bubbles and puppets

a funstigator is someone specially trained to swoop into tense situations between kids and parents in public places. i hear they have bunch of them at the science museum of minnesota. the function of a funstigator is to diffuse the bedlam that occurs when someone hasn't had a nap, feels cranky, or just needs to screech for whatever reason. and just as moms or dads are at their breaking point trying to manage strollers, juice boxes, miniature egos, sticky fingers and bad cases of the grumpies, a funstigator flies in and blows bubbles at them and giggles. or pokes someone in the belly with a fuzy puppet to get them to smile. and everyone breathes a sigh of relief and not one cries and peace prevails.

i'm not sure i'd like to be a funstigator but i can think of situations where i'd like one handy so as to resolve some of the world's smaller conflicts. a "return" with no tags at the customer care counter in walmart. a misunderstanding in a parking lot about whose space that really is. someone filled out the wrong form at the government center and is forced to go to the end of the line.

but i wonder if bubbles and puppets would work for grown-up messes. maybe not. imagine the funstigator jumping up and down with sock puppets and a monster bubble kit and the people who are upset become even more upset with that obnoxious idiot, and then they bitch slap him upside the head. maybe the funstigator should wear padding and a helmet and pass out supersoakers to support and encourage the resolution process.

actually that might feel kind of fun.

as long as you are not the one with the puppet.

bravo!

kelsey is 17, tall and irish and with a face from a painting and thick fairy tale hair. we saw her on stage the other night. she sang and she danced and lept and twirled. she gave each character a breath of it's own; a wink or a furrow or a smokey grin, and she was the best of all of them, with all truth i say this.

always the sweetest child, kelsey. when bozwell first came to live with us she made me a card out of pink construction paper and she drew a picture of a hound on the front, and in brown crayon she wrote "bozwell that ends well", and there were happy hearts around that.

we sat together, her mom and i, holding hands and waiting for the curtain. a little girl made her way past us to get to her seat. sheila touched the girl's tiny shoulder and i noted how small her teeshirt was and also her teeny pink pants. when sheila touched her i remembered how she used to touch kelsey's small shoulders when she brushed her hair.

and she still loves brushing it.

during the finale all of the performers opened up wide and reached for the lights in the balcony and the louder they sang the more tears that fell. i swallowed the feeling they were having right at that moment and somehow it hurt to look at them. not in a sad or sorry way, but the way it hurts to miss an old someone. you loved them once and forgot about that until you hear a song or smell the winter or have a dream. and you feel pressed with that joy you felt once, and it is back for just a minute, and you are glad to have felt it then and relieved to feel it again.

dear kelsey, you have so many opening nights ahead of you. so many scripts to memorize, but mostly to improvise. the curtain is going up and you are taking the world with you, each dance step swaying you a little closer to your dreams coming true.

and my wish for you

is that all of your finales

are grand.

missing chapters

i had a moment today when i couldn't remember the before,

now that it was after.

now where was i? what did i say i would do? who was i supposed to call?

the realization of where i am supposed be right now always seems to come back, but the space in between where i've been

and right here doesn't always sound familiar.

but then why should it?

i was never there.

the odds of happiness

the front page of the star tribune reported today that older adults are happier than we think. and more socially active, too. it said that "in general, the odds of being happy increased 5 percent with every 10 years of age." details were on page A6.

the details shared that even though we will suffer from aches and pains as we get old, and we will mourn the loss of loved ones, we will also learn to lower our expectations and accept our achievements. we will learn to be more content with what we have.

this news creates pause, a much needed and deep breath kind of pause that makes me go "hmmmmmmm". what a great thing to look forward to: thinking about good things i have done instead of wondering about all the things i didn't. feeling the richness of what i have instead of the distraction of how i ought to change things. believing i might look pretty if i smile at you, instead of believing i need to lose 10 pounds first.

i like those odds.

