peevish mama

It’s been a good slew of days around here, right? The sun managed to muscle out a banshee wind by Sunday, revealing one of those picture perfect days when it’s cool in the shade but hot in the sun.

We took it really easy. The day basically revolved around some early morning soccer, a bushwhacking adventure with Foxy Brown and good food. Lunch was our easiest fave – salamis, cheeses, olives, other salty bits and a Crispin cider – we huddled in the sunroom and didn’t eat until nearly three o’clock; dinner was steak sandwiches with garlic aoli and peppers and onions cooked by Dash. These people of mine know the way to my heart. We hung out on our front stoop in the sun for a long time, snagging Lady Tabouli’s family in our sticky spiderweb for a beer. Mellow and sunny. Perfect and easy.

I hope all you mamas out there were able to relax and let yourselves be loved up on Mother’s Day. It’s a good one as far as holidays go. Good for everyone to stop and be allowed to say what’s in their hearts with paints and clay, beef and tryingveryhardnottofight. I like it a lot, even though Saint James raided his art folder from this past year and gifted me with some suspiciously familiar-looking albeit cool Andy Warhol-esque pineapple prints. It’s funny to me. Something about our American school system has ingrained into my kids that they must produce art for Mother’s Day – and so he did. It’s the thought that counts – even if there was very little thought at all.

Here’s a song I love by an artist whom I don’t love. What can I say, I think Kanye is preposterous, but his music is magic to me. And he loved his mama. So there’s that.

Always, always, always. Ten years of yoga hasn’t cured me of it. Four years of blogging hasn’t cured me of it. Circumventing bodies of water à pied et au bicyclette hasn’t cured me of it.

No matter how much I think and I think, I just can’t figure out the answers.

Why can’t I look at those plump little visiting waterfowl pit-stopping in Lake Harriet and not wonder how much fat could be rendered from them. (Cooks will understand).

Why can’t I simply write a post about how safe my city feels for my roaming kids without an attempted abduction in Linden Hills three days later?

Why can’t I figure out how to balance my summer so I don’t end up like this by the end of June?

Why can’t I bike by the archery field by Lake Calhoun without picturing, in full gory detail, sound included, an arrow whistling through the air and piercing me right through the neck?

Why does bad stuff happen to good people?

Why does being this particular age feel so messed up? Not necessarily in a bad way.

Why can’t I slow down time?

I’m going to say that about covers it, so as to avoid really freaking you out.

My boy has sipped from the delicious cup of freedom and there is no turning back. As you know, I’ve always loved the wandering. Go forth, ride like the wind, find your friends, explore. Come home tired, happy, dirty and smarter.

I feel lucky to live in a city that feels safe for our kids. There are sidewalks, bike paths, businesses and people out and about – lots and lots of people. There are also lakes and trees and parks and donut shops. Lenore Skenazy, a proponent of anti-helicopter parenting and free roaming kids writes about the “popsicle test” – if an 8 year old can walk to buy a popsicle by herself and finish it before getting home, then that city is probably thriving and therefor a safe place for children to inhabit and own. I think our little apple passes the popsicle test with flying colors.

Then there’s what I’m going to call the “eyes and ears” test. In the last couple weeks I’ve had at least three friends mention that they spotted Saint James out and about with his crew. There’s a loose but vast web of benevolent watchers who will recognize my kid and take note of where he is and what he’s up to. There are scores of mamas who will, I trust, report back to me if they see something I wouldn’t like.

When I spot one of my friends’ kids out in the wild, I make a point to wave or make the quickest of quick breezy contacts – just so they know I see them and just so they’ll see me. If they’re too far away, I take a beat to check them out – make sure all is well. Our kids seeing and being seen by adults they know has a double benefit: I will tell your mom if you’re not wearing your helmet. But also: I am here if you need me.

So I’m purportedly comfortable with the ever widening perimeter Saint James is claiming as his own. Why then, did I spend this past weekend in a state of suspended waiting and disbelief as the hours stacked up and he didn’t darken my doorway for food, drink or rest?

