Alina's Adventures

"Ephemera", a poem I've always loved by W. B. Yeats.

"Your eyes that once were never weary of mine
Are bowed in sorrow under pendulous lids,
Because our love is waning."

And then She:
"Although our love is waning, let us stand
By the lone border of the lake once more,
Together in that hour of gentleness
When the poor tired child, passion, falls asleep.
How far away the stars seem, and how far
Is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!"

Pensive they paced along the faded leaves,
While slowly he whose hand held hers replied: 
"Passion has often worn our wandering hearts."

The woods were round them, and the yellow leaves
Fell like faint meteors in the gloom, and once
A rabbit old and lame limped down the path;
Autumn was over him: and now they stood
On the lone border of the lake once more:
Turning, he saw that she had thrust dead leaves
Gathered in silence, dewy as her eyes,
In bosom and hair.

"Ah, do not mourn,' he said,
"That we are tired, for other loves await us;
Hate on and love through unrepining hours.
Before us lies eternity; our souls
Are love, and a continual farewell."

The recent memory of camping with cool people.

The weekend before the last, we went camping with Matt and Sarah. 

A week later, the camping gear sits in the garage, still unsorted and unattended. I'm don't report this out of guilt- merely amusement that we managed to find a way to avoid it for the second week in a row.

How to build a fire, per family recipe.

I'm the kind of person that relishes looking back. Yet, writing about an event in the recent past is harder for me than writing about events long-past. The salient memories are still crystallizing, the cream hasn't had time to settle, leaving no outer layer to cull. And so the recent past is murkier than the distant past as my brain still decides what might be worth setting to memory.

Southern Gothic with corn.

I remember thinking, "Sarah is beautiful"- and wanting to tell her so. I remember sorting through the awkwardness of finding a way to tell her I also admired her courage without insinuating a context of grief. Because her courage is not born of grief- her courage is something that struck me from the start, the courage of a woman who dares to proble the complicated knots many of us prefer to leave untouched. Many of us, of course, then wonder why everything feels so tangled.

I remember, somehow, being reminded that the knots are always there. It takes courage to confront them, to ask if there need be a knot or a kink in the line.

Southern Gothic with corn and attempt at nurture.

I remember the abundance of goofiness and vegetables- the familiar goofiness indulged with friends who know the worst of you and choose, somehow, to overlook it whenever possible. Thanks to Matt and Sarah, the King and I had "What did the fox say?" stuck in our heads for most of the weekend. I remember wondering why the tiniest dog insists on being the loudest barker on the campground. 

When I first glimpsed this photo, I remember promising myself to make a slideshow with the words from Wendell Berry's "The Country of Marriage". Something about Sarah's ring caught my eye.

The memory replaces the performance of the action- the excuse for this substitution awaits our attention in the garage.

I remember Prophet's very, very chapped lips- and the search for a buttery ointment to relieve it. 

I remember the Eldest's thrill to hear the steady drumming of a basketball on a court somewhere across the way. "Hey Mom, can I go play pick up?" he asked. I remember smiling, nodding, and telling the King we were witnessing the dawn of a new era.

I remember the girls sitting in the "kids corner" watercoloring various pebbles and rocks. Then leaving them to dry on the rotting log, lined up like psychedelic little soliders.

I remember the expression of utter joy on the Eldest's face when he ran back to the campsite only to announce that his friends, Jack and Andrew, were playing basketball. "I miss them so much, mom- they're 'twilight friends'".

I remember the first time he told me about "twilight friends". "You know," he said, scrunching his forehead, "twilight friends are the ones you remember from long times ago, the ones that are always there, in the twilight." Because twilight is more of a state than a particular place. And twilight never goes away- not completely.

I remember the way the tents were set up on top of a small hill next to the site, where Gnome played imaginary games with Pinka, who fretted about collars and leads and the way freedom is never free.

I remember Linda dropping by for a visit- laughing like a little kid when she discovered we were listening to Pearl Jam. Of all things. I remember singing "Corduroy" aloud without a hint of the usual embarrassment.

I remember the marvelous dance steps of the Gnome.

Of all the ways for our Gnome to dance, it is the wacky steps she can never quite resist.

I remember deciding NOT to tell the Gnome to zip her fly. I figured she has plenty of time to be self-conscious in the future.

I remember the muffled excitement of preparing food together, how sentimental it always feels to watch two old friends tending a fire together.

I remember feeling grateful for Matt and Sarah, for people we can love and cherish without the expectation of unanimous agreement on every subject under the sun. Friends to whom you can pose large, unanswerable questions without needing an answer to know better.

