May 17

Yanni is a very happy person.

That's what we learned tonight.

Also, there is such a thing as a flugelhorn.

And dueling violins?  They're totally awesome.

Nat won us tickets to "An evening with Yanni" and despite our best efforts to ridicule the entire experience, we had a wonderful evening indeed.

Highlights:

Playing "Yanni/not Yanni" as we watched a vast array of people stream into Playhouse Square.  It is fairly easy to identify the Yanni demographic, but there were a few suprises as we headed into the Palace:  the pregnant mom toting a two year old heading into the front row, the young asian couple, the hipsters who seemed to have been misplaced from the Trailer Park Boys show one theater down.

Watching all those old white people groove to the rhythmic, sweeping beats; slight bobs of the head, a sway here or there, the slight rustle of all that conservative clothing.

The splendid colatura soprano vocalizing her way through "the Nightingale"

The free street parking we found, just one block away from the teeming $10 lots of the theater district.  Totally worth the walk across the deserted bus station parking lot, especially as it allowed us to buy ourselves a drink, guilt free.

A facebook friend noted that she had found watching a Yanni show to be a "strange and wonderful" experience.  Beer in hand, sitting in the opulence of an historic downtown theater, watching a joyful long-haired man in white yoga pants bounce and turn between two stacks of keyboards, surrounded by sublime musicians and an ever-changing light show, I was inclined to agree. 

May 15

Writing every day is difficult.  Life gets in the way and those moments you most want to write, you are least able.

That is my whining for the evening.

Now on to writing.

I took the day off today.  A personal day, which somehow implies a free day.  Yet it is 10:45pm as I settle in to writing position, considering my time free only just now...

It was a lovely day, if a busy one.  A glimpse into what life might be like if I didn't have to work, and it was an ideal world at the same time.  Nat got the kids up and running as I went down to school to work with a student I am tutoring, and then to the gym on the way home.  He then delivered the children and a large tote bag of swimsuits to me and I took it from there.  We swam, got lunch, and got Jack to preschool.  Little girl and I went to the Botanical Gardens, where she requested that we go first to the "garden house" to see the butterflies and the turtles.  We picked Jack up.  Fourteen 4 and 5 year olds ran in circles around the playground; I nursed Ivy and talked with some of the moms.  We drove home.  We sat in the car while the kids slept.  We watched PBS and folded laundry.  We made dinner, and a banner, for the wonderful Nat who sent off the draft of his dissertation today.  The kids played in the sandbox and had a bath.  We had a dance party at the base of the stairs, read books, and snuggled four people into one twin bed at tuck-in time.

It was a lovely day. A simple day.  A day that leaves me feeling like I have nothing to write about this evening, because nothing out of the ordinary happened.  And yet I could write about anything.  About Ivy sweeping the floor of the little house at the gardens, and playing in the sandbox for half an hour at home, content to just be; about walking my dog around the block, the simplest thing in the world, but so imbued with joy and bright evening light as we greeted and talked and smiled with our neighbors, my beautiful dog trotting proudly ahead; about the pride and concern that mix in my mother's heart as my boy joined his class for circle time, seeing him so grown up and yet so small, wondering how life is going to treat him as he moves on in this world; about the simple pleasure of a a glass of wine and a conversation with my husband over dinner. 

Nothing happened today-- but today was everything.

May 10

I wrote on the 8th and 9th, I did.  Technical writing, I suppose you could call it-- present levels for an IEP and and Evaluation report.  Due to confidentiality I can't post the products of those writing sessions for you here.  Also, you would be bored to tears.

Tonight, something different.  In the midst of mad preparations for Ivy's party (read, wandering around the house wondering how in god's name it got so messy and how in god's name I'll possibly find time to clean it AND buy the remaining supplies AND festoon the entire property in rainbows all before Saturday at 4:00....) I think I need something different.

I used to write poetry, you know.  I remember enjoying it, quite a bit.

So tonight, a moment outside of time, to play with a poem.



watching you

slant-sun bright
on your face
as you balance

here in this
grocery store parking lot

surrounded by ordinary

trappings of life
comings and goings and cars
people downtrodden and laden
with paper bags and worries

here by this brick wall
radiant
with spring light

this pavement
edged yellow
a line stretching out

a hundred! 
your brother yells

all the invitation you need
for adventure

tiny shoes lined up
ready? 
you walk a tightrope
celebrating each step

here in this grocery store parking lot
you stop
smile
stumble
dance
catch your shadow as it
bounces off the bricks

here in this ordinary
errand and evening

you
are a song.

May 7

Springtime.  Love is in the air, and I am in love with my city.

This seems to be an annual event.  Between the sidewalk gardens and the flowering trees, the greengreengreen of the leaves bursting forth and the lavish colors of all those lovely homes fairly glowing in the sun, its hard to fight.  Rants about high taxes and low test scores, sidewalk litter and foreclosed homes-- all fade in the face of an afternoon like this one.

Today, children of all races and creeds came together at Peace Park and laughter and music filled the air.

No, really.  

That all happened. 

We were there to see it.