in between the lines

mark is a nice man with a lab/aussie mix who he says is a good dog. mark has been working with biofeedback for 25 years and his pretty beard is thicker than his apparent years. he wears a silver ring on each hand, and he owns, fully owns, a soft lullabye voice. dim lights, flat computer screens, deep leather chairs, a small fountain, and numerous electrodes entice me further into the world of mark the biofeedback guy.

mark explains the images on the screen in front of me. he tells me that

the yellow line is my eyes

and the green one is my breath

and the white one is the rest of me.

i follow his voice and breathe and breathe and i see how every in- and ex- hale has just become a cartoon in front of me. as i breathe, my lines are drawn and the lines that are drawn are a picture of the breaths i just took.

i find that my eyes are the hardest to control, my breath the easiest, and the rest of me is a mystery.

the yellow and green lines climb up and down and it looks like we are riding bikes on watson avenue when we were 9. we are riding up and down in all the pretty hills that were barrington.

but the white line is a mystery.

the white line is harder to predict and mysterious to control, even with my deep belly breaths. sometimes the white line glides across the screen in a strong and steady path, but then i smile or think or question or laugh and it is nudged it up or down. i can't fool it. it seems to study the sum of all of my thoughts and pieces - all of me that is me in this instant, and it provides immediate feedback on how far above or below the line i fall.

what does the white line stand for?

of what am i above or below?

somewhere in between the lines, in think.

somewhere in between.

Roland's Song

nineteen-six on an easter april evening

i was born in candlelight

the last of three

son of a woman

with eyes as blue as ocean

and of a man whose heart belonged to her

and to the sea.

springtime, time to set sail

for my father

broke his heart

to think of leaving home

decided we all three

should board the cary

so that none of us would have to spend

my first spring alone.

in my day i've sailed a thousand oceans

endless miles away from any shore

and when the moon shines on the ebony silken water

i'll be sailing on my way again once more.

what a sight it was that day

down to port mahon

when a captain took

his wife and child to sea

everyone waved and smiled

as he carried us aboard

with his crew, a cook, a carpentar

mother and me.

a tiny bed that was fashioned

on brass gimbals

and the soothing ocean songs

the night would sing

memories of my first home

will live clearly in my mind

as long as i can remember

anything.

in my day i've sailed a thousand oceans
endless miles away from any shore
and when the moon shines on the ebony silken water
i'll be sailing on my way again once more.

for commander roland daly blocksom

april 14, 1906 - october 27, 1990

happy birthday dad, happy 102

one dish meal

mom came for christmas the year she was 77. while i had most of the menus under control, i wondered if she'd like to suggest the christmas eve meal. "oh", she said, "let's have chicken divan. it's delicious and easy - it's a one dish meal!" chicken divan is a perfect hotdish: cheesy broccoli with chicken on top, and white bread croutons soaked in butter slathered on top until it's baked to a crispy finish. comfort food. great warmed up. nasty good on a cold night. hurts to think about it.

the ingredients were lined up on the counter like a photograph of my first grade class. cans of cheese soup, three sticks of butter, a celophane bag of pepperidge farm croutons, a box of frozen broccoli and one more stick of butter. mom was propped up by the fire in the living room, sipping her pepsi and watching the wheel of fortune. i knew she would be wanting to guide my efforts, and wouldn't this be fun? cooking together, mom and me, like christmas eves of long ago.

"if i were you, i'd cook the broccoli ahead of time so it gets nice and done."

broccoli on the stove, check.

"melt the butter all the way before you put the croutons in - and use a big frying pan."

big frying pan plus butter plus croutons.

"and after they get all soaky, put them under the broiler for just a minute."

done.

"oh and don't forget to warm the cheddar cheese soup with a little half and half before you mix everything up."

open can. small sauce pan. half and half. got it.

by now the windows in the kitchen of my cozy upstairs duplex were dripping with condensation, and so was i. the pots and pans were beginning to burble and steam and pat sajack just got louder. it suddenly occurs to me that mom and i never DID cook together on christmas eve. i usually stayed in my room till the last minute but until now, i couldn't remember why. ah, a moment of clarity.