I remember Sarah's expression- a "hobo dinner"- to describe our food being cooked on the campfire. I remember the kids falling asleep with Pinka in the tent as the big kids sat, sipping, around the campfire. I remember lots of Tom Waits, the early years. I remember lots of stars, the midnight version. I remember a mysterious barge, the conspiracy theory variety. I remember falling asleep in the tent, surrounded by little bodies and little puffs of breath.

I remember waking up at 6 am to discover a small thunderstorm and the Eldest, soaking, thanks to the holes in the tent.

I remember flying in the air, coffee splattering across the pavement, and landing on the side of my left knee. I remember why. I remember laughing and thinking the injury would have been worthwhile if I had only managed to meet my goal of kicking the King in the bottom as he carried the trash to the dumpster. 

Simone Weil finds hope in the unbearable distance between heaven and earth. She says that paying attention to someone is a form of prayer.

By this, I think she means that our heart's sustained, intimate connection to another human life is, in itself, a form of worship, an honor or reverence for God's creation. An act of faith. An extended supplication.

I remember my way into the present, and find the memories of that weekend leave a heart on the map. It's a intimate geography, this one. The key is ours to keep. 

Honoring creativity where we find it.

My creativity is not your creativity. Fortunately, we each have our itches to scratch. Yet one of the most difficult lessons to learn in life involves appreciating difference and diversity. 

We find endless excuses to celebrate and appreciate creativity that coalesces with our own allegiances and preferences. The color pink, for example, is a big deal among the three little ladies in the castle. Earlier today, Prophet asked me, "Is is true that your favorite color is bla-a-ack?" 

"Yes, my favorite color is black," I affirmed, as Prophet collapsed into a fit of giggles and Little B. launched into an extended "ewwwwwww" sound. Only Gnome sat silently, watching and waiting for the excitement to die down so she could come up and tell me, "Mommy, I don't think it's bad that your favorite color is black."

Maybe she feels the need to tell me this because, when she colors, Prophet and Little B. are the judges who declare her colorings "not pink enough". For whatever reason, Gnome dares to self-describe as a lover of the color orange. No yuk-yuk sounds stand between Gnome and her favorite color. Yet she never finds ugly things to say about the color pink, regardless of how many times it has been used against her.

The microcosm of the household reflects the challenges in the macrocosm of the world. Those who can appreciate the colors and creativities of others are in a better position to enjoy more of life- and to feel less threatened by those who enjoy it differently. On the other hand, those who need to validate their preferences against others will find themselves constantly at war with anyone who dares to be different.

I look forward to the day when Prophet and Little B. tone down their holy-terror-of-pink and evolve into a more gentle appreciation for the rainbows. The world is far too beautiful to miss....

Hanging out with fungi.

What's blooming and budding at the UA Arboretum.

The clouds cleared a little towards the end of the day, enabling us to go for a what's-blooming-and-budding hike at the nearby arboretum. Rucksacks strapped to our backs, we set out on the Poplar Trail "to see what we could see", as Prophet explained.

The Eldest tried to sneak his special gift- Euell Gibbons' Stalking the Wild Asparagus- into his rucksack, but I convinced him to leave it behind and just roam the woods without a field or foraging guide, wander with only our senses and nature journals to to record observations.

Well, wouldn't you know, the left-behind book came up almost immediately when the Eldest spotted what he claimed to be none other than Podophyllum peltatum, or May apple. Since this wasn't the first "May apple" sighting of the season, I was skeptical. But the Eldest assured me these plants were "the real thing".

Also called American mandrake, the May apple is the stuff of magic and mystery. The Eldest buzzed with glee- "Look, there's a tiny flower bud!", he shouted, pointing to a small green berry under the umbrella-like leaves. In his best "old man" voice, he cautioned that much of the plant is poisonous, including the roots, the fruit seeds, and the unripe fruit. 

Prophet spotted the first solitary violet.

A division of labor emerged in which the Eldest identified various tall,gangly trees while the Prophet raised a hullabaloo over any flowers along the path. Never one to be left out, Gnome quickly took it upon herself to frighten every slumbering bird in the forest by shouting, "BUD! B-UUU-D! BUUUUUUD!" every time she spotted a leaf or flower bud. The ghost of Thoreau was horrified by the racket.

Unidentified wildflowers and buds.

"That's poisonous," chirped the Eldest before Gnome could pick one.

The beautiful vine and intoxicating scent of yellow jessamine that drives the insects mad come twilight.

The familiar three leaves of the trillium poked out from beneath autumn's dusky, decomposing blanket.

We marvelled over how the trillium unfurled its tie-dyed leaves, opening its arms wide to reveal a deep purple flower brushed with golden flecks. Should we stop to sketch it? 

The corky growths on a winged elm tree.

