Letting Go of the Bike, Part II

Madeleine is in my class this year, which has caused shifts in my professional vs. personal perspectives.  But regardless of my own conversations with myself, she had homework to do for my class.  Homework for my class always involves choices.  I give my students five options and they choose two that appeal to their own interests and intelligences.  This week’s included options such as summarizing a current event in a French-speaking country, making crêpes for your family and writing up a brief report about the process, doing an online grammar activity, and more.  Madeleine chose to make crêpes. 

Lately, my daughters have been becoming more and more interested in the kitchen.  Usually they want to make brownies or some kind of dessert, often from a mix.  They haven’t done much cooking from scratch.  Madeleine found a recipe and was ready to begin her project, and naturally, Arden and I gravitated to the kitchen as well.  We were going to help.  Yet, like most teenagers, Madeleine had her own independence in mind.  She kicked us both out of the kitchen.  Arden and I sulked for a bit, and then she went outside to ride her bike.  I continued to sulk, however, letting the worries pile up in my head:  what if she forgets an ingredient?  or doesn’t measure accurately?  or doesn’t understand the recipe?  Does she realize just how hot the pan needs to be?  What if she burns herself?

I fretted away while she busied herself in the kitchen.  I bit my tongue and said nothing, sitting quietly and reminding myself that (yet again) I was letting go of the bike, and that regardless of the outcome, there were lessons for both of us to learn.  Teaching a child to ride a bike is pretty much the metaphor for all things parenting.  I’d assigned my students recipes far more complicated than this one, and they’d survived, right?  Keeping quiet is often the most challenging thing a parent can do.  And perhaps because it is so difficult, it can also be very powerful – usually more powerful to the parent than the child.

Because I was forced into silence quiet, I had to listen.  And so I did.  I listened as she puttered about the kitchen, gathering her ingredients and supplies.  I listened as she left the fridge open far too long, had trouble lighting the stove, and used way too much cooking spray.  But I didn’t interfere.  I didn’t do anything until she asked for help, and even then it was the mundane task of tearing off sections of waxed paper.  I wanted to help.  I wanted to be needed.  Waxed paper?  I could do so much more than tear waxed paper!

But she didn’t need me.  She didn’t need me to do anything because she was fully prepared and ready for the task.  We never know what our kids are capable of until we give them the opportunity and power to do something on their own.  How often do we under- (or over-) estimate their abilities?  And like any complex dance, figuring out those details is the crux of parenting.  Are they ready?  Are we?

When it was time to assemble our crêpes and eat, they were perfectly golden brown and uniform.  We loaded them with fruit, Nutella, whipped cream, and more.  They were delicious, and no one had been hurt, the kitchen was still standing, and I had survived my banishment.   To be honest, her crêpes were far better than mine.

Shift

It’s a Saturday, the best of days for us who travail full-time, and it’s the last Saturday in September, one of those mornings that announces on a cool whispery breeze that summer is indeed, definitively, over.  Rain has been tapping at the windows on and off all morning, as clouds, grey and foreboding, roll over the mountains.  We have new windows, the installation job now nearly complete, and I’m surprised daily how much these new frames seem to alter what has become a familiar landscape.

Our home sits high on Stringfield Hill, overlooking other hills and valleys, the vista stretching to the Bradshaws in the distance.  Though this view is one I’ve gazed upon for the past seventeen years, it’s familiar but never stale.  Storms pour in, the fog lifts, the light changes the colors.  The sky today is a spectrum of greys with lightning flashes and the growling of distant, but approaching, thunder.  But another day, another time, it’s ablaze with the warmth of sunrise or sunset, or inky black with the belt of our galaxy stretching across it.  It's sunny and blue, mostly, but it is always changing and shifting.

It’s a day like today though, with quiet tasks that permit me the mindfulness to be present in this shifting of the seasons, rather than racing off to work.  To note that today is fall, but yesterday was still summer.  It feels like a deep ritual to pause and acknowledge this, as did our forebears, who lived more aware and in awe of nature’s rhythms than most of us today.

The rain has begun in earnest now, falling at a sideways slant.  The breeze coming through the narrow slit in the kitchen window will soon cause me to put the kettle on for tea.  But for just another moment, I’ll focus on my gratitude for the sturdy roof above my head, the piles of books I haven’t yet read close at hand, and the stacks of firewood we’ve gathered over summer.  We won’t need the wood today, but there’s a comfort in knowing it is there.  The lighting of the season’s first fire is another ritual I relish each year, even more than the first gin and tonic that heralds summer. 

I grew up in the desert where we have seasons, yes, but not four, and definitely lack fall as it exists here at a mile high.  There are shifts in the desert too, but they are often either barely discernable or violent in nature, never quite like this shift, here, today.  Each season here in the mountains bring advantages and disadvantages, certainly, but I greet each like a dear friend come to visit for a spell.  Days like this, when the shift is palpable and the rare opportunity exists to savor it, to mark it, to pause and whisper:  welcome.

