It feels strange and scary to write here again. Where do I start? I can’t say I missed you all because I’ve been visiting you, lurking mostly, and enjoying your posts. Did I miss me–Miss Raehan? I’m not really sure that I did.
I don’t know if yoga has slowed me down or if the blog world is moving faster, but it feels too fast for me. When I blog every day, I crave time away from the computer, but I can’t seem to stop myself. It’s like eating potato chips.
Therefore, (drum roll) I’ve decided to put myself on a blogging schedule. (Stop laughing; it’s not a joke.) You know me too well. I’m the one that loves making schedules but can never seem to follow them. I have a good feeling about this schedule. I will post every Monday (or Sunday night). I will also slowly make the rounds to visit everyone each week, savoring each blog slowly and catching up on posts, rather rushing my way through every two days and feeling unsatisfied and hurried.
These may end up being longer posts, like today, so I won’t be offended if it takes you all week to finish and comment, or if you can’t make it all the way through. It’s all good.
Namaste!
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My daughters have discovered “Annie,” the musical. About two months ago, I heard Hannah singing “Tomorrow.” I asked her where she had learned it. “Do you sing it in your class?” She told me no. We had watched the beginning of the movie once or twice, so I’m assuming she picked the song up that way.
When I was elementary school age, I lived in New Jersey, in a suburb of Manhattan. I dreamed of playing Annie on Broadway. I belted out the songs with passion at home on a regular basis. We lived in an apartment building. No one was spared. I remember once having my neighbor friends call me on the phone one day when I was singing because they heard me in the neighboring apartment building. We waved to each other through the windows. Somewhere around that time, I dreamt I WAS Annie on Broadway. It’s funny how vivid that dream still is and that I remember how disappointed I was when I woke up. These are not memories I’m particularly proud or fond of.
So I hear my daughters singing Annie and I have mixed, primal feelings. I bought the Broadway version of the music from itunes last week and have been enjoying watching them sing and dance around to the music.
Rachel loves dancing and stomping around with an angry look on her face to “It’s a Hard Knock Life” and Hannah still likes the song “Tomorrow” but also keeps asking for “Miss Hannigan.” We really don’t know exactly what she’s asking for. I think she’d like us to play the line “I love you Miss Hannigan” over and over again. Another quirky thing Hannah does is laugh at the words to “Tomorrow” when I’m singing the song before bed.
“I just stick out my chin…”
“Nooooo…not chin” she protests every time, laughing like I just made a ridiculous mistake. She asked for the song!
Miss Hannigan, by the way, is a topic that has led to some interesting conversations. Finally, after the third time watching the movie, Rachel noticed that she wasn’t all that nice and asked me why. My lame answer was: “She drinks too many beers.” Why, she asked. “Because she’s lonely,” was my answer. Rachel protested, “Well, she has Mr. Bundle.”
When you watch your child take part in something you did as a child—something that was a powerful force in your life—it is very…well primal is the only word that comes to mind. I watch Rachel discovering her voice as she tries to match the ridiculously out-of-reach voice of Andrea McCartle (I think the movie version has a more reasonable key for Annie’s songs) and I think maybe I now know a little bit of what it feels like going to a Passover supper, if you are Jewish, watching your children take part in a tradition that has passed on for generations. It sounds silly to compare the two, but I just find these feelings so interesting. And it’s good for Rachel to sing without me. She feels self-conscious singing with me, I think. My voice teacher in college once told me that my voice is good for solos or large choirs, but too strong for smaller groups. Rachel needs to discover her voice without me singing over her.
Annie was not my favorite musical. My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, West Side Story—these I have no mixed feelings about and no memories of angst and longing. But maybe it’s the memories of angst and longing make this experience of handing down Annie so powerful and primal.
I don’t know.
What else is going on in my life? After putting my kids to bed at night I work on papers for the classes I’m taking, or I read Middlemarch. I had a long paper due on Friday and was surprised at how calm I was all week and how good I was at compartmentalizing my work and my time with my kids. I gave the credit to yoga. And then Friday came and all I can say is that the paper was due at midnight and I sent it electronically at 11:40 pm after practically hyperventilating from stress. It was traumatic to say he least. I had a kind of post-trauma hangover the next day and am still recovering. Yoga today helped. So did a good night’s sleep. I still wish I had had one more night to proofread.
The girls have spring break this week. Sometime last week during a brilliant moment I mentioned to Rachel that we could play school at home during spring break. She’s so excited by that idea that she wanted to start Saturday and then today (Sunday). So tomorrow, we start our little school schedule. Yes, me, the one who can’t follow a schedule. You may join us for storytime at 8:30. I told her that we’d have a “morning constitutional” at 10:00. I crack myself up. She didn’t laugh.
That’s all from Lake Woebegone, folks.
Except for this poem, which I wrote a few weeks ago after drinking many glasses of sangria during a mom’s night out. It’s not “good poetry.” I don’t know anything about the mechanics of writing a good poem. It’s just me, writing, with a few too many sangrias in me. Thinking…”I should write a poem.”
Now I’m going to snuggle with my husband who put up with my “hangover” this weekend. I love him so. That’s primal, too, with little angst.
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To Breathe
(by me)
My parents’ bed lay plainly
on the floor, no fancy frame, no four posters, down or satin.
Still, every Saturday morning it became a boat
and we’d sail to Africa, or some other destination
shouted out by one of three girls before eating French Toast.
I suppose we learned to dream on that bed.
The youngest, I suspect I never shouted myself, but rather absorbed
the sounds and smells of morning bodies and laughter.
Later I mapped adventures to myself and announced them out loud,
until I finally sailed and breathed
the dust of Cairo,
the markets of Jerusalem,
the moist earth of Scotland,
the Autumn mountains and rivers of Kyoto.
At four, my oldest daughter scours the World Atlas and has mastered the continents,
for which I can take no credit.
At times our four poster bed seems too high.
I’d like to make it plain and nestle with my husband while we hear my daughters sail, knowing that this may cause them one day to have adventures too far away.
If I could I would build a magic room where we could live on this plain bed infinitely,
though I realize that if I did we would wish the magic away one day carelessly.
My oldest asks me if she can live with us forever and I say yes,
and there is nothing I mean more sincerely at that moment.
But deeper still, I just want my girls to breathe.