He’s roaming far and wide, and with him – always – goes a piece of my heart. I know he’s a good kid and he looks both ways before crossing the street. I also know that if there’s a short cut that doesn’t involve staying on the bike paths, he’s going to take it. I know that the boys really are playing sports for hours on end. But I also know that these day-long peregrinations may not be as wholesome at age 16.

My conversations with Dash are completely ridiculous.

Me: Oh my gosh, he’s been gone since ten this morning!

Dash: Ya, it’s good.

Me: It IS good. Yes! So good. I love it. But it’s been hours!

Dash: uh huh.

Me: I mean, what is he eating? He’s going to be so exhausted! What are they doing? He left at the crack of dawn this morning!

Dash: You’re the one who’s always saying . . .

Me: IknowIknowIknow!!! It’s good! It’s so good, but it’s been HOURS!

Dash: . . .

Me: I mean, what on earth are those boys up to? It’s been hours!

Dash: . . .

Me: It’s so awesome. Ya. Don’t you think he should come home rest for a bit before practice?

And I’m leaving out the parts where Dash rolls his eyes and tells me I can’t have it both ways and that I started the whole wandering thing and I slam the door in a huff.

Yep, we’re still figuring this out. So for now the rules are that he has to tell us the plan and who’s involved. He has to text back within a reasonable period of time if we text him – we have yet to define what a reasonable period of time is because he’s been decent at getting back to us. He needs to text when there’s a change of location. I’m also thinking he’s going to have to come home for lunch or start using his own money for food otherwise he’ll be at Tin Fish feasting on fish tacos every damn day this summer.

And the most important rule of all: be a good kid. You never know who might be watching.

I love Willie Nelson and just the other day I mentioned to Dash that I am sorry I’ve never seen him in concert. His response: he’s not dead yet. True. But he’s 80 years old, so I guess if the opportunity arises, I will move mountains to be there.

In actuality, Willie Nelson has been on my mind because of a band called Phosphorescent that I just discovered in the last couple months. The singer songwriter, Matthew Houck, sounds like Willie Nelson to me. Nouveaux Willie. Neo-Willie. Turns out this band had an album back in 2009 called To Willie, so my notion was not far off.

I love this song. And I think you will too. It’s as easy as a warm spring Sunday – which was the kind of day we had here in Minneapolis on Willie’s birthday. But it’s laced with sadness. Really pretty.

And some Willie too, of course. Renegade, stoner, poet, romancer – the man can convey more emotion in one bar of music than most people can in a whole catalogue of songs. Enjoy.

Mostly I hate the internet and it’s way of sucking you into pure nonsense – superficial, relentless chatter and information that takes you out of your life and leaves you mired in a loud, screechy limbo. One of my struggles with blogging is the notion that I’m simply adding to the chatter. I know it’s my way of corralling my wandering attention and focusing on the stuff of my life here and now, but there’s always that little voice – who cares?

Sometimes, however, the internet brings you beauty. Something pure, something cool, something you wouldn’t see without a computer. I was literally moved to tears at 9 am on a Sunday morning when I saw this video of Maria Abramović’s performance piece at the MOMA from 2010. She simply sits in a chair in a dramatic red dress and people line up to take turns staring into her eyes. Talk about intimate.

Watch what happens when her old lover and collaborator, Ulay, takes the chair. The story is that they had had a passionate love in the seventies which ran its course. They decided to start walking from the opposite ends of the Great Wall of China and meet in the middle for one final embrace. (Of course, right?) This is them meeting again after all these years.

It’s breathtaking. I’m DYING!!! And I’m so going to track down this documentary.

Via Swissmiss

Shame on me for not responding to Creeper Bud’s text while I was on spring break. She was offering me her two tickets to see Dawes perform at the Electric Fetus this past Tuesday at 6. It’s not that I don’t love Dawes and the Electric Fetus and Creeper Bud, for that matter. It’s just that 6 o’clock on a Tuesday seems dubious when you don’t have your calendar in front of you. As it turns out Creeper Bud left me the tickets anyway and as Tuesday unfolded, a little field trip before dinner seemed like the perfect thing. I’m a firm believer that when there’s a choice to do or not do, you just gotta do. And I proved myself right yet again.

