MamaStories

We’re closing on Monday. We’re going to do this! And even before it begins, I feel the urgent need to document it all. Hopefully I’ll have the time to write here more often again.

Last week a new septic system was put in, which tore up the entire front and back yard. We knew about this of course, and welcomed it - it allows for the 2 bedroom to become a 3 bedroom if we wish. The result saved us some work: it made the sloping front yard a little more gradual, got rid of lots of scrawny trees (we requested the wood was left), so cleared space (and light) for the garden. Psychologically, with “the woods” removed, it is now easier for me to see the garden.

But the place looks so violated: all that bare earth! It’s not my own yet and I feel for it already. Also, the leach field we now realize is humongous (looks it, in any case), and as I balk from growing veggies on it, my first reaction was to lament the loss of space. I know it’s only a small loss, really, only a small area in the grand scheme of our almost-an-acre. I know my perplexity has more to do with my reaction to all that space and the question: what to do with it. Or rather, where to do it all?

The space as it exists now overwhelms any kind of vision for the future.

As for the space that exists… With all that emptiness after the construction of the septic system, the garden in front is one, large, amorphous space, with a dense cluster of trees (some mature, some not) to the left and a path of destruction all the way up to the house.

In the back and to the sides, there are unrelated pockets of space, segmented by little stone walls and trees and most obviously by ugly, metal fences. They cut the space apart and even exclude land that turns out to belongs to the property too.

Add to that the contents: so many trees we’d like to keep, so many types of soil and microclimates, most of which are unknowns as yet.

I approach this torn-up, fragmented, schizophrenic space with my equally fragmented vision.

There are so many functions that we want our garden to fulfill: vegetable garden, herb garden, bird garden, insect garden, orchard, hedges and paths, play space, discovery space, wild space, calm space…

And so many elements to incorporate. Things that are already there: the huge masonry BBQ (make it into an oven?), the old stone ring, which we’d like to keep. Structures to be built: a root cellar, Amie’s play structures (swing, seesaw, jungle gym), a little house for her (cob?), fences, and walls to train fruit trees on, a green house, a composting place, a woodcutting and curing area, maybe a tiny pond…

But standing there today, among the budding trees and the birdsong and the rustling of all those fall leaves that were left there (leaf mould!), and surveying the front from the house on the hill, I had a vision that clicked into place! And that’s exactly what we need: to make space into place, then to make that place into home.

It began with a path, a wall and a gate. Exactly the three main spatial elements that aren’t spatial themselves at all, but that divide and integrate and open space.

It’s a single meandering path that runs down the slope. It meets a small wooden gate in a thick and a low, curving wall.

The path is terraced by wooden dividers and covered with stones, all found on the property (oh many stones!). Over it at intervals are trellises and arbors, and along it (invading the garden space), benches, a birdbath. The wall is made of cob and the larger stones, painted a deep, warm brown. Along it on the inside grow the fruit trees. On the other side is the street. It is not meant for privacy: any person of average height can look over it. It is meant as an invitation.

The gate does the inviting. It sits in a higher, thicker part of the wall, with space above it for a cob sculpture, and generous chinks for preliminary glimpses of what lies behind it. It is a wooden, painted gate, rounded on top. There is perhaps a bell - with a clapper, maybe a chain (and a notice to the effect of “bell is optional”). There’s a niche for the mailbox next to it, and some flowers or a little object. Maybe a bench, on the outside, for weary passers-by.

It says: home. We live here, we are native here. And you are welcome.

Maybe I’ll draw it for you sometime. Maybe I’ll even get to build it!

A while ago I was given a review copy of Home Ground, Language for an American Landscape. Barry Lopez, the editor, set 45 writers to writing over 850 new definitions for the terms Americans use to describe their land.

What a book! It has revived my love-affair - lately somewhat neglected -with America and American nature writers, from Rick Bass to NathanielHawthorne, from Mary Oliver to Walt Whitman, from Wendell Berry to Bill McKibben to, of course, Henry David Thoreau.

I wrote a review for Suite1o1.com that explains why I think the book is so succesful and necessary.

The second project I started right after Amie was born fared better than her now defunct Baby Journal, in that it is still up and running. It is a Map Book, or Place Book.

I love maps: topographical ones, city, architectural, personal, subjective, objective, three-dimensional, temporal… you name it.

From the beginning of Amie’s life I collected and drew maps of where we live and where ever we travelled. Depending on how busy I was, I would simply paste in a tourist map I had picked up, draw one myself, and/or add commentary. There are also spreads about the wildlife and the people, and anecdotes about how she reacted to the place.