"Let's stop by the big magnolia tree," said I-can't-remember-which small folk. Somehow, we agreed to continue hiking, mystified for a moment by the strange (possibly fungal) growth Prophet discovered lining the branches of a small tree. Budmaster Gnome observed that the growth wasn't keeping the tree from budding at the tips of the branches. Carol suggested it might be a winged elm, Ulmus alata, for whom such corky growths are normal. 

We stopped and took out our nature journals- everyone except Pinka started sketching. Fortunately, Gnome brought along a charming little wildflower mystery for us to model. 

Prophet's middle name, "Magnolia", makes sense.

Saucer magnolia

On our way back to the space ship, we lingered over a few lovely varities of magnolia trees, including the Saucer magnolia (or what I called the "saucer cup magnolia") and the sticky-sweet Star magnolia.

Star magnolia

One of my favorite things about nature study is the anticipation of going home with our observations and then trying to identify what we saw. The temptation to plug into the iPhone or reference in the field is tremendous- but much good comes from waiting. It serves as a reminder that the details we capture in our journals are the only evidence that remains for the identification. So we must take thorough descriptive notes and do our best to capture the species in our illustrations.

The Eldest has started his seeds.

I love the way he labelled them and lined them up along the windowsill "for every drop of sunlight". Though he is sad we don't have the time or means to maintain a community garden plot this year, I know he understands our former plot will go to others whose seeds will grow in the soil we helped maintain. A beautiful circle of life.

"Look at the dark tips on my lavender sprouts," he exclaimed. I nodded and smiled, trying to calibrate my excitement at seeing his hands succeed where mine often fail.

The Brandywine heirloom tomato sprout was greeted with a high-five- it's one of our most anticipated fruits for the coming summer.

"Thank you," I told the Eldest as I stared at his "final surprise". He wondered why I was thanking him.

"It's the first beet sprout I've ever seen," I confessed. "And.... I love it." He blushed and hugged me, but not without adding, "Awww Mom, you're going to make me turn beet red."

If only he knew what powerful seeds he sows in my heart with this dedication and determination to grow his own garden- to grow his own way, to grow anyway, in spite of my unspoken longing sometimes to kiss his not-so-little feet and toes. So it goes.

Observing the white oak taking root.

One of the best parts of last Friday's nature hike was the spine-tingling sight of a white oak acorn rooting itself in the soil, aiming to become a tree. It happened by accident, of course. The little folks lingered to fill their pockets with fallen acorns. But something about these acorns made them very, very difficult to pick up.

On closer observation, the acorns had tapped into the soil, their plantly umbilical cords too firmly rooted to budge. We sat still and admired their way of growing and the connection a seed forms with the ground. (Later, as we re-capped the hike, the Eldest said the acorns added a "whole new meaning to the name Mother Earth for him.)

Amy showed us the inside of the acorn caps and explained how we could distinguish white oak seeds from other kinds of oak by the smoothness of the undercap. It made sense to note the GPS coordinates so we might return to admire the most successful saplings later on in the year.

Honestly, I never thought I'd feel such a wash of emotions over an acorn- but it was beautiful in that unspeakable, sublime sort of way, the way reserved for poetry and music, a way that transcends this world while being nurtured by it.

An early spring hike through Hurricane Creek Park.

We set out for a visit to Hurricane Creek Park, just off the Highway 216 bridge between Cottondale and Peterson. Rather than taking the awesome new PARA trails, we strolled along the stream using the old Eagle Scout trail. What we found was the commencement address of spring, sparing none of our senses.

A few years ago, a little bird named Hayes told us of the clay we could find along the banks of Hurricane Creek- a white-gray beautiful clay. Sure enough, the clay seeped from the dirt in the banks. I only wish I'd brought a bucket to collect it....

Our kids ranged in ages from 3 to 10- the youngest ones wore their own backpacks for the occasion. The unplanned presence of Pinka provided us with a four-legged mammal's perspective on the journey.

"If a rainstorm overtook you, which rocks would you use for shelter?", I asked at one point, remembering the old legends about Native Americans once find sacred spaces along the creek.

We hiked along, observing ferns, tiny buds, lichen, and any flowerings in the making.

The little ones stopped to dam and ford a slim tributary- if a slender sliver of water flowing down the side of a hill can even be called a tributary. They could have lingered for hours, pressing sticks into the miniature waterfalls and watching leaves make their way over the "rapids".

 Prophet watches her friends clamber over creekside rocks.

Creekside portraits abound.

The Eldest mistook the canebrake (or "hair cane") for bamboo. Fortunately, Amy quickly corrected him.

Resting along a bench donated by the Friends of Hurricane Creek.

Amy and I both paused to press our cheeks against the cold, mossy rocks, reminiscing about times in our pasts when only the cold, hard feel of a stone relieved the unbearable Alabama summer heat.

