blueperiod.

national novel writing month (because a year is just too much time)

Alright. It's on. I'm officially signed up for crazy-making fun through the month of November. That's right, it's NANOWRIMO time again. This will be year four for me; possibly the year I make it to 50,000 words. I'm not certain why I think it's a good idea to try to write a 175-page novel in thirty days, but I'm doing it anyway. I turn thirty-five next week. I've decided to think less.

Scrivener or Ulysses? I've never used any word processor other than Pages or Word. Now, I have notes on paper scraps, in spiral notebooks, paragraphs cut and pasted into empty files, and can appreciate having it all organized in one place. Especially considering Luna's habit of covering every piece of paper she finds with her artwork.

I'm also hoping some changes to my writing habits will help unstick my stuck. Of course, there won't be time for writer's block in November.

costume planning

“Have you thought about your Halloween costume?” I ask Sol.

He shrugs. “Not really.”

“You should decide. Halloween’s soon,” Luna echoes my thoughts. She sits on the floor cutting triangles—destined to be Siberian Husky ears—out of black felt. “Maybe you could be what you were last year,” she says.

“No,” Sol says. “That would be boring.”

Last year he was an unnamed hero in a chainmail shirt and green tunic, with a sword strapped to his back. He claimed he was not Link from The Legend of Zelda and not Aragorn from the The Lord of the Rings, though he regularly pretended to be both of these characters.

~~~~~~~~~~

The requisite trick-or-treat banter was a bit tedious for the first few houses. The candy-givers did their best to puzzle out his costume. “Robin Hood? No. A knight? No. A Prince? No....”

The candy-taker stood there staring, letting them go on guessing with no apparent intention to clarify the issue. It wasn’t done in a “You’re an idiot, and I won’t dignify your stupidity with a response” kind of way. It was more like “I’m not exactly sure how to answer that question, so I just won’t say anything.”

At one point we took him aside and suggested he consider a backstory for his character, or even a name, just so he could politely put an end to people’s guessing. He considered this a moment, then shrugged and continued on, his younger sister, an adorable, blatantly obvious pink pig, beside him.

A few houses later we were met by an elderly couple beaming with the glow of vicarious Halloween fun. Or maybe it was the glow of one too many snack-size chocolate bars.

“And what is this? I see a cute little pig, and...let’s see...Robin Hood?”

Sol held his bag out in front of him. “I’m a soldier who’s left the Queen’s army and gone off on his own to be a ranger.”

Stunned silence all around. Confused looks exchanged.

“Well, how about that?” the man finally said. “A soldier. Here’s some candy for you.”

Sol started to correct the man but was pushed aside by a ninja, a princess, and a firefighter. “Thanks,” he said, and moved on to the next house.

~~~~~~~

Luna hands me the black triangles. “Maybe you could be a Bionicle,” she says.

“How could I?” Sol asks. “I’d have to drill holes all over my body.”

“Yeah,” she concurrs.

“Do I have to dress up?” Sol asks.

“If you want to go trick-or-treating you do.” I say. I survey an old gray t-shirt.

“Why?” he asks.

“Because it’s a give and take—an exchange,” I say, cutting away the extra fabric. “You dress-up; strangers give you candy.”

“Then I’ll go like this,” he says, smiling. “I’ll say, I’m just another kid, consuming resources and using technology, who will eventually destroy the planet for all future generations.”

I look at him, and oddly enough, in jeans and a navy blue sweatshirt, holding a plastic bio-mechanical figure newly won on e-bay, he looks as much in costume as he ever has.

things i didn't want to hear today

"Mama, what's for breakfast?"

"My armpits have kind of an odor. I'm starting to smell like Mama."

"Mama, what's for lunch?"

"Actually, Mama, I just remembered I don't like zucchini."

"Mama, why is the tube of toothpaste in the toilet?"

"Mama, what's for dinner?"

time

One afternoon Luna tells me, "When I'm a mama, I won't ever make my children wait. I'll come right when they call me. I'll stop using my computer or washing the dishes and play as soon as they ask." She speaks plainly, without a hint of accusation in her voice.

