::: teach your children well :::

"Mama? You know, when I see a little girl my age who has soft, beautiful skin, I pray that she is thankful to God that she has nice skin."

The Baby is six years old. She loves High School Musical, The Beatles, The Monkees, kittens, ballet, working in the garden with mom, reading books, singing opera, wrapping Christmas presents and cuddling. She has beautiful curly golden-brown hair, a graceful, active body, a fabulous laugh, and gorgeous brown eyes.

She also has ichthyosis.

Icthyosis is an inherited skin condition that causes a build-up of dry skin all over the body. The build-up is worse on the hands, feet, elbows and knees, but the dryness is everywhere. Legs. Back. Scalp. Face. And sometimes it can be itchy. In the winter, if lotions isn't applied liberally after every hand-washing, painful, bleeding cracks appear. Because the skin doesn't slough off like it should, it can cause large scales on the legs, very thick elephant-like skin around the wrists and legs, and large flakes of dandruff. When the skin does slough off, it comes off in huge flakes or large quantities (some ichthyosis causes a rapid increase in skin growth) so that linens are always covered in a dust of flaky skin, clothes are coated, shoulders have to be constantly brushed off, and flakes get stuck in the hair, even when you use the best dandruff shampoos.

Because the hands and feet are most affected, people notice the dry skin right away. Think of how many times a day you use your hands around other people. Shaking hands, holding hands, writing, clapping, waving, touching, drawing, raising. Think of how good it feels to wear sandals on a warm day, or to go barefoot. Think of what it's like to wear shorts in the summer, or for a boy to run around shirtless. When a person has ichthyosis, none of these things are easy to do. Even when they don't draw comments and criticisms from others, children and adults alike, sometimes you just want to keep your hands in your pockets, or wear your shoes, or stay in long pants all summer.

The Baby isn't the only one in our family with ichthyosis. Out of our family of seven, six of us have some form of it. My husband Bo and four of the children, Houdin, Monet, Sweetheart and The Baby, all have noticeable ichthyosis. Bard, the oldest, has very mild symptoms, like dandruff, dry fingers in the wintertime, and Keratosis pilaris, which are tiny bumps on the backs of her arms.

But for The Baby and Sweetheart, the only girls in the family with serious presentations of ichthyosis, there are more issues than just the physical discomfort of the defect. They long for smooth, soft skin. They often tell me that they wish they could have skin like mine. The build-up of skin on their feet and hands looks rough, yes, but also dirty. The skin gives the appearance of a child whose hygiene is being neglected. Children on the playground will say, "EW! I'm not touching you!" or "You're gross!" or "What's wrong with your skin?" Many times, in front of the the children, people of all ages, including adults, will make comments about their skin, saying things like, "You need to wash your hands!" or "Your fingers are filthy!" or "Shouldn't you put some lotion on?" The assumption that the child doesn't know how to wash their hands or doesn't know how to apply lotion is demeaning and chips away even more at their self-esteem, negating all of their talents and abilities, and it certainly doesn't help me feel so good about myself as a mom. After all, one of the most important goals in my life is to be a good mother, and when comments are directed toward me about my children's care, as if I'd never thought to buy a bottle of lotion, it chips away at my self-esteem, too.

A few months ago, The Baby showed me a place on her toes where some warts had cropped up. Warts are viruses, and these viruses had probably cropped up because of a crack in her toes sometime during the winter. Shortly after, Sweetheart showed me some warts on her toes, too. As if the Ichthyosis isn't enough, these terrible things had to enter the scene, too. After one very expensive trip to the dermatologist, who said that my children's was one of the worst cases of Ichthyosis she had seen, we were laden with an array of lotions, some over-the-counter and some prescription. It would take a serious effort, but they could have somewhat "normal" skin, she said, if they faithfully followed a certain skincare routine.

For two weeks, we did follow the routine faithfully. A bath, then an application of this kind of cream to the face, and this kind to the elbows and knees, and then this kind over that, and then the discomfort of sleeping in plastic gloves covered in cotton ones.

But little by little, the warts disappeared and the children saw some major improvement in their skin. Little by little, patches of clean, soft skin showed through. And lot by lot, we ran out of the array of very expensive creams. When it was time to order more, I found that the one cream that helped the most had been discontinued. None of the creams can be purchased in any local store--they all must be ordered. And so, because of unavailability, money and inconvenience, the routine was broken, and the hope for "normal" skin slipped away again.

The discomfort of the skin itself is frustrating enough, but now, with Monet in a private school setting for the first time after years of being home educated, the social discomfort of having Ichthyosis is almost overwhelming. Even in a small Christian school, ridicule runs rampant and alienates and breaks young, fragile, insecure hearts. And this, in turn, infuriates the protective mother-bear mama who has to suppress her rage and advise wisely and gently.  She isn't always successful. Sometimes, she just wants to go scratch someone's eyes out.

We take things for granted, don't we? Not just big things, like seeing eyes and hearing ears and working limbs and beating hearts, but little things, too, like soft, beautiful skin.

Please take the time today to talk to your children about people they know who might have something about them that seems strange and different--their eyes or their hair or their clothes or their skin--and how hard it is to live with those differences every day. Teach them good manners in dealing with people with differences. Help them to understand that those people have interests and loves and hopes and talents, just like they do, and that they can be a bright light in someone's day if they notice those interests and loves and hopes and talents, take that person by the hand, and be their friend.

::: doing it all: how to enjoy a perfect christmas :::

Last night, my mother-in-law called. In the course of our conversation, she told me about some traveling she'd like to do that just isn't going to pan out this Christmas. She was disappointed, but she'd come to terms with it. My father-in-law had given his oft-repeated advice:

"You can't do it all."