Gnome explains why she wants to eat something soon- and why eating acorns is something to which squirrels and Gnomes are inclined.

E. filled the sample jar with creek water.

Before we knew it, the grumble in our bellies meant water-testing time had officially arrived. Alas, we started testing without reading the instructions prior to our field tests. This means we learned much more about the importance of sampling methods than the actual water quality of the creek.

For instance, Amy found the oxygenation results rather hard to believe. When we sat down in the grass to review the how-to guide, we quickly understood that we had made the mistake of valuing the field sample itself over the rules of collection. "Isn't it better that we learn this the hard way so we can use our mistakes to better teach others?" Amy asked. It seemed to me just the right way to look at things.

Will D. Campbell, a man unlike any other.

The first time I heard Will D. Campbell's name was in the context of a conversation with an elderly neighbor whose voice churned confetti and fireworks as she described her favorite "bootleg preacher". I was intrigued- but all that breastmilk-induced oxytocin erased the name from my memory until I ran across it again while reading a book of conversations with Walker Percy. And then again when researching the life of Clarence Jordan.  

Like Clarence Jordan, Will knew what he was up against in racism- a form of excusable disgust and hatred which preachers sought to justify using scriptures and traditions. For Will, it would not be enough to decry the hatred for other races. Instead, he would have to learn to love even the most unlovable human beings.

"I have seen and known the resentment of the racist, his hostility, his frustration, his need for someone upon whom to lay blame and to punish," Campbell wrote in his first book, Race and the Renewal of the Church. 'With the same love that it is commanded to shower upon the innocent victim of his frustration and hostility, the church must love the racist" Therefore, in 1969, on the night before Bob Jones, the Grand Dragon of the North Carolina KKK was shipped off to federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, for contempt of Congress, Campbell was there in the Dragon's Den to celebrate communion with a bottle of bourbon. Later, Campbell talked with James Earl Ray, the man who had murdered Campbell's friend Martin Luther King. When people asked if he really expected to save the souls of such men, Campbell allowed that that would be presumptuous: "They might, however, save mine." (Source: Lawrence Wright)

Given his extensive career in the Christian church, Will often surprised people by confessing that his faith came to him much later than his memorization of scriptures. Though a preacher, Will claims he actually became a Christian when his friend, Jonathan Daniel, was murdered in 1966. Daniel had come from his Episcopal seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to register blacks to vote in the notorious Lowndes County. After walking into into a country store with a white priest and two black friends, Daniel emerged holding a Moon Pie and a soda pop. A sheriff's deputy named Thomas Coleman found this Moon Pie to resemble a threat and decided to resolve the matter with the help of his shotgun. Daniel gave his life for the civil rights movement.

When Campbell heard about Daniel's death, he was visiting his friend PD. East, the colorful and defiant editor of the Petal, Mississippi, newspaper called The Petal Paper.

It was East, years before, who had badgered Campbell into giving him a definition of the Christian message in ten words or less. “We're all bastards, but God loves us anyway," East recalled. “Let's see if your definition of faith can stand the test. Was Jonathan a bastard?"

Campbell was still in shock and deeply grieving for his friend. Mainly to get East to shut up, Campbell admitted that Jonathan was a bastard. “Was Thomas a bastard?" East asked. It was easy enough to agree to that.

Then East pulled his chair around, put his bony hand on Campbell's knee and, staring directly into Campbell glistening eyes, whispered, “Which one of these two bastards do you think God loves most?"

This was the turning point in Campbell's life. He describes it in his memoir, Brother to a Dragonfly.

I walked across the room and opened the blind, staring directly into the glare of the street light. And I began to whimper. But the crying was interspersed with laughter.

He was laughing at himself: ”At twenty years of a ministry which had become, without my realizing it, a ministry of liberal sophistication. An attempted negation of Jesus, [a ministry] of human engineering, of riding the coattails of Caesar ... of looking to government to make and verify and authenticate our morality, of worshipping at the shrine of enlightenment and academia, of making an idol of the Supreme Court, a theology of law and order and of denying not only the Faith I professed to hold but my history and my people - the Thomas Colemans."

I never got over Campbell's Brother To A Dragonfly, which I read en route through the entire opus of Walker Percy. Unlike Percy, Campbell didn't need to play dress-up in order to reveal the nakedness of modern man. Like Wendell Berry, Campbell's sense of "place" oriented his characters in a way that is familiar to anyone who was born in Romania and raised in Alabama, between one place and out the other.

Passages like this one found a nook, a place to sit and simmer, in my mind:

I said something about Hitler taking over the world and none of us being free.

"Brother, nobody is free. Freedom is how much you're willing to do to get people to leave you alone."