This is the page about our visit to Billings Farm in Woodstock, Vermont, over a year ago:

This page chronicles our trip to Europe (Belgium and Italy) in June of last year, and locates everyone in our families on the globe:

Here’s the spread about a magical visit to the Hall’s Pond Sanctuary in Brookline:

It’s not as much work as the Journal: I put in as much time as I want or can afford. I skip visits that we make regularly, like to the Pond or the Farm, except when something special happened that needs visual representation in the form of a map.

One day soon Amie will understand the concept of a map, and she’ll make her own maps. It’s one of those many moments that I look forward to.

Amie and Baba at the Park 

Yesterday morning was blustery and a little cloudy, but sunny and quite balmy. The three of us went to the Larz Anderson Park, where Amie ran and ran, up and down the hill, in a field of leaves and dandelions, hemmed in by trees changed to all kinds of colors.

Was she tired afterwards! 

On our way home we drove past a huge yard sale for a neighborhood school’s extended day program. It was very child-oriented, with heaps of children’s clothes, piles of books, and boxes and boxes of toys. Amie was very happy to delay her nap for an hour.

We bought mainly books, and small plastic bags stuffed with Schleich animals, and two Groovy Girls dolls. Don’t ask me which ones: they’re hard to identify without their clothes on! When we pointed them out to her, Amie piped: “O!” Sold. We also bought a $100 bike trailer for $30! Now I have to get a bike too, and we’re off on adventure at no cost to the earth!

One of the books I found was Donald Hall’s Ox-Cart Man. I came home and read it cover to cover. The book’s subject matter fits exactly the other books we’ve been reading, about nature and the turning of the seasons, the joy and worth of manual labor, and family life. I’ve always been a fan of Hall’s brand of “American poetry”. And the illustrations by Barbara Cooney are gorgeous in the “American folk” approach…

To offset the “American” aspect, I also got Laurent de Brunhoff’s Babar Learns to Cook. I love how Babar, the King of the Elephants, does all these domestic things. And how the elephant kids are up to all kinds of mischief all the time. {UPDATE: We now actually read the Babar book and I have to put this straight: Babar doesn’t cook at all! His wife, Celeste does… Sigh.}

Last but not least, while I had eyes only for the books, DH scored this set of handpainted porcelains cups (4), saucers (8), coffeepot (1) and milk pitcher (1). We’re not thrifters - don’t have the time, the money, the room - but when it comes to delicate porcelain cups and saucers… and then it was a pity to break up the set, which only cost us $8!

Amie and Baba at Walden Pond (click on My Flickr to the right for more)

• The Pond

All three of us went to Walden Pond today (Amie no longer calls it “Walrus Pond”). It was 83 degrees F, that’s 28 degrees C! We had not expected it, so we were rather overdressed (long pants).

The pondwater was warm enough for Amie, who has been suffering from a cold, to go in whole. This time we did take care to take her shoes off first thing - but we were too late with the shirt. Her diaper swelled up like a balloon half her weight, but she was unperturbed. She floated and splashed and drank the pondwater (we asked her not to, but what can you do?).

We collected stones and leaves and dirt.

Walden Pond in summer can get very crowded, but as you can see from the photo, today was fine, surprisingly for such a hot Saturday on a long weekend. There were mostly families with children, many of them as unprepared for a swim as we were but goin’ in anyway. It felt rather neighborly.

• Then we met Henry

On our way back to the parking lot we visited the replica of Henry David Thoreau’s house. When we arrived the door was open but Amie wouldn’t go in. The bed, with its messed-up brown blanket, scared her a bit. She said:

“I want to see Henry!”

A young couple who were also looking in through the doorway laughed and the girl pointed at her boyfriend, saying:

“There’s Henry!”

The young man took up the role with ease and gave us a tour of his house: the three chairs, the fireplace, the table and the bed.

Amie stared.

And she stared. Was it because he didn’t at all look like the bear in D.B. Johnson’s books? Or did she stare so because she has a sense of Thoreau’s stature, or of the fact that he’s the past and, actually, quite dead…

Who knows what goes on in that little head of hers. More than we give her credit for, I’m sure!

Henry David Thoreau

(July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862)

• The Sam and Stella Books

We love Marie-Louise Gay’s Sam and Stella books. Amie loves the repeated “Stellaaaaaaa!” or “Saaaaaam!” exclamations, Stella’s red hair, and Sam’s funny dog, Fred.