"That's a lie," I told her. "You most certainly can do it all."

Of course, I was joking.

Kind of.

I don't like being told that I can't, and I usually choose not to believe it when people say it. As a matter of fact, it kinda spurs me on. I mean, what if Mother Teresa had believed those words? What if Stephen Hawking and Beethoven and Stevie Wonder had believed those words? Of COURSE you can do it all!

You can do it all and be it all and have it all!

Especially at Christmas time! Not only CAN you do it all, but you're EXPECTED to do it all! So take advantage of it! Put all that expectation to work for you and do EVERYTHING! Find the most complicated gingerbread pattern and invite all of the kindergartners in your neighborhood to make them from scratch! Promise to decorate the Christmas tree in the center of town all by yourself using only ornaments made by people from your community! Open a homeless shelter and soup kitchen instead of buying gifts for your loved ones! Or, better yet, spend July through December finding the perfect gift for everyone on your list, including all of your children's teachers, the neighbors, the mailman, the librarian, the Sunday School teachers and the dog! The gifts must be perfect--only very expensive or cleverly handmade will do--so yank out that credit card and spend, spend, SPEND (because even handmade costs lots of money if you want to do it right)! Attend multiple Christmas celebrations with all of the branches of your family, your co-workers, your neighbors and your church! Better yet, invite your entire family and a few lonely people to dinner in your home, research all of the most complicated recipes by your favorite food bloggers, create a killer tablescape complete with handmade place cards featuring your favorite photograph of each guest, and look like a knockout in the little black dress you avoided all of the Christmas fudge and ran five miles on the treadmill every day to get into! Cozy up your home with adorable Christmas vignettes in every corner featuring authentic old-world goose feather trees, crisply ironed linen stockings with hand-embroidered names, and vintage mercury ornaments piled in hand-blown vases! Better yet, create a theme for each room! The bedroom can be all muted blues and whites, the kids' room can have a "Candyland" theme, and your bathroom can be dripping with silvers and golds! And don't forget pictures! You must take lots and lots of pictures to capture all of this Christmas magic! Arrange for formal pictures with color-coordinated outfits in which everyone is happy as well as candid pictures of family members wide-eyed over their perfect gifts. This is the time of the year when expectations are high! People are counting on you! Christmas comes but once a year, so you only have a few chances in your lifetime to do it right!

WE CAN DO IT ALL!

Except...

I didn't make hard tack candy this year.

Years ago, during a Christmas when money was especially, um, missing and Bard, my eldest, was a child, she wanted to give her grandmother a very special gift. She knew that Grandma loved stained glass, and she had the idea of making her a jar of hard tack candy. I'd made a few batches along with hand-pulled molasses taffy, hand-wrapped caramels and the usual array of cut-out cookies. It sounded like the perfect gift, so we found a jar and went to work filling it. Oh, how it sparkled with color! She was excited to give that gift and it has turned into a Christmas tradition in the Thicket Dweller house.

Every December for many, many years, I have spent days--verily, weeks--mixing water, sugar and corn syrup, boiling it for what seems like hours, carefully testing the molten mixture with a candy thermometer, a glass of cold water, the sheet test--whatever I had available to me at the time--to get that perfect temperature before adding the little dram of oil and a few drops of food coloring. Over the years, I've learned some valuable lessons about this pass-fail project:

Lesson #1: Don't drip any of the molten liquid on your skin or it will leave a hole in your flesh that burns down to the bone;
Lesson # 2: Don't put cinnamon, clove, wintergreen, spearmint or peppermint oil in the molten lava until it has completely stopped bubbling, or the oil will immediately turn to a gas, coat all of your exposed skin, and hurt for days like the worst sunburn you've ever had as well as giving you an extra edge by turning your face a not-so-festive bright red;
Lesson #3: If you have four burners on your stove, use 'em. There's no rule that you have to make one batch at a time. Just space them out a few minutes apart and pay attention to the rate that each pot and burner cook (they're all different!) so you're not adding oils and coloring to all four pots at one time;
Lesson #4: Grape oil is from the devil. No matter what my multitude of tests said, once I added grape oil, the resulting candy would NOT be hard and will stick to all dental work. I gave up on grape oil;
Lesson #5: This stuff is SHARP! It can and will cut you to ribbons. Blood does not mix well with hard tack candy.

I've always loved the way the process filled the house with so many delicious aromas, the line of tiny oil bottles marching along the countertop waiting to be added to the molten lava, the satisfying "CRACK" of the cooled candy being shattered by the heavy end of a butter knife, the shake-shake-shake of the candy in a baggie of powdered sugar, the big jar filled to the brim with stained-glass candy. It's a beautiful thing. Yes, it's a lot of work, but it's a very, very beautiful thing.

And I've never really felt that it was Christmas unless I've made hard tack candy.

I mean, we can do Christmas caroling, or go sledding, or pile gifts under the tree, or tick off each day with the opening of yet another door on the Advent calendar. We can bring in the greens and haul in a live tree, hang the stockings with care and wear ugly Christmas sweaters, but it doesn't feel like Christmas unless I've shopped for all those flavors, burned my hand a time or two, covered the counter with foiled-lined cookie sheets, scented the whole house with root beer, watermelon, bubblegum, clove, anise and wintergreen (but NOT grape), and filled that gallon jar with cracked sparkling goodness.

Tell me, how crazy is that?

No, you don't have to tell me. I already know.

As much as I want to do it all, have it all and be it all, I also need to know my own limits.