"And patriotism? That's just something they sold us. How can you love a country? A country is nothing but a big piece of geography. I love that eighty acres of land up there in Amite County where we were raised. But I can't love three million square miles."

As a piece of southern history, Will's book is unsurpassed. It breaks the heart while mending it. Though Will passed away several years ago, his influence continues to ripple outwards. Here are a few selections from those who knew him...

"Rev. Will D. Campbell, Maverick Minister in Civil Rights Era, Dies at 88" (New York Times)
"Bubba to a gadfly- remembering Will D. Campbell" (Ken Carder)
"Reverend Will D. Campbell, southern racial reconciler" (Southern Spaces)
"The first church of rednecks, white socks, and blue ribbon beer" (Rolling Stone)
"The tragedy of the redneck" (Joel Rieves)
"Apostle to the rednecks" (Phillip Yancey)
Brother to a dragonfly (The Contrary Goddess)
"Brother to a dragonfly" (Paul Greenberg)

A moment and its music: Resurrection ferns.

A little bird along the banks of Hurricane Creek told me this was resurrection fern.

The lyrics to "Resurrection Fern", a song by Iron and Wine that came to mind.

In our days we will live 
Like our ghosts will live...
Pitching glass at the cornfield crows 
And folding clothes 

Like stubborn boys across the road 
We'll keep everything...
Grandma's gun and the black bear claw 
That took her dog 

When sister Laurie says, "Amen" 
We won't hear anything...
The ten-car trains will take that word 
That fledgling bird 

And the fallen house across the way 
It'll keep everything...
The baby's breath
Our bravery wasted and our shame

And we'll undress beside the ashes of the fire 
Both our tender bellies wound in baling wire 
All the more a pair of underwater pearls 
Than the oak tree and its resurrection fern

In our days we will say 
What our ghosts will say...
We gave the world what it saw fit 
And what'd we get?

Like stubborn boys with big green eyes 
We'll see everything...
In the tender shade of the autumn leaves 
And the buzzard's wing 

And we'll undress beside the ashes of the fire 
Our tender bellies are wound around in baling wire 
All the more a pair of underwater pearls 
Than the oak tree and its resurrection fern

Free Alabama Blues Project concert tomorrow in Tuscaloosa.

Who: ALABAMA BLUES PROJECT ADVANCED BAND

Where: Mildred Westervelt Warner Transportation Museum in Tuscaloosa

When: Saturday from 12:00 to 2:00 pm

Why: Because it will rock your socks off. For FREE.

The performance is in conjunction with the museum's Mississippi Blues photo exhibit. Mississippi Hill Country Blues: Photographs by George Mitchell, curated by the Jackson Museum of Art, which will be on display at the museum through April 26.

Admission to the concert and the photo exhibit is free. The Transportation Museum will permanently waive its admission charge, making the museum free for all Tuscaloosa residents to tour and learn about the community’s history. Don't miss out.

"The Peace of Wild Things", a beloved poem by Wendell Berry.

Today was the perfect day for a hike in Hurricane Creek Park.

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

The local history of "old Bryce" Hospital as told by Lee Bains and the Dexateens.

The first of 3 videos in this series, all produced by Elliott McPherson.
Lee Bains narrates. 

Growing up in Tuscaloosa has its unique rites of passage. One of them nvolves celebrating that newly-minted driver's permit with a night-time visit to the ghosts and haints of Old Bryce.

The entire journey- from the borrowing of the parental gas-guzzling unit to the illegal trespassing on Bryce property to the conversing with the spirits of Bryce's former residents- feels trangressive. And the intersection of local history with young adulthood requires the exploration of liminal spaces, unspeakable places only visible to those willing to venture out in the twilight. 

I confess to having visited the "old Bryce" five times during my high school days.

The first time was all chills and thrills and rumors of blood on padded walls.

The second time involved a group of us who waited for the full moon to illuminate our way.

The third time involved the company of my high school "sweetheart" (we were anything but).

The fourth time I went alone- with only my journal and a few names gleaned from tombstones.

The fifth time was a solo act, this time equipped with tape cassette Walkman technology and the haunting voice of Margo Timmins.

The Dexateens did much better- they went there to tell the stories of Old Bryce. Perhaps they even hoped to spill its secrets. But the ghosts of the past are easier to conjure than to capture.

On Halloween 2008, they traveled out to "Old Bryce", the abandoned Jemison Mental Hospital on the outskirts of their hometown, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in an attempt to conjure up whatever spirits might still lurk there. They took their guitars, recording equipment, and a handful of songs. Fortunately, "things did not go according to plan". Any story seeking ghosts is much better when it deviates from the plan or script. 

All three videos are worth watching- a great sampling of local history to share with middle schoolers and kids. 

