I've written many times about, and during, spring break. I was happier when the children were out of school, because they were happier when they were out of school. No rushed mornings, fights, worries about spelling tests, bullies. Less guilt.
Writing and children. And children. I stare, gaping. Moment after endearing moment passes while I stare. I'm missing it all. It's all so fast, I can't write it down, store it anywhere. Their smiles, growls, torments. Passing me the queen of spades. They've each planted hard, spontaneous kisses on some part of me, on the way to the tree fort, the bathroom. I must figure out some way to preserve this.
It takes all day, everyday, this collecting and storing, archiving. Observing, thinking, writing it down. Rarely do I succeed. I fail. How did I do it? I don't know. In between I fixed stuff - plumbing, gathered stuff - money and wood for fuel. Nights I crashed hard until one of them stubbed his toe or wet the bed or got up to wander around.
Homework, poems:
Oh mom, sweet mom, you fill my hart with joy.
I love you so very much I see the twinkl in your eyes.
I'm a better person because of it all, because I decided to get pregnant, first, with Josh and then with Chris. But who can add that row of numbers up?
Little boys, blonde. Each night I read to them. I placed a great deal of faith in stories. I was hoping for them, salvation, in any form. Such faith! But it's what I had. All the resources, for most of us there, were limited. They grew into fine young men.
And still, spring breaks I write.
2006
I suppose, in its own way, spring is coming to eastern Oregon, two or three degrees at a time. What's blooming now? Well, the bleeding hearts have center stage. Then there's that whole army of bulbs which really never interested me that much, though I dutifully planted and replanted; tulips the size of a baby's fist, pink daffodils. I tended to watch for the things with less predictable returns: students from spring break, from detention, from visitation with their fathers. I was a teacher.
There's trout, too, in streams cracking open wide. There's a whole herd of cow dogs twitching, itching for a command to move.
There's been a sunset, or two, already, the skies clear enough of clouds to see. A thunderstorm, perhaps.
Somewhere, lightening has struck. Somebody saw it.
Somebody marveled. Somebody shot a jackrabbit running across the road up Virtue Flats. Just for the fun of it? Just, well, for the power of it. Because she owned a gun and knew how to shoot?
But it wasn't me, this year.
My first year there, I did this, in May, boiled water and poured it on the last bit of hard, ugly ice in the yard. Record lows that winter, somewhere in the 30s below. Without a wind chill factor, of course, since it's breaking rules to figure that in.
But what about the trout, you want to know, the cow dogs? Were they yours? Whose were they? Do you have more stories that we can read in our spare time, here, planted, as we are, in this black dirt valley where if we spit it grows. We really like dogs! So do you!
I lived in the mountains for nearly twenty years, up in the high mountain deserts of eastern Oregon, close by towns with names like Sparta and Halfway, with canyons named Burnt, by summits called Dooley, across from bars named Stockmen's, with roommates named Cowboy Joe and newspapers called The Herald.
I had a friend named Patti whose son was in first grade with mine. She was sturdier than I. One morning, after parking her car in line with the pickup trucks in front of my house, across the street from the bar and after making her way up my long, narrowly shoveled sidewalk, she came through my door and announced that a dog was dead in the back of one of the trucks, frozen dead, with her six pups, frozen dead also, to her teats.
Spring breaks, I would clean the gardens and haul it all to the dump, six thousand pounds, usually, not including anything larger than twigs that could be used for fuel. I made friends with men from the Stockmen's across the street, mostly old, who would lean on my fence and point out weeds, talk tomatoes. I was often told that I worked as hard as a man, which I took as a compliment because it seemed to be so. And so it is, isn't it?
Have you smelled sage after a rain?
2004 & 2005
Writing and children. And children. I stare, gaping. Moment after endearing moment passes while I stare. I'm missing it all. It's all so fast, I can't write it down, store it anywhere. Their smiles, growls, torments. Passing me the queen of spades. They've each planted hard, spontaneous kisses on some part of me, on the way to the tree fort, the bathroom. I must figure out some way to preserve this.
It takes all day, everyday, this collecting and storing, archiving. Observing, thinking, writing it down. Rarely do I succeed. I fail. How did I do it? I don't know. In between I fixed stuff - plumbing, gathered stuff - money and wood for fuel. Nights I crashed hard until one of them stubbed his toe or wet the bed or got up to wander around.
Homework, poems:
Oh mom, sweet mom, you fill my hart with joy.
I love you so very much I see the twinkl in your eyes.
I'm a better person because of it all, because I decided to get pregnant, first, with Josh and then with Chris. But who can add that row of numbers up?
Little boys, blonde. Each night I read to them. I placed a great deal of faith in stories. I was hoping for them, salvation, in any form. Such faith! But it's what I had. All the resources, for most of us there, were limited. They grew into fine young men.
And still, spring breaks I write.
2006
I suppose, in its own way, spring is coming to eastern Oregon, two or three degrees at a time. What's blooming now? Well, the bleeding hearts have center stage. Then there's that whole army of bulbs which really never interested me that much, though I dutifully planted and replanted; tulips the size of a baby's fist, pink daffodils. I tended to watch for the things with less predictable returns: students from spring break, from detention, from visitation with their fathers. I was a teacher.
There's trout, too, in streams cracking open wide. There's a whole herd of cow dogs twitching, itching for a command to move.
There's been a sunset, or two, already, the skies clear enough of clouds to see. A thunderstorm, perhaps.
Somewhere, lightening has struck. Somebody saw it.
Somebody marveled. Somebody shot a jackrabbit running across the road up Virtue Flats. Just for the fun of it? Just, well, for the power of it. Because she owned a gun and knew how to shoot?
But it wasn't me, this year.
My first year there, I did this, in May, boiled water and poured it on the last bit of hard, ugly ice in the yard. Record lows that winter, somewhere in the 30s below. Without a wind chill factor, of course, since it's breaking rules to figure that in.
But what about the trout, you want to know, the cow dogs? Were they yours? Whose were they? Do you have more stories that we can read in our spare time, here, planted, as we are, in this black dirt valley where if we spit it grows. We really like dogs! So do you!
I lived in the mountains for nearly twenty years, up in the high mountain deserts of eastern Oregon, close by towns with names like Sparta and Halfway, with canyons named Burnt, by summits called Dooley, across from bars named Stockmen's, with roommates named Cowboy Joe and newspapers called The Herald.
I had a friend named Patti whose son was in first grade with mine. She was sturdier than I. One morning, after parking her car in line with the pickup trucks in front of my house, across the street from the bar and after making her way up my long, narrowly shoveled sidewalk, she came through my door and announced that a dog was dead in the back of one of the trucks, frozen dead, with her six pups, frozen dead also, to her teats.
Spring breaks, I would clean the gardens and haul it all to the dump, six thousand pounds, usually, not including anything larger than twigs that could be used for fuel. I made friends with men from the Stockmen's across the street, mostly old, who would lean on my fence and point out weeds, talk tomatoes. I was often told that I worked as hard as a man, which I took as a compliment because it seemed to be so. And so it is, isn't it?
Have you smelled sage after a rain?
2004 & 2005
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