Because Christmas will come even if I don't do any of those things. It will come if I live in a slum neighborhood in Philly or if I have Pancreatic Cancer or if my child dies or if I feel depressed or if my house burns down or if I lose my income or if my family comes down with ringworm or if my husband has pneumonia.

Christmas will come if I make gingerbread houses, or if I don't, if I find that perfect tree skirt I bought on sale last year after watching it all Christmas season, or if I remember that it got peed on by the dog, hung on the porch railing and forgotten until Spring.

Christmas will come if all of my children are home for the holidays, or if one is in a remote village in Western Africa avoiding poisonous snakes and making food out of trees.

Christmas will come if I find that one perfect present for each of my family members, and it will come if I have to buy everyone gift cards to Stuff-Mart, and it will come if I don't give anyone anything at all but a kiss and a heart-felt "I love you."

Christmas will come if I don't make hard tack candy. And it will come if I do.

Heck, yeah, it's fun to do some of that stuff. It's also a big pain to do some of that stuff. So I take my B-12, my Vitamins A and D and my Glucosamine and I do what I can, what I want to. And that might look different every year.

It has been looking a lot like Christmas every year for over 2000 years.

And the One who makes it look that way is not a God of guilt, but a God of hope and healing, love and forgiveness.

Maybe we can't do it all. Maybe we can. But maybe we can work on taking joy in what we can do, leaving the guilt out in the cold.

May you be blessed this Christmas season with pure peace and true joy.

(Photo of kids from Christmas 2005)

::: stream of consciousness whilst listening to beatles rock band :::

Nine batches of white trash down, who knows how many more to go.
Almost all of my Christmas shopping is done.
I'm broke.
We put the tree up today.
It was the first year my family cut it down without me.
I was having a pouting party.
People were being mean to each other, and then they turned on me.
They chose and cut the tree.
I cried in the car alone.
Sometimes Christmas traditions suck
and leave everyone grumpy and depressed.
Houdin called from Africa today.
I miss him.
I woke up the other night worried about him
and the gigantic poisonous snakes in the village
and the inadequate shoes he packed.
I want to send him steel hip waders.
He wouldn't wear them.
I hope he's taking his malaria pills.
He only had four minutes to talk
and we got cut off.
His girlfriend was here. She got to talk to him.
I feel badly that I didn't let everyone say a word or two.
We tried speakerphone, but it was to echoey and no one could hear anything.
He was telling me about how he's learning all about African cuisine,
and how you can make just about anything there into food.
Made this mother-heart kinda worried,
made me think of Christopher McCandless.
I hate to sound selfish, God, but would You mind keeping an eye
on that boy of mine?
And, while you're at it, God, can you work on the heart
of that other boy of mine?
You know the one. Full of hormones and anger and independence,
but still goofy and hyper,
with his mother's talent for losing track of time.
This, his first year of school after having homeschooled all of his life,
has been a rough one.
He gets picked on.
Mostly by girls.
So, naturally, when he comes home, it's time to reverse the roles.
He picks on his little sisters.
Their patience is wearing thin.
Bard is home from college for a few weeks.
She had her nose pierced.
It looks cute, yes, but I can't help remembering
her tiny, perfect, unblemished nose,
that little baby I held to my breast.
Now she walks around the world without me,
making decisions about her life, her future, her body.
I'm peripheral.
That's a little hard to take.
But there are still young ones in the house,
and they still think I'm the center of the universe.
That can be such an ego trip.
It can also be exhausting.
So I need some patience
and some kindness
and an extra helping of forgiveness,
both to hand out
and to cash in on.
The Christmas trees are up.
It's feeling quite festive around here.
I'll post pictures soon.
For now, I think my consciousness has been streamed out.
May God bless this Christmas
and may you be reminded of how very much
you are loved.

::: walking away :::

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

© Mary Oliver
HT to Tonia

::: true story tuesday: stuffed brainwashers :::

Did you know that stuffed animals are aliens who were sent to earth to transform children's brains into nostalgic gobs of senseless, sentimental goo?

I know this because a kid can have a whole swimming pool full of these things, see another one in the store, and immediately become brainwashed. I remember standing in the aisle of K-Mart when I was about ten, crying uncontrollably over the thought of leaving behind the sad-eyed brown furry bear that had brainwashed me. I was sure it would be sad, alone, frightened and pine for me for the rest of its sad, lonely, frightened life.

And, yes, I do remember being fond of the book Corduroy.

I had enough stuffed animals to completely cover my bed. Each one was very special. And I just don't mean that they each had names. They had personality traits, relationships, feelings. The stuffed animal that had the most power over my little child brain was a red and yellow bear named with the same originality as my cat, Kitty. My bear's name was Teddy.

Teddy was given to me by my parents when I was very, very young. Before I could even talk, actually. Teddy was a gift to me when I was only a tiny baby. In fact, I believe Teddy was a gift to me for when I came to live with my parents.

I don't know the whole story, because my parents were so incredibly protective of me, but I do know, and always knew, that I was adopted. That was never a secret. But information about my biological parents (not my "real" parents, I was constantly told, but my "biological" parents. My "real" parents were the ones who raised me) was very guarded. I think my "real" parents were too freaked out to tell me about my "biological" parents because they thought I'd pack my bags and go back to them or something. As if. My "real" parents were very much real to me. My biological parents were strangers. Only my real parents would tuck me into bed every single night and pretend that they couldn't tell which one was me amidst my mountain of brainwashing stuffed animals.