Saint James was at tennis practice, so I took a very neutral Supergirl as my sidekick. She was unfamiliar with Dawes but she’s nothing if not game. Turns out she’s the perfect wingman. When we arrived 20 minutes before the show, the line was snaking around the block, so she yelled at me to let her out and go park. I parked a few streets away and ran to meet her – hustling past all manner of hipsters, girls in bright lipstick and tights and plaid clad folks to find her tucked into the line with her hood up – chill as a buddha.

Turns out the kind of people who make an extra effort to check out a Dawes show in a record store are an affable bunch who think nothing of letting a little kid worm her way to the front. Time and again, people would smile at her, let her through and look back at me to see if I wanted to follow. Who am I to say no? We ended up with a perfect spot front and center – so good that a blogger for the City Pages asked me to text her my iPhone pics. Check out my first published pics in Natalie Gallagher’s great interview here.

Dawes is such a good band – beautiful musicianship and lyrics that get you right in the gut. Watching and listening from five feet away is so intimate it’s almost awkward. Taylor Goldsmith doesn’t make it easy – he’s not showy, and peacocky and flamboyant – he’s humble, soulful and unbearably honest. He is extending a piece of his heart every time he opens his mouth and you feel like you need to accept it with some modicum of care. I found myself staring at his beat up buttercream confection of a guitar, wondering if it had a name, to keep myself from welling up.

My favorite thing was watching them through Supergirl’s eyes. She was leaning up against an amp, her head at Goldsmith’s chest level, still as a stone. The kid who always has one eye on my Instagram and one eye on iTunes and her hands busy doodling and her mouth going a mile a minute was quite literally frozen in her tracks. She got to feel the magic that is a live performance, where the love and energy is flying in both directions, where you feel something shift in your insides and walk away just a little bit different.

And if I played my cards right, she’ll be hooked for life. Stories Don’t End.

This year for spring break we road tripped to Michigan to see my family. Maestro de Bife is back from Australia, Golden and his wife, Delicious Apple, were due to have their second bambina, it was Easter. We figured we’d spend spring break immersed in familial milestones as we so rarely get to do.

I had fully prepared myself for the possibility that Manzanita’s little sis might not be born while we were there, but as it turns out, Delicious Apple went into labor as we were driving towards them all. Petite Pomme was born on March 27th and couldn’t be more perfect, with my dear Manzanita suddenly thrust into the role of older sis and big girl – she’s hilarious and sweet, with the tiniest little naughty streak as perfectly befitting a two year old.

Something about being home makes me feel so acutely aware of myself and where I’m at in life. What am I doing? How am I doing? How did I get here? Where did the time go? Where’s my Esprit sweatshirt?

Partially, it’s the sandwich effect of being a mom and yet being around my own sweet mother and all the objects and landmarks of my youth – the Burger King, the Dairy Mat, Shane Park. I am out of my own castle and back in the castle of my girlhood. It’s so familiar and cozy – the meals and wine, the strong personalities, the quick brewing and passing stormy tempers, the laughter – but it’s my past and it was created by my parents, with their aesthetic, rules, likes and dispositions. It represents their adventures and travels, their high standards and hard work. My castle is different – it’s messier and dirtier, for sure, but the wall colors are brighter, the music is louder, the furniture is more random and most importantly it’s ours. Take a queen out of her castle and she can’t help but feel ever so slightly adrift and introspective.

Also, since our families don’t live near us, I see my kids acutely through their eyes. Any brattiness or funniness feels magnified and more noticeable because they don’t necessarily have the entire context – they don’t live the days in and days out. I can’t help but wonder what my family thinks, how my kids are coming off, whether they realize how kind and chill they really are. Good manners are my thing, but even more so when the people whose opinions I care about the most are watching. I wonder if they can tease out the subtle balance of the things we’ve taught them and the things that are just pure them – that tightrope of childrearing where you can do a lot, but you can only do so much – and I mean that for better and for worse, because some of my favorite things about my kids are the things we had nothing to do with.

Plus it’s spring! We take a deep breath, a big stretch to the ever warming sun and mutter a tiny prayer of thanks and good riddance to a winter that goes on about a month too long in these parts. We get a chance to clean house, both literally and metaphorically, start fresh, try out new ideas, give new policies a whirl. We get to keep the good, pitch the bad and promise ourselves we will live our days with more intention, attention, gratitude and lightness. But how? Specifically. How?