Jack and Ivy and I stopped by the park on our way to the library and we joined an assortment of children already climbing and sliding and playing up and down the hill.  There was the little brunette in the hippie skirt with the ever-so-patient long-haired father, waiting at her side as she investigated a puddle.  There was the striking black woman, impeccable and gorgeous and rather unbelievable in her leopard print open-backed tunic, leggings, and stiletto yellow heels, attentively watching her three equally beautiful tiny ones run.  There were the orthodox Jewish boys in full regalia, dark skinned and dark eyed, their father's voice rich with a vague accent.  A heavyset young mom impersonated an alligator with surprising vivacity and chased a group of children, only one of who could have possibly been her own.  A patient black grandfather kept up with a toddler boy on a big wheel thanks to a rope tied to the back of the little bike. Two teenage girls pushed their siblings in the tire swing and laughed as much as the little ones. The children, color-blind as always, joined and left each other's games with the delicious fluidity of youth.  The adults (dazzled by the sun?) smiled in passing, chatted softly, looked out for one another's children.  

On two benches to the side of the playground, just at the crest of the hill where the evening light meets the grass, a mixed group of teenagers gathered.  A black boy picked up a guitar and played and the other kids laughed and sang and flirted and not one of them littered at all. 

As we walked toward our little library where all of the staff know my children by name, I listened to all the music of the evening on Coventry.  Cars rushing, stopping; people gathering, walking, waiting; strangers and neighbors sharing sidewalks; birds greeting the coming rain.

This is why we live in Cleveland Heights.  

May 6

A day late.  I know.  But I wrote it in my mind last night.

Bach is sublime.

The chance to sing, experience, revel in that sublimity for two hours last night?  An honor.

As the final chord of the Gloria rang out and we sat down for the next solo, I looked out to the audience and regretted that my children and my husband were not there.  It was not an option for them to come this time, not really.   Sitting quietly through two hours of music, even Bach, is a lot to ask of little ones, especially when the concert begins precisely at their bedtimes.  But I would love to see if the music sings to their souls the way it does mine.  I thought to myself, I ought to play the CD for them at least, sing along perhaps. But as I involuntarily swayed to the melodies drifting up from the orchestra, I realized what a poor substitute that would be.

The truest power of this music is the way breath brings it to life.  The organic work of breathing together, of 85 pairs of eyes trained on the director, attuned to signals, hands, bows moving.  The beat becoming a presence among us as hour hearts beat in time to the 16th notes.  Voices building on the voices around them, listening and tuning and growing, stressing and pulling back, giving meaning to the text, transcending language.

We really sang the mass last night, just gave in and sang it.  The notes may not have been perfect but the music was glorious.  Alive.  Resplendent.

I am so lucky.

May 5

A birthday letter to my daughter.

She will be two on Tuesday. Imagine that.

Ivy, my girl, my heart.  You are so vibrant and bright in our lives.  You have added so much laughter to our days-- your smile and your giggle, your dancing and your sillies, and now, at two, all the things you say!  You are a born comedian, a joy-bringer, a dramatic and opinionated young lady who is impeccably polite and surprisingly tidy.  Already you have the world figured out and you know how you want it to be, from the shoes you wear to how we cover you with your purple fuzzy heart blankie at night.  You still love to nurse and sneak in snuggles in the wee hours, even as you are fiercely independent by day.  You have to do anything your brother does and keeping up with him is, I think, helping you to grow up all the faster.  This year has flown and all of a sudden we don't have a baby in our house anymore.  You are a little girl, a surprising and wonderful little girl, a breathtaking beauty and a laugh a minute.  We love you so very very much, dear Ivy.
Happy Second Birthday!

May 4

We are watching Into the Wild tonight.  I've read the book, in Joyce Dyer's Creative nonfiction class at Hiram.

Funny that, I was just at Hiram tonight.  Standing in a too-hot room in the new Writing House on Hiram Hill, feeling rather unsettled and out of place, not at home in that place that was once my home.  

I went to attend a reception for Joyce Dyer's retirement, a retirement that means another piece of my Hiram is shifting and leaving.  It was not an easy moment, standing in that room.

But then-- the words about her.  Glimpses into the life and the career of a brilliant writer and a gifted teacher and a woman who is loved, loved, loved.  Luscious poetry was quoted and impossibly young college seniors testified to the impact Joyce has had on their lives. And-- one more lesson on writing, on craft, on life, from Joyce herself. 

To bask in the luminosity of her words!  I wish I could be a student again, sitting around a seminar table in that tiny upstairs room, being brilliant and young and full of potential. 

But Joyce, too, had her years of motherhood, of putting her writing ambitions off to one side while she did the business of living a beautiful life, raising a son, tending a marriage.  

And because the world is wide and life is rich, she continued to grow into the professor who helped shape my life.  And because the world is wide and life is rich, she is heading off to immerse herself in words and workshops and all the opportunities that come her way.  

The world is wide and life is rich and I am on fire to write about it. 

May.

I will write every day. 

May 1

May Day!

M'aidez!

Its a new month and I don't have a new 30 days ready!

April simply flew, and there is a certain rainbow-themed birthday to plan for, and my mind and my time have been occupied.

And so dear readers, send me your ideas!

For tonight, a moment of gratitude.



This was in the staff bathroom today.  A beautiful reminder in the midst of OAA testing week.  In the midst of the frustration and schedule changes and angry children and stressed out teachers-- we can just be grateful for everything.

I am grateful for my colleagues and my students and the brave perseverance they show in adversity.

I am grateful for my children, who ate dinner well tonight. They even said "Yum!" About green beans.

I am grateful for puppies, for softness and newness and the excitement of it all.

I am grateful for May and the hope of warmth and spring returning.

I am grateful it is almost summer vacation and at the same time I am grateful for the time I have left of this school year. It has been a good year in spite of itself.