When I was a very young child, my mom was an excellent mother. She would sit by my bed and sing to me, running her fingers very gently over my closed eyelids and my soft eyebrows. This was such a magical feeling. I loved how it felt so much that I would keep my eyes closed long after she'd stopped, because I didn't want to lose that magical feeling or break its spell. I can almost still feel her fingertips on my eyelids. I try, now, to use this technique on my own children. They're not so easily enchanted.

At some point in my little life, my mom decided to bring out a good friend of hers to introduce to me. Barney was a very big, very old teddy bear that was given to my mom when she was a child. I thought it was strange but also kind of cool that a grown-up would keep a teddy bear, and that they would call it by an actual name. My mom trusted me enough to borrow Barney for a while, but it was always very clear to me that Barney was her bear, not mine. While I thought this was a rather selfish thing, for an old person to keep a teddy bear from a little kid, I didn't argue about it. If she wanted to be a grown woman and get all freaky about a stupid old bear, that was fine with me.

Still, I dressed Barney in some nice clothes, a sweater and a pair of jeans, and introduced him to the rest of my stuffed family. From that point on, Barney spent a lot of time on my beds. When I had a camera, I would get Barney, Teddy and all the other stuffed brainwashers in line and photograph them. My dad would give me such a hard time about this. "Film is so expensive! Why do you waste it by taking pictures of your stuffed animals?" Mostly, though, he would just make fun of me. You'd think I was the world's biggest idiot for going to Washington DC on a fifth grade trip and taking pictures of the pigeons instead of the Washington Monument. Big deal. The monument would be there forever. These pigeons were gonna take off. Seriously.

I never regretted taking pictures of my stuffed animals. Sure, I felt silly about it sometimes, but regret? No. After all, these animals were just as much a part of my family as my "real" parents were. As a matter of fact, one of the most traumatic things that ever happened to my little brainwashed self was when we came home from a long drive, returning from West Virginia to visit my mom's relatives. When we arrived home, one of my thoughtless, inconsiderate parents opened the hatchback and Teddy FELL OUT of the car onto the hard, rough gravel driveway. I knew immediately that he was dead and went directly into the process of grieving.

Yes, I was a drama queen.

But it wasn't all my fault! I mean, my mom took my bear very seriously, almost as seriously as she took her own. Once every few months, she would cut a little slit in the seam on the back of Teddy's neck, take out all of his stuffing, and wash his body in the washing machine. After he had been fluffed dry, she would carefully re-stuff him, adding more fluff if necessary, restitch any places that were in need of restitching, and fix any facial features that were in danger of falling off. And then, she would carefully re-stitch that seam in the back of his neck and it would take me days to get his stuffing back the way I liked it.

It was understandable that Teddy needed an occasional bath. I took him absolutely everywhere. And I'm sure I threw up, peed and drooled on him and I most definitely know that I cried on him. He understood so much more than anyone ever did. He understood my heartaches, tears, and all of the unfairness of a child's life. Teddy stood by me. Or rather, sat by me. Or kinda hung limp beside me.

As I grew older, Teddy and I remained close, but Barney and I grew apart. After all, he was my mom's teddy bear. He just shouldn't be around, I thought, when I cried to Teddy about the bad words my mom would say to me, the bad words she would say to my dad, the bad names she would call us both, the embarrassing stories she would tell her friends about me, the fists that struck me, the hands that slapped me. Barney could never have understood the feelings I had. But Teddy did.

Teddy remains with me still. He went with me when I moved out of the house at age 18, no longer able to stand the mental and physical abuse my mom continually dosed out. He stayed with me through a failed engagement, many jobs, several apartments, and a handful of boyfriends. He continued to offer a shoulder (or head, or tummy, or back) to cry on.

 
Shortly after I moved out, Barney left with my mom when she divorced my dad and moved out of the home in which we'd lived for almost my whole life. My dad lived there alone for a while, but since my grown, adult parents couldn't come to an agreement on how their stuff should be divided, and since the divorce continued to get uglier and uglier, they sold the house. My childhood home was no longer mine, and all of my stuff, everything in my yellow room, including Miss Kitty, disappeared from my life forever.

But I still have Teddy, and every once in a while, I'll turn him over and run my fingers along the seam in his back

::: a giveaway :::

Hannah makes cookies.
Hannah makes cakes.
Hannah makes beautiful pictures.
Hannah made my blog header photo.
Hannah made a giveaway on her blog.
Go see Hannah!

::: this year's christmas find :::

Each year, I try to satisfy my desire for a bedazzled holiday home by adding a bit more to my Christmas decor, usually by shopping the clearance sales after the holiday or by scouring the shelves of My Favorite Thrift Store for the colors and themes I want. This year, the find was about ten bags of vintage wooden ornaments at the Thrift Store, each baggie containing about a dozen ornaments and costing .50 per bag. I remember ornaments like these from when I was a kid dreaming in the Winter Wonderland at Polsky's Department Store downtown or talking to Archie the Snowman at Chapel Hill Mall, so they've gotta be at least 35 years old. These little nostalgia-inducing lovelies found a home dangling from a white tree in the girls' room to induce nostalgia in yet another generation of girlies.

::: it's been a hard day's night :::

This week, I have all of my kids at home. It hasn't been like this for a while, with Houdin being gone at discipleship training for the past couple of months and Bard off at college. It won't be like this again for a while. On Monday, Bard will head back to college and on Tuesday, 18-year-old Houdin will leave for an eight-month outreach placement to Africa. But while they're all here, I'm reminded of the dynamics of this family, both good and not-so-good. The changes we're experiencing are positive; we're all learning things as we move through this transition towards more permanent change. I'm taking notes, my friends. I'm taking lots of notes.