And, o yes, the stories - always surprising, uplifting and subtly wise - and the illustrations - delightful watercolors and pencil works of art (colorful, but easy on the eye) of adorable characters and settings.

Oh, and those settings! Stella and Sam venture mostly outside, into nature. There Sam asks and Stella answers, to the best of her capabilities, which are extensive, especially in the area of imagination.

- “Stella, can dogs read?” asked Sam

- “Yes,” said Stella. “But they need glasses.”

Even when they’re inside, they are getting ready to go out, or the outside is subtly present.

• What are you doing, Sam?

In ”What are you doing, Sam?”, Stella keeps an eye on her little brother’s increasingly alarming indoor activities - that is, alarming for us, reading parents: the kids don’t worry, since there are no parents, not even a hint of them, in the Sam and Stella books.

Stella is more occupied with studying leaves and trees. My favorite illustration shows her sitting at a desk strewn with paints, tape, brushes and inks, leaves taped onto paper, and a jar with a ladybug. She is painting a tree on the right page in abook - on the left page there are notes.

Stella is my kind of girl! And the place where she lives - the rooms, the house, the natural worLd outside - is my kind of place!

The window behind her reveals that it is raining. Brown leaves are falling to the ground. It is Fall and the feeling that has been growing throughout the book - of homeliness, warmth and safety - magisterially comes together.

In the next illustration, Sam is also painting (on the wall!): in his painting the sun shines brightly, and the grass and trees are green.

In fact, I am so enamored with these books that I went ahead and wrote them up in an article on Suite1o1! Be sure to have a read!

• Thoreau’s gift to me 

Walking around “Walrus Pond” the other day, I had that great feeling of belonging. I haven’t gone there often (this was my third or fourth visit in the ten years that I live here), and perhaps that is why it is each time so special.

I’ve read Thoreau, of course, lots of it. He was the one who gave me a way to feel at home in this country, especially in this part of the country. I used to feel so homesick for the medieval cathedrals and the old Roman antiquity of Europe, but Thoreau gave me a wonderful alternative: nature, wildness. Walden Pond now exemplifies an America where I feel welcome, at home, wholesome.

• Amie investigates belonging

I noticed that Amie, at the beginning of two, is looking into “belonging” as well. When building towers with her blocks ( a relatively new development: she discovered the blocks box a couple of days ago and spontaneously started building)  she will ask, of a block: “Where does it live?”

She knows where she lives: “I live in Boston” or “I live in Brookline library”. And where some of her friends live, “in New York”, “in Washington DC” (all names she can pronounce without a problem), “and that is far away”.

In November we are getting on a plane to travel to exactly the other side of the globe to visit grandparents. I am so curious to see how much she will understand of distance, and family.

• A different kind of belonging

She is also working on a different sense of belonging  - though I would like to think about just how different they are.

When I was about to drink from DH’s glass - we share a glass during dinner; question of less dishes, and less loading and unloading dishes - she stopped me and said: “No, Mama! That’s Baba’s!” It was a great opportunity for a Spiel about sharing and “thank you” and “you’re welcome”.

She will also hold out a piece of food from her plate to me and say: “You want it, Mama? I’ll share it with you, I’ll give it to you.”

• Amie at Home

It is a great privilege to witness her forging a sense of place, finding words for home, and physical spaces, trying out different relationships, figuring out which people belong there, with her.

It is my job to make her feel at home and to show her that she can be at home in other places as well: to give her not one particular physical place, but an anchor.

A mobile anchor. 

This anchor is herself and her nearest family, and a feeling of home that she can take with her wherever we go.

Practically, I’m thinking of a feeling of safety. Routines are a key part of that now that she is a two-year-old with a growing sense of entitlement, expectation and time (it strikes me now that so much of place is really time).  We have sound bedtime and potty routines, we always have breakfast and dinner together, and we each have “jobs” that we do no matter what (Baba drop her off at daycare, she plays and has fun, and I pick her up).

Most of these routines we can take with us, wherever we go.

• A Family on the Move

When (and where) I grew up it wasn’t necessary for parents to take this issue under such conscious consideration. Home and place were unproblematic and often taken for granted. I moved once, as a child, and then only two kilometers from our old house.

But we are not that kind of family. We will always be traveling, if only to see our families scattered across the globe. Our jobs are not as secure as my parents’ jobs were. And who knows how much we’ll be on the move, given what the future will bring…