Good luck with that, I think to myself. I say, "Your children will be very lucky," and try not to take her comment personally. It isn't really a comment as much as a statement, anyhow. And five is a little young for the nuances of passive-aggressiveness, no?

I do think about how often I put them off. How frequently the later that I promised never actually comes. Some days are so full of doing for them that there isn't time left for being with them. Time. How can something so irrelevant have such prominence in our lives?

"When will it be soon?" Luna asks me. "Is it later yet?" She counts to ten when I tell her, ten minutes. Time makes little sense to her. Time makes little sense to me and I've spent most of my life hyper-aware of it—so focused on its comings and goings; its absence, its presence. I've had too much and and still not enough of something I can't even explain; something that barely exists.

For a long time I honestly believed that time was speeding up as I grew older. I could not explain how this was possible but I knew it to be true. I thought it must be the same phenomena that made a return trip significantly shorter than the journey out. Once when I was twenty, riding in a car on my way to a babysitting job, I made an off-hand remark to my charge's father about  time accelerating. He was a psychologist for whom English was a second or third language, and I was intimidated by even casual conversation with him.

"Ah," he said, suddenly animated. "But time is not changing; only your perception of it." He then happily went into a lecture that took us all the way home. Unfortunately, I never I got clear instructions on what to do with this information. Just knowing that it's all in my head hasn't helped me much.

What I'd really like to know is how to slip back into that mind that doesn't bother differentiating between seconds and minutes. A mind that has little use for soon or later. Maybe, if I pay attention, Luna can help me remember. Maybe, if she's lucky, she won't forget.

paint your own

I go through these emotional/intellectual cycles of fully embracing the unschooling philosophy and holding the thing at arms' length, narrowing my eyes, trying to figure out if I can really trust it after all. During these questioning periods I'm driven to pull out dusty workbooks or seek out advice on handwriting curriculum and math manipulatives. I suddenly have no idea what is best for my children, and I scramble to piece together something that, for the most part, resembles normal. They humor me. They're good sports that way.

Luna enjoys the workbooks— probably because they appear so infrequently. She likes the word puzzles, the pictures of animals, and generally feeling like she is "doing school things." She has a fascination with school. I think more the idea of it than the reality. (The Ramona Quimby influence is strong with this one.)

She breezes through the sections on patterns and sequence. She answers the questions so quickly that I am convinced that she is a genius. And then I recall that she has spent the past two months consumed by Lego-building. I'm talking hours a day, for weeks, devoted to the construction of various creatures and habitats.

"Look, Mama. The walls of this boathouse [for some reason boathouses were big] are red, yellow, green, red yellow green. It's a pattern!"

And all those times I thought we were just playing.

So yesterday I was thinking, 'I really should be better about organizing art projects for them. It's been so long since she's done any painting, and really, how many times can he touch up the silver on his sword?' I made a mental note to search the library catalog for books on art projects.

Less than an hour later Luna's voice calls down from her bedroom, "Mama, can you bring all the paint and some brushes upstairs?"

"Uh, I don't think so," I responded. "I'd rather you paint down here, where it's a little easier to clean up afterwards. I can help you set you up at the easel."

"Well, I don't want to use the easel. And I can't bring the thing I want to paint downstairs. It's my dresser."

Okay. So I guess she'd been storing up some of that creative energy for something a little bigger than your typical preschool art project. There it was, that self-direction fueled by a natural desire to do and learn that all the unschooling folks talk about. Really, it's being born all the time, but I don't always take the time to acknowledge it.

Luckily none of that energy was lost in the redirection from the dresser to a more manageable piece of furniture; at least none that I could tell. She spent the next few hours happily painting the little Ikea table and chair that are normally splattered with paint from other art projects. Orange for the top, and alternating red and white for the legs. Hey, look at that-- a pattern.

peaches

We went peach-picking a couple of weeks ago and somehow managed to pick more peaches than I have ever seen in my life. The whole experience awakened something primal in me and I feel this instinctual rush to consume as many peaches as I can before the season is over, and it turns cold, and our fruit choices are reduced to whatever shiny colorful foods make their way across the country, or even farther, to taunt me at my local supermarket.