With all of the Thicket Dweller kids under one roof again, plus a couple of friends along for the ride, it's impossible to avoid a jam session. Most of the family used real instruments to belt out The Beatles, Coldplay, Muse, Leonard Cohen and Kimya Dawson, but a couple who are not as musically adept and a couple who are just plain goofy joined in on the Beatles Rock Band instruments. Can you believe that these silly people played for hours? HOURS? After serving a second dinner and a third dinner and a couple of snacks and a few desserts, this roadie headed for bed. I'm told they knocked off for the night around 3:00 A.M.

This house will be so different when they're gone.

::: turkey carcass soup :::

Hop on over to Time to Cook and dig that turkey carcass out of the fridge. Didn't make a turkey this year? Go borrow a carcass from the neighbors. It's worth it for a batch of Turkey Carcass Soup. I've got a pot simmering on the stove as I type.

::: happy thanksgiving! :::

::: true story tuesday: children of the corn[field] :::

Being an only child can be quite a challenge. I remember hearing people tell my parents that only children did not socialize enough and therefore would be spoiled rotten or or hyperactive or just plain strange.

They were totally and completely right.

I spent a lot of time with my cat who had been given to me by our neighbor Linda Wise when I was about five years old. I think the kitten knew immediately what was to be in store for her, using her keen kitty senses, because as soon as her little white paws hit the living room floor, she was off, hiding behind the couch for hours. While she trembled back there, I named her.

Five times I named that cat.

Popcorn. No. Snow White. Uhuh. Snowball. Nope. Peanuts. Nah.

I needed something more original. Something that was as unique as I was. Something no one had ever thought to name a cat before, ever.

So I named her Miss Kitty. Kitty for short.

Kitty curled up at the foot of my bed at night, played with me when she felt like it, tolerated me until she didn't feel like it, and mostly napped in the rafters of the basement. A couple of times, she got out of the house and scared me out of my wits, because I was sure I'd never see her again, but she came back, and she remained an inside cat for as long as we had her, which was until I moved out of the house at 18.

Kitty wasn't my only friend. I also spent a lot of time with my good buddy Pancho. Out of all of the kids in the neighborhood and all of the kids at school, Pancho was my very best friend. She was so cooperative and kind, ate dinner with us every night, and spent the night with me when I wanted her to. She took long walks with me, accompanied by her trained pony and her very colorful and incredibly tame pet parrot. The biggest problem I had with Pancho was getting people to take her seriously. It really bugged me when I had to tell people not to sit on Pancho, or not to step on Pancho, or to stop interrupting Pancho when she was talking. It was just rude. Nevermind that they couldn't see her or hear her. Just because she was imaginary didn't mean she didn't have feelings.

Pancho and I spent a lot of time in the cornfields around our house. Our ranch-style home sat on five and a half acres of land, but we only used about an acre and a half of it. The rest was rented out to Coony Geiger, who farmed it and all of the other fields around our house with corn. So, essentially, our house was surrounded on three sides by cornfields. In the Spring, Coony would pay my parents and plow our garden plot in exchange for the use of the field. This, to me, was just ridiculuous. I couldn't believe that my parents actually got PAID to have Coony plant the corn. After all, a cornfield was better than just about any playground I'd ever seen.

My most fascinating, imaginative and frightening stories happened in the cornfields. When Pancho didn't feel like playing, my other friends (the kind with actual skin and bones and stuff) would play hide and seek in the cornfield. Around the middle of July, the corn was so high you could run through it and no one would be able to see you. We were always very careful not to pull up stalks, because my mom said that every cornstalk we destroyed was robbing Coony Geiger of his crop. So we only ran between the stalks with wide spaces, like where the corn hadn't grown or the corn planting machine had forgotten to drop a kernel. We'd run through those fields, trying to get as far as possible before "IT" could count to fifty, and then we'd scrunch down very low, looking for any sign of "IT"'s feet so that we could take off running again. The leaves of the stalks would whip my arms and legs as I ran by, and later, when I showered, the tiny scratches left behind would burn and itch when the water hit them. That was what summer truly felt like.

I remember one summer taking a walk through the cornfield all alone not long after it had sprouted, so it was probably only about two feet tall. As I was walking, I spotted this strange looking thing sticking up out of the ground, all red and orange and yellow. I crept cautiously up to it, trying to identify it. It kind of looked like it was growing out of the dirt, but the again, it looked like maybe it had been buried there. Upon closer examination, I was sure I knew that it was...

...a chopped off finger!

I examined it as closely as I dared. It really looked like a chopped off finger all right, and it looked like someone had stuck it right in the mud, like they wanted to see if it would grow. It had definitely been there for a while, because, while it wasn't decayed, it was all kinds of freaky colors. I picked up a piece of cornstalk and poked at it very carefully, ready to take off running if the rest of of it clawed its way out of the earth. It didn't move. What if, I thought, this wasn't just a chopped off finger. What if, I thought, it was actually a whole body, and this was just the finger sticking out of the ground! I could barely stand to stay there much longer, but I could barely pull myself away from this creepy thing that was sticking up out of the ground, all red and white and black, just like a dead finger should look. After concentrating on the dead finger for a while and convincing myself that, yes, this was indeed a dead finger, and it could actually even be a dead finger that belonged to an alien (I had just seen Close Encounters and knew that there really were aliens and that they would come to talk to me soon), I freaked myself out enough that I was almost afraid to turn and run. I knew that the minute I turned my back, the dead finger would jump up out of the ground and chase after me. Don't ask me how a dead finger can run. I don't know. But in my eight-year-old mind, that finger was gonna run, and when it caught me, it was gonna do horrible dead-finger-like things to me.