In Part 1, the Dexateens learn the history of the hospital, the band arrives at the hospital and performs, and plans go awry. In Part 2,  a 2nd journey is proposed and carried out, another song is performed, and an unexplained encounter occurs. In Part 3, unexplained evidence is examined.

When I first got married, the King and I feasted in many a hidden local cemetery. Whenever the discussion got around to tombstones, I told him I want to be cremated, my ashes scattered over the village of Bran in Transylvania. But I also want an overgrown, weed-covered tombstone somewhere in Tuscaloosa- a tombstone that didn't have a coffin beneath it, a tombstone inscribed only with my name and the words:

All of it ends with in a ghost story.

Building birdhouses and questioning the rise of the nation-state.

Weekends at the Coryell Castle have a tendency to develop in unexpected ways. This past weekend, the King and the Eldest spent a Saturday building a "wren house" from tornado-fallen wood found along Hurricane Creek. It happened because of a book....

Meanwhile, the girls and I colored the "Coryell Castle" sign for the garden gate. The King cut it from found wood last year, but it languished in the garage, unpainted, until the chirps of a coming spring brought it to our attention. 

"Our house is really small- it's not like other castles," observed Prophet, as she washed a paintbrush in water she'd procured from the rain barrel. 

"That's because all the other castles are way too big," I said (a little too smug). "One day, we humans will be remembered only for our ruins- and the ruin we made of this beautiful planet."

Prophet giggled and leaned against Gnome. "Mommy is in a serious mood," she whispered.

Now, after having built the birdhouse and painted the Coryell Castle sign, the King and I sit watching the girls swing.

Gnome shows off her new ability to propel herself by pumping through the air; she throws her head back and closes her eyes for emphasis. We are charmed.

“She would have made a good Wren,” I say to the King, a reference to the original name we had planned for yonder tiny-swing-thing. He agrees.

Why did we name her M---- rather than Wren? Neither remembers.

The clouds lay like a poisonous white snakeskin over the sky. I want to peel them back and find the proper name for this strange planet-place in which we find (and lose) ourselves on a daily basis.

Prophet settles onto the swing nearest Gnome. Suddenly, Gnome's two pigtales reveal their asymmetry, she lays her head to the side, crumples her face into a cry- “No, Prophet, go away”. Prophet tries to ignore the crescendo of wails demanding that she get off the swing.

I feel myself redden.

“Gnome, you can’t cry because someone sits next to you or breathes near you!”, I snap. I'm surprised by how much this flusters me.

“Next thing you know, you’ll become one of those nationalists!" I practically spit out that last word as if it were an expletive.

"Look," I say, trying to impose some calm on my own outrage, "If you don’t like the person next to you, then it's YOUR job to get up and move. You don’t have a right to remove them or make them leave....” The Alabama Immigration legislation flashes through my mind, alongside sepia-toned photos of Ellis Island and Japanese internment camps. Gnome stops complaining; the girls swing as if their lives depended on feeling their toes touch the clouds.

The King enters my field of vision, picking up trash from the lawn, a large smile on his beardless face. “Did you just call her a nationalist?” he laughs.

“Yes,” I admit. I am that woman in the check-out line who fears that her children will find anything of value in flags, nation-states, and patriotisms. The excuses we imagine for mass killings can never be sacred to me. Fortunately, the King takes a more nuanced view of fences, gates, and the history of the nation-state. 

If it weren't for the subtle poetries of living in the deep South, this girl would be roaming the continents with her backpack, eyes peeled for caravans or other contingencies. I wonder sometimes if my rambling blood courses through the kids' veins- how and when and if they will recognize it, what symptoms will lead them to give it a name.... The mysteries of life disguise themselves in rapture.

Kurt Vonnegut and an unexpected tree pose.

One pose amid many.

“I love you, Eliza,” I said.

She thought about it. “No,” she said at last, “I don’t like it.”

“Why not?” I said.

“It’s as though you were pointing a gun at my head,” she said. “It’s just a way of getting somebody to say something they probably don’t mean. What else can I say, or anybody say, but, ‘I love you, too’?”

Kurt Vonnegut, Slapstick or Lonesome No More!

Playing at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.

Gorgeous Isla.

Apparently, scooting in the grass is the best of all possible worlds.

Gnome and Isla survey discrepancies on the horizon.

The lyrics to the Pharcyde's "She Keeps on Passin' Me By" roll through my head as I watch my sister to try scoop a scooting Isla only to find that, alas, mommy is not as interesting as that pink plastic ball over yonder.

Prophet decides to "big sister" her tiny cousin.

The elusive pink ball draws closer to Isla.

Prophet and Isla share joy as Isla finds she can "catch" the ball. Prophet, of course, relishes being close to Isla and making her smile.