I don't know if it's just the general trend in our food-obsessed culture or if it is something particular to Philly, but I have never had so many options for eating almost entirely locally. This means that the bulk of our diet is made up of foods that were grown nearby. This is not too difficult a feat when you have a share in a CSA farm that delivers produce right to your neighborhood; or when you can't walk more than a few blocks without coming across a farmer's market any day of the week. And of course, there is Reading Terminal with homemade sauerkraut, homemade soap and everything in between.

We do miss our own backyard garden and the experience of growing our food, but this experience has helped to make us more conscious consumers; a completely invaluable lesson. We talk a lot about where our food comes from, how far it had to travel, how was it grown, and if it comes in a package, what the heck else is in there. Sol is very much into reading labels these days. 

"This says 'Natural' but one of the main ingredients is high fructose corn syrup." My favorite was when he went off on a rant in the cereal aisle at Whole Foods. "They think if they put 'Organic' on the front of the box you'll think it's healthy and buy it, but look at all the sugar in here. That can't be healthy. They are trying to trick you!" The looks I get sometimes from people.

rerouted rambler

Okay, so it's been a while since I posted. I know that's nothing new here, but as I did pledge to regularly update my blog, not that long ago, in fact, I feel a little guilty for being away so long. I have been writing, however, so I don't feel too guilty. I just finished up something for this story competition—not that I'm really competitive or anything. I just drawn to deadlines and due dates.

Before that I was working on a short story. Yes, the dreaded short story. You were once my Achilles heel, and now I embrace you wholeheartedly, which gives you a new place to stick your poisoned arrow. We are working out the kinks in this complicated relationship. It helps to listen to the New Yorker Fiction Podcasts, and to spend some time actually reading short stories. I've always been a little "anti" the short story, partly because I hadn't read many that were any good; largely because I couldn't write any that were even decent. (I ramble and have completion issues.) I'm slowly coming around.

I'm actually pretty pleased with my recent output, especially considering the many changes in my life. We moved on April 15th to... No, not New York, not Jersey, not anywhere that follows any line of reasoning. We moved to Philadelphia. It made perfect sense at the time, and despite the occasional bouts of "What were we thinking?!?" we stand by our insane decision. So far, so good. I love how walkable this place is; how easy it is to live without a car. And after living in New York for a bit, I greatly appreciate how manageable this city feels. We're digging it.

Luna seems to be totally in her element. The energy of the city suits my aquarian child. She's ready to go every morning; up for the newest adventure or discovery. Sometimes I find her sitting at my bedroom window with the blinds pulled all the way up. She tells me, "I want to see the whole city. I like the way it looks."

Sol is adjusting pretty well. He was initially very put off by the idea of living in a city. I think his exact words were, "I could never live in the hustle and bustle of a city." He now says he likes city-life, but he misses our old house; his secret hide-out behind the hedges on the side yard. He really misses his friends, too. That's been the hardest part for all of us—leaving our circle of friends, our unschooling community.

I think it's being in-between real-world communities that inspires me to rejoin the virtual communities of writers, mamas, and unschooolers. We are still unschooling, and getting better at everyday. Actually, Sol and Luna are naturals; I'm the one who has to work at it.

Birthday Girl

Believe it or not...my little girl is four. The day began with a flashy tiara, dangly clip-on earrings, and a hankering for a party. My plan had been to enjoy a quiet day at home, opening presents and playing together, sharing a simple dinner with family, and topping the whole thing off with that famously easy chocolate cake. Luna's plan was a day-long celebration, with a steady stream of well-wishers, lots of presents, lots of playing, chocolate cake with buttercream frosting, topped with fresh strawberries, and chocolate cupcakes, culminating in an impromptu sleepover. How does she do that?