After a while, I couldn't stand it anymore, and I knew I had to leave. I was so afraid that my parents were going to ask me about this dead finger, or, scarier yet, that they were going to find out that I knew about the dead finger they had planted in their cornfield and then they were going to plant my dead finger there, too. I was so afraid of it that I never told them about the creepy dead finger that I found. I was afraid to go back into the cornfield for a week, just in case the dead finger could move around to different parts of the field, or it had dead finger friends who were also waiting all around the cornfield to rise up out of the ground and chase me.

For many years, I believed that there was some kind of finger or dead person or other creepy thing buried in our cornfield. But time heals all dead fingers, and eventually I couldn't stand the thought of staying out of the field, because it was my playground, my hiding place, my magical kingdom. Pancho and I got up the courage to go back into the cornfield, and, before long, we were picking up leftover ears of corn on a hot August evening for her pony, Wildfire. After a while, I stopped being afraid of the creepy dead finger. But I never forgot about it.

It wasn't until I became and adult that I saw that creepy dead finger again. In my adult mind, through my adult eyes, it was very easy to see that the creepy dead finger was just a fungus. A bright red, black and white fungus that looked like a creepy dead finger. My adult mind could see this and know it.

But that doesn't mean that my adult mind didn't entertain the possibility that even a fungus could be an alien.


You never quite get over being an only child.

Photo from ChuckDoherty.com. 

::: bare :::

The branches of the silver maple outside my window are completely bare now. Where less than a month ago there fluttered beautiful leaves the color of which I can only recall now by looking at photos, there is nothing. Three weeks ago, I couldn't see beyond the tree for the abundance of leaves. Now, I can see all that was hidden behind it.

Maybe this is why the starkness of winter is so sobering to me. It reminds me of what it feels like, what it looks like, to shed all outward beauty, all color and opacity and splendor, and just stand, naked and vulnerable and transparent, cold and singular on a hill, exposing everything you've managed to cover for so long--the forgotten kite, the abandoned nest, the broken branches--and slip away into a deep sleep, like a grandmother who has dozed off in front of the tv with her mouth open and her bifocals askew. 

But deep season-long sleep is for stately trees, not for common women with families and friends, feasts and fast-food-drive-through lunches, plans and obligations, electric bills and grocery budgets, mice in her fruit cellar and children needing taught. And so the hibernation must take a different form, the nightly kind, with some reading of King Arthur to little girls who are learning to knit and embroider, and some episodes of The Office while snuggled in bed under a big, down blanket, and some blogging with the fierce sound of little mouse-teeth scraping away at something determinedly underneath my big bathtub.

Which means that Spring must come each morning, with a handful of vitamins and a glass of Benefiber, a must-have to-do list, and the sheer will power that keeps one sleep-stiffened foot shuffling in front of the other.

Drawing by Monet

::: a million canaries :::

How do you explain to a child,
that seeing is not always believing?
That the stars still exist in the daytime,
even when the sun is out,
but that there are no monsters
under her bed
or
in her closet
or
outside her window
watching her lay scared into sleeplessness?

How do you explain it to a child,
that God loves us,
protects us,
provides for us,
through the reality of nightmares,
the cruelty of friendship,
the unfairness of death?

How do you explain to yourself
that believing is more than seeing?
That yellow birds hang suspended
in the cloud-dotted blue?
That the greatest of these
is that one thing
that doesn't seem to be working?

How do you explain to yourself
that God loves us,
protects us,
provides for us
through the reality of disease,
the cruelty of depression,
the unfairness of economic poverty?

And yet he does,
and he does,
and he does.

When the yellow bird sails
and my fingers bend
and the stars shine,
I know.

Men can take from me
my life,
my Prozac,
my 401K,

But if the yellow bird hanging suspended
in the cloud-dotted blue
spirals to the ground,
he knows it,
and only he holds my soul
and he values me--
he values you--
more than a million canaries.

So I will speak in the daylight
what he tells me when I bolt upright,
in a pool of cold sweat;
What he whispers in my ear,
I will sing in my own voice 
as I stand on the shingles of my roof.

He does!
And he does!
And he does!

::: say cheese...cake! part 2 :::

Fifteen cheesecakes! An incredible band! A wonderful audience! In other words, a great success.

Yes, it was a lot of work, but there were amazing people who came to my rescue, running to the store, washing dishes, giving me hints and tips, offering encouraging words, and, of course, making beautiful and delicious cheesecakes.

Here are a few photos from the cheesecake auction and Honeytown concert. It was so much fun that we're talking about making it an annual event to benefit whatever the need is at the time of the auction.

Thanks, everyone, for all of your hard work, prayers, generosity and thoughtfulness. I'm so blessed!

::: say cheese...cake! :::

Yesterday and today, the Thicket Dweller family has been busy in the kitchen making cheesecakes (photos to follow) for tomorrow's concert and cheesecake auction to benefit Houdin's trip to Africa. We've got some amazing cheesecakes coming in from local people who are donating their time and talents to contribute a very unique selection of cheesecakes, with everything from Savory Herb Cheesecake to German Pumpkin Kaesekuchen to Habanero Lime. There are straightforward (and delicious!) ones, too, like Key Lime, Milk Chocolate, and Pecan Rum cheesecakes. Boy, I hope we get a good turnout, because these cheesecakes sound fabulous! If you're in the area, drop me a line and come for a night of music, fun and cheesecake! Cheese and crackers, veggies, and punch will be served.