Alas, Isla loses interest and takes off in search of more magnificent conquests.

Gnome casts a keen eye on the "crawler", announcing that Isla is, in fact, "a baby".

No one disputes Gnome's assertion. Instead, we wonder what Isla will find next.

Isla rises and makes significant gestures towards Prophet, indicating ineffable possibilities which probably involve a fistful of crackers, a mouthful of dead grass, or that pink ball that disappeared again. Since Prophet doesn't translate her cousin's words, I am left wondering...

But my favorite part of our excursion was the one in which auntie had the honor of holding a beautiful little hand....

... a hand I hope to hold for many years (at unexpected times) in the future. Knowing, however, that the direction in which little ones turn is towards the world and away from us, I will be happy to console myself with holding my sister's warm, small hand. The ways in which I find myself needing her have so little to do with us as individuals and so much to do with our shared roots these days.

An acoustic by The National that I can't stop hearing.

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Asaf Avidan on tour right now- don't miss him.

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Here's an acoustic version of a favorite- "Weak"- with the lyrics just below.

Speak, Baby speak 
Tell me I'm weak 
Tell me these promises are not mine to keep 
Tell me I'm ugly 
But tell me you love me 
Tell me you cannot go through this world without me 

Oh I'm, I'm just a tree 
My roots 
Are with her 
But my leaves are falling. 

Heal, baby heal 
Take all the time you will 
I never thought I'd say this but I'm letting go of the bill 
I don't wanna see 
Your face here no more 
Still that doesn't mean that I'm shutting the door 

Oh I'm, I'm just a tree 
My leaves are with her 
But my roots are very well deep

Speak, Baby speak 
Tell me I'm weak 
Tell me these promises are not mine to keep 
Tell me I'm ugly 
But tell me you love me 
Tell me you cannot go through this world without me

Oh I'm, I'm just a tree 
My roots 
Are with her 
But my leaves are falling.

I know these words are tearing you apart 
Still I told you, right from the start 
This is how our little song 
Is gonna play out.

Roam like a gnome: The season when the gnome homes emerge.

The little people have been informing me more frequently of the gnome homes nestled in trees or stumps. Something about spring seems to imply the activity of gnomes and other magical beings. Even Pinka seems to be conversing with invisible flower fairies and other kinds of non-science-based life.

"Don't ruin the gnome home!", I hear Prophet warn. Indeed, the Irish and Welsh folktales collected through the 1800's by WB Yeats and William Wirt Sikes included warnings to humans who meddle in the magical rythms of other worlds.  Like the Grimm brothers, Yeats and Sikes spent time traveling the countryside and recording the stories passed on through oral tradition. They gathered tales of beings that operated in the shadows- beings that were not  evil or menancing so much as prone to trickery. Those who managed to outwit the denizens of the Fairy Kingdom would have fortune and riches beyond their wildest imaginings.

I love stories and imaginings about gnomes, and the way they line the border to that place that W.B. Yeats called "Fairyland". As Yeats made clear, Fairyland is a world of paradox and mystery where none of the earthly rules apply. It is a place between heaven and earth, a sojourn and respite for lost souls, guarded by the fairies. Yeats' poetic tributes to Fairyland are also tributes to the fascinating natural world and the realm of the human imagination.  

A FEW GNOME STORIES AND IMAGININGS

Mr. Viktor the Garden Gnome, a story by Essie L., 9 years of age
Garden and wood gnomes (The Fairy Chronicles)
"Gunnar and the giant" (Gnome Home)
A nisse gnome letterbox (alina's adventures)
"The Venetian Gnome" (Fairy Tale Channel)
"The Gnome", a German fairy tale collected by Grimm brothers
"A brief history of garden gnomes" (Mental Floss)
Our adventures with Gilgamesh the gnome (alina's adventures)
An outdoor feast for fairies and gnomes (alina's adventures)
A gnome journal theme (alina's adventures)

"The Fascination of What's Difficult", a poem by W.B. Yeats.

THE FASCINATION OF WHAT'S DIFFICULT

THE fascination of what's difficult
Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent
Spontaneous joy and natural content
Out of my heart. There's something ails our colt
That must, as if it had not holy blood
Nor on Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud,
Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt
As though it dragged road-metal. My curse on plays
That have to be set up in fifty ways,
On the day's war with every knave and dolt,
Theatre business, management of men.
I swear before the dawn comes round again
I'll find the stable and pull out the bolt.

-W. B. Yeats

Learning all about worms, with special attention to our new friend, the millipede.

Earthworms abound in the moist front-yard soil. The other day, the kids spent hours watching an earthworm worm its way around a puddle before sinking into the soil.  So we decided to play with worms.

Prophet and Little B. practiced their scissor skills by cutting out some worms and watercoloring them.