Satisfied in August

I wanted to share with you the scent

of the cliff rose this morning, honeyed milk drifting

from the tiny fried egg blooms tinged barely green,

unblinking in the morning sun.  Side oats gramma grass

tickles my knees as I follow the tracks in the dried mud 

of the trail.  Coyote and plain old dog, for sure,

the vaguely heart-shaped deer impression, too, and here

and there, bobcat, I hope.  All around, a rainbow blooms:

orange globe mallow, smoky purple verbena, fiery Indian

paintbrush, yellow goldenrod, datura, purest white and deadly. 

There’s another too, which I’ve not noted before, with

gentian trumpets.  How many greens would you perceive,

from the lush grasses, monsoon-summoned, to trees and

shrubs, satisfied in August.  A solitary blue-black

feather floats on a swaying grass cluster, a raven’s calling

card dropped from thermals high above.  The breeze shifts,

curls around my ear, whispers, autumn’s on its way, on its way,

on its way.  There is a knowing, a stirring inside, an urge to prepare

and preserve, to gather and stash, yet this morning, this first, for you.

Something about Hell in a Hand Basket

First three baskets.

For a long time I’ve wanted to be a crafty person.  I find myself drawn to people who are creative – writers, poets, knitters, quilters, weavers, spinners, jewelers, painters, and photographers.  There is something inspiring about creating something new from a few supplies with time, vision, and skill.  I’ve envied these types of people and have dabbled a bit in some of these crafts, but was always disappointed in most of my results.  To be honest, I always wanted my first or second attempt at whatever to be worthy of a cover photo on Martha Stewart Living.  Of course, none of my attempts were worthy and they shouldn’t have been, given the scant amount of time I’d invested.

I wasn’t thinking about crafts this spring, while hiking near Granite Mountain Wilderness, but I began to notice tufts of green pine needles scattered along the trail.  Many of our pines here are long-needled ponderosas, which are desirable for basketry.  The clumps of pine needles I was noticing were tips of branches cut off by tree squirrels, most likely Abert’s squirrels, according to my wildlife biologist dad.  The squirrels like to eat the new growth; biologists can determine the number of squirrels in an area, usually one squirrel per tree where these clippings fall.  I gathered a few clumps, thinking I’d try my hand at making a pine needle basket.  When I returned home, I did what my daughters do when they want to know how to do something new:  a YouTube search.

I watched several videos, soaked the pine needles in hot water, and gathered a few more supplies.  Most pine needle baskets are typically coiled with some type of fiber to stitch and hold the coils together.  I set out to make my first basket, which was definitely not worthy of a magazine cover, but stayed together.  My stitching reflects my fear that the basket would not hold itself together, but I like the look of the pale yellow raffia with the pale green needles.

For my second basket, I gathered dry needles and used a nice weight of hemp cord, which was much easier to work with than the raffia.  I tried to have more faith in the strength and integrity of the materials to keep their shape without overstitching.  I’ve made a total of four baskets now with my focus lately being on making the stitching more regular and attractive.  I can see improvement with each basket.

Second basket, in process.

Second basket, finished.

Third attempt.  This hemp cord was too stiff, too difficult to work with.

My stitching has improved!

Fourth basket.

Making baskets, once all the simple preparations have been taken care of, is a repetitive and meditative task.  The baskets form rather organically, the shape and size determined as each coil is stitched [read:  there is no pattern to confuse me].  It’s inexpensive and requires little beyond a large needle.  The process is quick – the last two baskets I made took about two evenings a piece.  I like being a part of a centuries-old local tradition of pine needle basketry.  Native peoples in this area have been making baskets using plant materials including ponderosa pine needles, yucca fibers, and bear grass.  As I work on a basket and inhale the scent of pine, I think of the basket makers of the past, throughout the continents.  Nearly every culture has some basket making tradition utilizing local materials to create a utilitarian and perhaps beautiful product.  I’m making connections across the globe, throughout the ages, and to the natural world around me, and while my projects aren’t cover girls, I’m enjoying the process.  For once, the process is the thing. 

Garden Notes 2014

All summer I’ve been watering by hand, swinging the garden hose like a censer.  I sowed late this year, but a riot of zinnias in the front bed has overgrown the basil which stretches, looking for sun.  I should make pesto with it before it gives up entirely.  The zinnias’ main competition is a lovely flowering perennial that’s gone to seed.  I can’t remember its name, nor the name of the neighbor who gave it to me, but the hummingbirds and butterflies love it.  I can’t even identify the lovely color of its trumpet blossoms – something between coral and fuschia.

In the garden on the side of the house, one bed lies fallow, waiting for cooler weather to plant lettuce.  The jungle of blackberry threatens to block the gate, its vines arching like fireworks, some heavy with ripening fruit.  Volunteer cosmos gain inches every week, overshadowing Arden’s rose and the gladiolus that finally decided to bloom.  I water, having drained the rain barrels yesterday, wondering if today my diligence will somehow cause the rains to come again, my silent plea to the skies.  The rows of flowers bob and nod, bob and nod, as if in prayer.