::: true story tuesday: keeping up with the smiths :::

It's important to find things to keep you occupied when you live in the country. It's especially important to make friends with your neighbors, and to keep the friends you make. When I was a child in my neighborhood, there weren't many houses, which means there weren't many families, which means there weren't many kids. But there were the Smiths.

The Smiths lived in a really nice two story house three cornfields away to the north. Gene and Marilyn Smith were Catholic and had three kids when I first met them, and then had a fourth child later. Dawn was a two years older than I; Tony was my age, and Steffy was three years younger. Timmy came along when I was about eight or nine.

Gene and Marilyn were loud and colorful, and they always had the best things. Gene was a plumber and must have made a nice chunk of change because he could afford that nice two-story house, a very nice yard with a lot of flowers, an in-ground pool with a big, tall fence around it, and all of the coolest toys.

I remember one summer, Gene bought a moped for Tony and I happened to be there when they were riding it. Tony was riding it all over the yard, being the daredevil that he was. It looked so easy and so fun that I just had to try it, which was probably the best bad idea a person could ever have. Naturally, I got my turn. Naturally, I mistook the gas for the brake, and naturally, I flipped the dumb thing over. I didn't get hurt, but I've had a healthy respect for two-wheeled motorized vehicles ever since. Tony, however, did not have a healthy respect for me, and I was teased about this all the way through our school years together.

I spent many hours swimming in the Smiths' pool, which was a miracle given that, #1, my parents didn't seem to care too much for the Smiths (but my parents never had many good things to say about anyone) and, #2, my parents were so overprotective, I wasn't allowed to associate with anyone that they even suspected of being a shifty character. The fact that they let me splash around in the water with people like The Smiths without even staying to watch is, frankly, a bit hard for me to believe now.

Somehow, though, I was able to spend a lot of time with the Smiths, and I was able to spend a lot of time in their pool. Obviously, I didn't spend as much time in their pool as they did. This was so apparent because of my total inability to make any graceful movements in the water. Tony was always very quick to point that out.

"You call that swimmin'?!?" He would laugh his obnoxious Tony Smith laugh. "You're just splashin' around! Don't you know how to swim?"

We had this conversation every time I tried to swim in their pool. Every time, I would splash ungracefully, and every time, he would laugh at me. To this day, when I try to swim, I remember that I really can't swim because Tony Smith said so.

When the pool got boring, or it was too cold to swim, we would play Engine Engine Number Nine in the front yard:

Engine, Engine Number Nine
Going Down the Chicago Line
If the Train Should Jump the Track
Do you want your money back?

And then, there was:

Bubblegum, Bubblegum in a dish
How many pieces do you wish?

And my very favorite, because of the fantastic mental images it conjured:

My mother and your mother were hanging out clothes.
My mother punched your mother right in the nose.
What color was the blood?

I always chose green.

We would also play freeze tag, or TV tag, or some other kind of tag, or hide and seek, or we'd pretend we were spies (sometimes we really were spies, spying on Dawn who would get mad at us and tell us to grow up).

If totally necessary, Marilyn Smith would let us play inside.

In spite of what my parents said, I thought Gene and Marilyn were really nice. They both laughed and smiled a lot, and Gene always had some kind of joke to tell that I didn't really understand. Marilyn never failed to gently touch one of my springy curls and sweetly tease me that she was going to cut them all of to keep them for herself. She loved my brown ringlets.

But Marilyn Smith had rules, too. For instance, we weren't allowed in their living room because it was to stay clean just for company, and we weren't allowed in their parents' bedroom because...well, because it was simply off-limits. I did sneak in there one time, though, because Tony had told me that they had a sink that was made just to wash his parents butts. I didn't believe him, so I snuck in one time, just to see if it was true. And sure enough, there it was. Right by the toilet. It was a toilet-looking thing made just for washing butts, which I now know was a bidet.

But I would have to say that Tony's biggest claim to fame as far as I was concerned was the booger. Tony was the kind of kid who was obsessed with bodily functions, even more so than most boys his age. Tony was the only kid I ever knew who would try really hard to smell his own farts, admitting with no shame whatsoever that he did it because he liked the way his own farts smelled. He liked to brag about any kind of sound, fluid or goo his body produced, and that, of course, included boogers. If Tony found an exceptionally large or gooey booger, he would not for one second hesitate to show it to the closest person, except for his sister Dawn. Dawn was very mature and only tolerated, with a very low patience level, the antics of her annoying little brother, and, in turn, the antics-by-association of me. So, if there was a choice between showing Dawn the booger and showing me the booger, I would win every time. I think.

The thing that was different about Tony was that he didn't get embarrassed when anyone mentioned bodily functions. In our house, no one EVER said the word "fart," though my mom was the queen of gaseousness. And if I were to be caught in school with a booger hanging from my nose, I would simply have died. But not Tony. No. Tony would just laugh and pull it out, maybe even measure it, and show anyone who was nearby so that they could all appreciate the fineness of his great big boogers.

One day, when I got on the bus, there were no seats anywhere, except for next to Tony. Now, I played with Tony during after-school hours mostly out of sheer boredom, but when we were on school property, I really would rather not have seen or been seen with him. What do you expect? He was embarrassing, for crying in the mud! But I was also a fairly nice kid, so if his was the only seat left on the bus, I wasn't going to make a big deal out of it.

So, I sat down next to Tony and started talking to him when I noticed that he had something stuck in the top of his blonde hair. Being the nice person I was, I reached out for it, this thing that was stuck there, right on the top of his head. I took hold of it and pulled, and it was cold, sticky and rubbery.

It was a booger.

