel!  I'm going to keep telling myself that and try to feel better. 

Random enough?

If not, here's some more random stuff..

Tristan with a GIANT PUFFBALL MUSHROOM!!

One year we found a giant puffball mushroom whilst hiking through Moorehead Park.  The giant puffball, Calvatia gigantea, is an edible mushroom before its spores have formed and its interior is still firm and white.  Unfortunately this one was just slightly too mature to consume, but that didn't stop us from feeling amazed and enamored of it and nature in general!  If it had been just days earlier we could have sliced this baby up and grilled it and really been in mycophile heaven.

At our house we are cheap and we recycle.  You can't see it in the above photos, but just out of view is a set of metal drawers that serve as Tristan's "craft bins".  In them is all manner of crap that I'd really prefer to compost or throw away, but since I've tried hard (and succeeded) to instill in him a concern for the Earth and an appreciation of found things, I can't possibly do something as heinous as composting an egg carton or throwing away ribbon or stickers or stamps.  Or actually allow the county to recycle boxes for me.  No, Tristan laid claim to this box and made it his "boat".  I don't remember what year this was, but his bedroom hasn't looked that way for ages (and by "that way" I mean clean), and I was only recently allowed to finally properly recycle his "boat".  Complete with crossing shoulder straps it was really something to behold.  And trip over.  The above photos document only the premier incarnation of the "boat", there were many renovations to follow.  But here it is in all its initial glory, in Tristan's adorable and cheaply decorated room.  (Ignore the Pottery Barn luggage, it is an ANOMALY.)

We do a little stargazing.  We pay attention to the phases of the moon and dabble in biodynamic gardening.  This November's Beaver Moon(!) was particularly beautiful here.  There is a cemetery on a hill east of our little town that we like to view the moon from, but I have yet to get a good picture of the moon, or anything else for that matter, at night.  I just don't have the equipment or skill to take photos of anything in the dark, but that doesn't stop me from trying.  I like the above shots for what they are (besides amateurish and out of focus) but curse the fact that they do no justice to how beautiful the evening really was.  The memories I have of standing on that hill with my son are some of the most precious to me, and I will miss this tradition tremendously.

Speaking of beavers, check out this awesome documentary about beavers and their amazing work creating healthy ecosystems!

And speaking of taking pictures in the dark, I found a couple of our vegetable garden taken in the twilight of probably late May 2013.  The composite edging (which was fun and easy to install with Tristan a couple years before) has since been replaced with concrete edgers and pavers, though they'll soon be excavated and sold.  This space has been so much fun for us to play in and grow all manner of flowers and veggies in, despite the slope and unrelenting full sun..

 

I coached soccer for two years (yes, I really did, in 2012 and 2013).  Most of these kids were on my team both years...

I don't miss the soccer (I hate competitive sports in general), but I miss the kids.  I still see most of them semi-regularly, but eventually I won't, and neither will Tristan.

And because now I'm in a contemplative mood...

The Colorado River and Tristan's reflection

2011: A Potted Plant Odyssey

kale, creeping jenny, pansies

I like potted plants.  Outside, not inside.  Inside I can't seem to keep them alive.  My poor asthmatic and pneumonia-scarred lungs breathe better in dry air so I never use a humidifier or other means to keep my plants as moist as they'd like to be.  So they die.  But outside, at least in some years, I do alright.

 

I like geraniums.  These annual geraniums are pelargoniums, actually.  I like the fancy leaved and scented pelargoniums specifically.  I did eventually procure a larger collection than this and learn to overwinter them by pruning them and removing them from their pots and shaking the soil from their roots so that they may spend the winter in five gallon buckets in the basement.  And sometimes, bareroot and totally unwatered, THEY BLOOM.  In the basement!!  They are amazing little creatures.  The scented varieties have leaves that can be bruised and soaked in sugar syrup overnight, thus making the most amazing homemade sodas and lemonades.  I've even minced some leaves of the lemon crispum and lime varieties into cucumber salsas.  It's heavenly.  Please try it.

My porch wraps around the northeast corner of my house.  I have windowboxes on four north-facing windows.  It's been an interesting and frustrating journey trying to find plants that are happy there.  I wish I could remember what exactly I had tucked into them in 2011, but I can't.  Which is probably fine because they don't look real pleased to be there anyway.  The coleus in these photos however...

The coleus are thrilled.  I should have pinched back the Redhead coleus, but I loved it so much I dared not touch it for fear of killing it.  I know better now, and would have better pictures to show off the mighty Redhead in subsequent years if I weren't so lazy.  It and the trailing, variegated coleus featured in the lowermost photo above are the only two that I think I'll never be able to live without.

One other thing that I'd like to point out in the above set is the trailing green plant tucked in the pot with the caladium.  It's pennyroyal!!  Started from seed by little old me.  It makes a fantastic trailing plant for windowboxes and hanging baskets and is super easy and cheap.  As an herb it makes a nice tea and flea-repellant.  Also, it was historically used as an abortifacient, so don't go crazy.

Me too, Pete.

bloodroot

I don't take my son to church but I do take him to the woods.  I don't believe in God but I do believe in the soul and the spirit and the divinity of all life.  The woods nourish and minister to his soul and his spirit and remind him that he is alive and a tiny, precious part of something bigger and older and more mysterious than he can probably imagine.  Sometimes we take our friend Journey to the woods with us, and sometimes I bring a camera.


In April 2014..

  

Late spring 2014...

BABY SNAILS!!!!!!

why not?