There’s nothing like going home to bring into clearer focus what it is to make a home. There’s nothing like going back to the past to clarify our hopes and wishes for the future. And there’s nothing like family to remind us that almost everything we do and know, comes from them.

Music Mondays are turning into Music Wednesday as of late. In fact, poor Peevish Mama is becoming more and more of an afterthought, I’m afraid. Not that there aren’t a lot of thoughts. The thoughts are as abundant as always. Racing and chasing around my brain causing furrowed brow, nervous belly and angst in my chest, and then from time to time, a moment, a break in the clouds, a sign that all is well, and that I am doing if not THE right thing, A right thing, and I can laugh, dance, squeeze my family and breathe easy for a bit. Not that you’d know any of this by watching me go about my day. I am very good at acting completely normal. Maybe I should be an actress.

I think I need spring. But for the time being, I’ll just continue to suffer through these frigid days and find my warmth in music. For me, Rhye was love at first listen. Coup de foudre. I stumbled upon these guys quite by accident and had downloaded their latest album, Woman, within minutes. Seriously. The video hadn’t even ended.

A duo out of LA, they sound like Sade, but the singer is a boy and the vibe is thoroughly modern, while steeped in smooth early 90’s R&B. I kind of love how unapologetic they are about going there, like there there, like easy-listening, bearskin rug in front of a fire there. And yet, totally cool and thought provoking.

It’s exactly what I want to be listening to right now – slow, easy, sexy, warm. Damn.

And boy does this video tell a story. Enjoy your new make-out music.

Like everyone, this house is awash in drawings and doodles. Stuff from school, scribbles on napkins and scraps of paper. I look at all of it before I recycle it. Often times I take a picture, because it seems a shame to lose the sentiment, the moment in time, the humor, the color or whatever it is that made me stop and smile for a few ticks.

This was part of some 100 project that the first graders were doing and I just adore it. The little perm, the puffy sleeves, the pink shoes, the fresh tennis balls on the cane. We should all aspire to look that good at the ripe old age of 106.

Dash and I saw these guys a week ago at First Ave. They were really good – by turns glammy hippies and jammy rockers. They make the kind of music that gets you out of your head – songs that are sunny, psychedelic and dancy. To me anyway.

I fell for this song the very first time I heard it. It’s got everything I love: a rocking male falsetto, a sexy decrescendo and falling chords. Just makes me want to put my arms up, my booty down and groove. Which is exactly what I did.

Enjoy.

This is hardly what you’d call a discovery. Everyone has heard of Frank Ocean by now and most people who have given this album a listen are smitten by him as an artist, musician and storyteller. I know I am.

On Saturday night in the middle of a very loud crowded dance floor at our school parent dance party/fundraiser, My Little Springroll’s hubby brought up Frank Ocean. Frank Ocean wasn’t playing and I really can’t remember the context aside from some rowdy dancing. In my blurry mind’s eye he was bopping around to a really great song and he just yelled How about FRANK OCEAN! And I was like Ya! OhMyGOD! And we both did a little swoon, eyes to the heavens gesture and yelled out a few SO GOODS, SO GOODS!!! before getting back to the business of getting down.

The point of this little anecdote is that channel ORANGE IS a really great album. One of my favorites for this year, for sure. It’s definitely one that rewards listening from start to finish and it doesn’t get old because every song tells a story and sounds different – which is saying something for R&B.

And, truth be told, it made me happy to have had this tiny music moment with a friend, within a bigger music moment on the dance floor. Because that’s what good music does – it moves you.  It takes you out of your head, back to your past, over to other music, way deep into your body, in and out of emotions and it connects you to other people.

It moves you.

Enjoy Bad Religion.

Photo credit: Ryan McGinley for the NYTimes

Supergirl and Devil Baby are still pretty little – 10 and 6. Itty bitty, really. But the other night, in the most nothing of moments, I got a really vivid glimpse into our girlie future together.