I was so totally grossed out, I could have puked. I shook the disgusting thing off of my hand and stared at Tony with repulsion. He just laughed, as if he had placed it there himself, just so I would find it and pull it out of his hair. And maybe he did.

To this day, when I see something in a person's hair, I either point it out to them, or I let them discover it themselves. I never, ever, ever touch it.

::: the mighty oak :::

Today, I touched the very tip-top of the old oak tree. Leaves and branches that had likely never felt the hand of man were easily within my reach. Who knows how many years it had stood there? The rings were too close, too packed together for me to even begin counting. It was strong and healthy, its trunk showing no signs of rot or weakness. I don't know why they cut it down--to make way for something else, or to make money, or some other reason--but that thing which had lived longer than all of us here, that surely stood before Ohio was a state, and maybe even before these states were united, surely when old Tom Lions roamed these parts, camped out in the creek collecting tongues on a rawhide, threatening the white men and children that theirs might be the next in his collection.

::: guilty either way :::

There are times when I need to just shut my mouth.

During these times, I think it's best to stare out the window silently and feel sorry for myself. The greatest satisfaction comes when I think of something so terribly sad that my eyes cloud up and mist over and all of the sadness spills out, and when I squeeze my eyelids together, it runs down my nose and tickles the outside of my nostril until I have to push it away with my sleeve or the tip of my finger.

There are times when I need to just speak my mind.

During these times, I know it's best to pause until the right words pop into my brain which cooperates with my mouth to bring forth the intended meaning. As the sentiments spill out, I know when they're hitting the mark, just like a basketball player who knows that the ball is headed for nothing but net the moment it leaves his fingertips. It just feels right.

What I should have learned by now, as an adult, as a human being, as an intelligent woman, is which times are which.

When I stare and the sadness spills and the nostril tickles, I feel childish and self-pitying.

When I speak and the words hit and they're nothing but net, I feel hubrish (it's not a word...yet) and bossy.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there is no right time for either. Maybe this is a causal oversimplification. There are likely many reasons why I feel childish, hubrish, self-pitying, bossy.

Either way, I feel like I should apologize.

So I'm sorry. I'm sorry for saying nothing, and I'm sorry for saying everything.

I hope that covers it.

::: fiction friday: untitled :::

Part One

It's been said that the Eskimo people have hundreds of words for "snow." It sounds logical, given that they supposedly live around the frozen precipitation their whole lives, but it's not true. The Eskimo people don't even have a single language. In addition, if you look at all of the Eskimo languages--Siberian Yupik, Qawiarak, Labrador Inuttut, just to name a few--the word for snowflake is pretty much the same. You don't have to speak any of the Eskimo languages to see that.

There are words for "niece" and "nephew," but there's not a generic word for both. There are words for "cousin," but there's not a specific word for a girl cousin or a boy cousin. 

If you're a child who has lost both of your parents, you're an orphan. If you're a person who has lost their spouse, you're a widow or a widower.

But there's no word for me. There's no one single word in the English language for what I am.

The first time I met Liz, she was having a pretty intense conversation with our comparative linguistics professor about the history of the word "agrestic," and I was waiting to talk to him about why my paper on experimental phonetics hadn't earned an A. I'd seen Liz around campus, but we had never talked. She and her friends seemed silly and childish, more interested in social events and boys than their actual education. Admittedly, I found her attractive, but I'd made a serious commitment to my studies and hadn't found much need for a romantic relationship as part of that commitment.

She turned from her conversation and her eyes fell upon me. Gesturing towards me, she asked the professor, "Would you find him agrestic? I mean, doesn't it all depend on your perspective? Someone from, say, New York City or Paris certainly would, don't you agree?"

"But that's only if you're adhering to the original meaning of the word, Liz. The meaning has morphed since then. Calling him 'agrestic' would be insulting to him, really."

"Well, I don't argue that," Liz conceded, "but in this case, maybe he fits all meanings of the word. No offense...um..."

"Larry. It's Larry. And none taken."

I waited a minute longer, but the conversation didn't seem to be slowing down, so I decided to postpone my conversation and headed back to my dorm where I looked up the word "agrestic." Had I been any kind of a real comparative linguistics major, I'd definitely have been offended.

I didn't meet Liz again until the linguistics club hosted a Halloween dance party at The Pizza Loft the Autumn of our junior year. She was Isaac Newton in his younger days, with a prism in one hand and a Bible in the other, when he was more attractive and hadn't yet become a bi-polar jerk. I was Jean Francois Champollion, the French scholar who deciphered the Rosetta Stone. I dressed in Egyptian garb and carried a Styrofoam stele carved with hieroglyphics. A couple of them were real, but mostly it was scribbles that my suitemates had etched into the foam with the end of an ink pen, the ballpoint retracted.

I'm not a dancer. I'll just say that right now. It was completely against my will that I participated in the dancing aspect of the evening, but the numbers were uneven, and some young lady would have ended up without a dance partner, which, in retrospect, may have been for the best. Nevertheless, I approached the circle, reached for a ribbon from the mass of brightly colored strips and held on.  I chose the green one, the one with the frayed edge, a thread hanging from it brushing against my wrist like spider's silk. On the count of three, we all pulled back, and Liz was on the other side of the circle, her eyes rolled ceilingward, holding her own frayed end of the green ribbon.

::: whatsoever things are lovely :::

The landscapes were so inviting tonight, the moody skies meeting the ever optimistic sunbeams. I grabbed my camera and Bo acted as my chauffeur and we ambled our minivan along the back roads of our neighborhood to see what the sun might be kissing.

Think on these things.