Happy Birthday, Luna.

colorful characters

We've been reading more comics around here lately. For me, it started with an urgency to get that first book of the year under my belt. For Sol, I think it's that after months of reading way above his “grade level” (a phrase that doesn’t really apply to us, but is kind of a lazy way to get at the point), he’s naturally gravitating to some lighter stuff. And by lighter I mean Calvin and Hobbes,  Peanuts collections, and the Bone series. I’m familiar enough with comics to know that heavy on the pictures doesn’t necessarily mean light on the story. I just finished reading Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, and was really amazed by the power of its simplicity.

This is similar to how I feel when Luna shows me her drawings. She does page after page of renderings of the people in her life. They are most always just faces, but with such detail and such emotion that they almost speak to me. She has recently been concerned with capturing the lines in the brow—some faces have more lines than others, and the shape of the lines can change with fluctuations in facial expression. She pays close attention to this. I wonder about the stories she is creating about her life, about herself, in these pictures. What does she make of this world?

Speaking of comics, and specifically Peanuts collections, I appreciated the post, "My First Lesson in Being Black" on Aunt Jemima’s Revenge. Professor Tracey writes about her identification with Peppermint Patty as a kid, and the fact that it never occurred to her that the character was white, and therefore somehow different from her, until she was criticized for “fixing” Patty’s skin tone in a drawing.

This really spoke to me because my son has spent almost half his life identifying with a character that could only really look like him with the help of Photoshop. Actually it would be more accurate to say that Sol believes he is Link from the Legend of Zelda Nintendo game series. He doesn’t just play the game, he lives it. In fact, he has spent more time being Link than he has playing Link. There is something about a young boy fated to save  the world from evil forces that appeals to my young boy with a highly-attuned sense of justice. He’s a boy hero; a hero with a cool costume, a sword, and a shield.

So, what if the fair-skinned, blonde-haired, often-times-blue-eyed boy looks nothing like my bronze-toned, dark-haired, deeply-brown-eyed son? Does this even register for him? And if so, how does he feel about it? I haven’t figured out how to ask him these things without risking disrupting his play world. And maybe that’s the key: he’s playing, and as long as no one is telling him there is something wrong with the picture he is painting in his head, then it doesn’t matter what colors he chooses.

I have a friend who regularly shaded in the skin tone of the  princesses that adorned her daughter’s clothes, books, and even shoes during a particularly avid Disney Princesses phase. I can’t help wondering what Link would look like if I “fixed” him just a little. I also can't help wondering why Link doesn’t look a little more like his creator Shigeru Miyamoto? It wouldn’t solve all my problems if he did, but it might help a little.

This morning while I was perusing Goodreads, as I often do these days, Sol came up and began reading over my shoulder, as he often does these days, and exclaimed, “F. Scott Fitzgerald?!”

“Yeah,” I said. “You heard of him?”

“Well, his wife Zelda inspired the character 'Princess Zelda,'” he said.

“What?" I asked disbelievingly. "Are you sure? Is that true?”

“Of course it’s true. I read it on Wikipedia,” he said. “Anyway, why are you reading about the man that was married to the woman that inspired a character in my video game?”

“Well, first of all,” I said, “everything on Wikipedia is not necessarily true. And secondly, F. Scott Fitzgerald is pretty famous on his own. He wrote some really good books.”

“Mmm-hmm,” he said, eyeing me skeptically before walking away.

Happy New Me Year

One thing that gets to me about those really cold days is the tendency towards a little extra television-watching. However, when Luna asks to watch Peep and the Big Wide World—a cute animated program designed to teach science and math to preschoolers—with the Spanish language option turned on, well, how can I complain? In fact, I'm going to call that one a threefer (Science, Math, and Spanish instruction) and get started on my personal goals for 2008.

The first of these goals is to give myself a break, for crying out loud, and relax. Hence, my ability to sit here and post to my weblog while my children watch a DVD in the middle of the day. And that brings us to another of my personal goals for 2008: to post to my weblog with a bit more regularity than once every quarter of a year.

Note: I use the words "personal goals" because "Resolutions" sounds so formal, and, you know, destined for failure.