"use a nice big bowl, honey, when you mix the soup and the broccoli. and drain the broccoli so it heats nicely."

finally, time to assemble. 5 pots and pans, one colander, one buttery cookie sheet and 2 bowls later, the final crouton fell. i was exasperated, but i had to admit, the dish was a marvel to behold.

mom toddled out to the kitchen to take a look.

"oooo-ooooo! that looks DELICIOUS! wasn't that easy?"

sure was mom - the easiest one dish meal i ever made.

more pepsi?

what winter did

everyone was outside today. i walked around the house in my t shirt and found buds on the lilacs and buds on the pink azalea bush we planted for my mom. but the most remarkable things are rosie and lucy, mic and fletch.

rosie turned 2 and she can say my name now, and tell me she loves me and blow kisses.

and lucy, last year still in betty's tummy is plump and round and likes to bounce on hips.

mic was a toddler last fall but now a little boy who speaks in sentences and told me that when his dad plunked his naked butt on the floor the other day he said "my butt feels like a magnet".

fletcher, proudly 5, still loves super mario. god bless fletch.

and as for me i just got older and my heart beats funky now but we can figure that out, and it's all good. because the fountain is sprinkling and splattering in the pond again and bozwell is napping on the back step and all is well.

all is well indeed.

boomer

oh boomer. you, too, were a good good dog.

i remember pam telling me so many years ago about you. you were smart and polite and you loved your mom and dad. once on the way to a meeting pam was driving and she told me "boomer loves to learn". how do you know that, i asked her? and she said that there were two things you loved about learning: first was learning something new you could do, and second was learning something new you could teach pam and bill to do. you took an agility class one time years ago and when you got home, you were so tired and happy that you crawled up into pam's lap and snored your way into sleepy bliss. another story i remember is that you would only perform your trick when bill did something first, and how smart that made you that you revised the lesson plan in your velvety head so that he had to do his trick first and you said to bill "good job!"


they miss you, boy. and always will. your pretty face in the window saying hello and good-bye, and the way you dutifully followed them from room to room. a watchful eye and comforting wag and soothing eyes. you were the perfect metaphor for home.


and the home that you loved for 16 years, which you have now left behind, will always be blessed by the time you spent there.


good good dog.

counting cracks

today i asked my class to tell me about their best and worst jobs and one woman talked about counting cracks. she was hired to do pavement inspections and was directed to walk miles of pavement and count the cracks and to record their location so someone else could come by and fix them. it was hot and monotonous and she hated the vinyl vest they made her wear and that was her worst job.

and i thought "what a metaphor". i bet i have spent time counting cracks. i can recall times when i have been hot and bored and uncomfortable when i kept my head down and instead of looking at the canvas of the pavement in front or ahead of me, i counted the cracks. there's one. there's another one. look at them all. so much is broken. so much is wrong. and in that space all i saw were the cracks and more cracks.

not that counting cracks is a bad thing in itself - on the contrary, it can be useful. especially if it leads to finding out why the crack grew up in the first place.

cracks in the pavement often have to do with trees. they happen because there is a fundamental foundational problem in the way the tree was planted in the first place. when the tree came from the nursery, the roots were girded -- wrapped up tight in a big ball of burlap, and no one took the time to spread them out when the tree was plunked in the earth. then a guy came by and watered it every day so it grew big and strong but the roots could only grow one way. they swelled and bulged and eventually poked up cracks in the sidewalk.

it's easy, so easy to look at the cracks we see along the way and tell ourselves to smash that pavement and put down fresh cement - raise it up, step over it. but oh, more helpful to ask, why is that crack there?

cracks in the pavement, cracks in love, cracks in life. walk slowly, notice and count them from time to time. appreciate the intent but also the error for why they are there.

spread the roots, water daily, and start again.