It was bedtime and they were lollygagging on my bed while I washed my face. I had whipped my hair up into a hasty knot and when I came out of the bathroom, Supergirl looked at me and said You look really good in a bun. It took me completely by surprise because she’s never really commented on my looks before. Not to mention the fact that I’m not so sure I look really good in a bun at all. I sort of stopped in my tracks and grinned. Really? And then Devil Baby nodded emphatically. Oh, ya. Totally.

There it was. My two ragamuffins, who wear boy clothes and color on themselves with markers and have skinned knees and tangly hair and wipe yogurt on their collars – they notice things and they have an opinion. And these moppets already know how to sit on a bed and dish.

This is going to be really fun.

Valentine’s Day is an unofficial anniversary of sorts for Doctor Dash and me. It was on that day during our senior year in college that we cooked steaks with blue cheese in my little blue house in South Bend and finally fell into couplehood after months of being best friends and dancing around it. Actually, I was the one doing all the dancing. Dancing up close one day, dancing away the next. Dancing all in circles. A fickle whirling dervish, indeed. Dash, it turns out, is a patient man. Thank goodness for that. Then and now.

This Valentine’s Day marked 21 years of our being together. My math man also pointed out that we have now been together more than we’ve been apart in our lives. I have spent more than half of my life with Dash at my side. It’s staggering. We didn’t meet that young and we’re not that old now, so how can it be? Yet there it is. It’s simple math, and it blows my mind.

We spent Valentine’s night with the kids and we usually do, and I cooked steaks with blue cheese sauce as a small nod to our wee beginnings. We’ll get our proper date night on Saturday night when we go see Book of Mormon and then out for bites in some twinkly bar. I can’t wait.

I suppose I could say how different things are from way back when, but they don’t seem that different. Aside from more responsibility and less flannel, he and I are pretty much the same. I still look forward to seeing him at the end of the day, stepping out with him on a chilly night or lingering at the table after dinner while the kids bounce about not really clearing like they’re supposed to. Actually, when I picture any after dinner scene, I guess it is different. Perhaps I’ve forgotten how footloose and fancy free we once were.

But you grow, adapt and live, with the days piling up behind you at an alarming clip and then one day, you tip. Which means not much more than a moment in time to look back and to look ahead and be grateful.

I love you, Dash.

These window washers dressed up as superheroes to wash the windows of the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh the other day and apparently, not surprisingly, it was a hit. The kids were enthralled, running in and out of rooms to ogle them as they washed, wiped and rappelled.

So good.

Red Vogue emailed me a little winter promo she had put together because the jumping fish girl is actually Supergirl. When I saw it, I just sat with my chin in my hands for a few minutes and stared. It’s so lovely.

The feeling I get from seeing these two photos side by side is the essence of Minnesota life for me. The lakes loom large for our families, in winter, spring, summer and fall and to see Harriet dressed in her two most contrasting costumes is a good reminder that winter is not forever. And also a good reminder that winter is not forever.

Y’all know I’m a fan of a wintery lake. When I was the mystery guest in Supergirl’s classroom, my clues for favorite places were 1. Clancy’s meat market in Linden Hills, 2. First Avenue and 3. the middle of the lake in the middle of the winter. Tiny dancing is still one of my life’s most unique and mind clearing  pleasures, but trucking out with the kids, Dash and Foxy Brown (or any combination thereof) is equally warming – warming in all ways.

If you haven’t walked out to the middle of Lake Harriet by yourself, with your dog or with your kids, you are missing out. Truly missing out on a physical and mental sensation that is ephemeral and uniquely tied to this time of year. I’ve said this before: It is found ground. How can we not enjoy standing on its firmness and marveling at our spot in the world?

When I’m out there, my pooch tearing around like a chocolate blur, I find myself slowly turning 360 degrees to take in the white expanse, the variegated sky, the winking lights. When in life do we ever take a slow 360? It’s so rare.

I take the big clearing breaths I don’t remember or get to take the rest of the time when I’m wrapped up in my bulky sweaters, hunched against the wind or over a cup of hot tea.

I note that what’s missing in color and saturation is more than compensated for in pattern, texture and shadow – all courtesy of the wind and the clouds and Mama Nature’s deft hand.

And I am grateful for the cold that makes it possible, because that is no longer something we can or should take for granted.

Winter is not forever.