Why not use their fancy worms for the cover of our small earthworm lapbook? Enter glue stick and worm selection process.

But our worm study really took off (and shifted gears a bit) when Gnome discovered a millipede..... To talk about millipedes, it was necessary for me to utter one of those strange words that sounds like a magic spell to many little folks- namely, myriapods. Unlike our insect friends, myriapods aren't really bugs at all. 

We used our plastic crawlers to compare the two myriapod millipedes to the insect caterpillar.

Nearly 13,000 species of arthropod are classified in the Myriapoda, which means "many-legged ones." Prophet demanded to know what on earth those "arthtroscods" might be.

Arthropods are a group of creatures classified as invertebrates, or animals without a backbone. The arthropod group includes all invertebrates which have a skeleton on the outside of their bodies. The exoskeleton is made of chitin and the legs are jointed. This group is so large that it has been divided again into four sub-groups - insects, crustaceans, spiders and myriapods.

Now for a closer look at the millipede. The millipede's body has a trunk composed of individual segments known as tergites.

It didn't take long for Prophet to notice that her fake plastic worms were not millipedes at all. Indeed, the plastic worms were actually replicas of the fearsome creatures known as centipedes. For lack of a live centipede, we made do with the plastic version.

Centipede Class mini book (PDF)

Explaining why centipedes and millipedes were not in the same class of creatures was difficult. Compared to a centipede, the millipede has shorter antennae on the top of its head. It also lacks the two hooked posterior legs that appear on the head-like anus at the rear of the trunk.

Trillium Montessori has a lovely sorting game for insects and non-insects that makes good use of plastic creatures.

On the crafting side, there are endless millipede and centipede crafts to excite little hands and imaginations. Here are a few I stumbled upon- those wooden spoon millipedes are fantastic.

Centipede friendship bracelets (Friendship Bracelets)
Millipede madness (Always Outside)
Wooden spoon millipedes (Handmade Charlotte)
Curling millipede bracelet (Fusion Knots)

Creative writing prompt: The bear image.

Tell my story (PDF)

What we learn by watching harvester ants.

Gnome holds her cheap plastic ant after giving it a kiss.

It's all about insects lately. Each night, the insect for the next day is introduced in the form of a cheap, plastic replica. Little B. bounces around the room, begging for her insect before bed. There's just something cool about girls who like bugs.

And there's just something spring-feverish about the moment when you find yourself forking out $10 for an ant farm on a mysterious whim. An art farm without any ants, mind you. 

All week, the little people waited for the daily mail, wondering if our harvester ants might be among the bills and junk. When our tube full of harvester ants finally arrived, a dance party and jubilee ensued. The king tried to hide his own excitement with a serious question about the possibility of ants fleeing the farm for other locations in the castle. Alas, the time for serious questions was long past. I did my best to put his reservations to rest.

It should be called an ant aquarium.

Preparing the ant farm required us to add the sand and water to the bottom portion. The Eldest pushed the paper plug into the bottom portion of the farm so the ants could get down into the sand and tote it into the upper portion, presumably to build the "hills" to which the Eldest kept referring.

Transferring the ants to their farm was not as easy as we'd anticipated. Tired of life in the tube, the ants were stir-crazy, climbing out the sides as I tried to slide them into the narrow slat at the top of the ant farm. Fortunately, the Eldest read the instructions and advised me to put the ants in the fridge for 15 minutes- "it calms them down", he explained.

After 15 minutes of cold air, the ants seemed sluggish. The Eldest helped me transfer to their new farm. In the hubbub, a couple of ants escaped and found sanctuary in the exposed air vents on the floor. No worries, assured the Eldest, since they are all of the same sex. The rest went without saying.

With (most of the) ants safely inside the farm, all that remained was to set about observing our friends get adjust to post-tube life. Sit, watch, jot down a few notes- I could feel my patience muscles growing with each passing minute.

Part of the responsibilities of ant farming include a daily feeding schedule, which the Eldest has managed very well thus far. 

We decided to agree on a question about the ants- one for each day to frame our thoughts and explorations. Our ant friends were very reluctant to explore the southern route into the sand. We watched and waited to see what might transpire. Our first question grew quite naturally from the soil (or sand) of that watching and waiting.

"They're fighting over who has to go first," cried Prophet, the one who always wants to "go first". How do ants decide who will go first? As in most complicated social systems, ants are highly specialized to their particular roles and tasks.

Enter the ant lapbook- and a Types of Ants minibook I made for just this occasion. The Eldest noticed that we didn't have any queens (he also said something about it being "illegal" to ship ant queens around the US of A). 

Types of ants minibook (PDF)

The Eldest reassured us that the ants would work hard during the night- and we might even wake to find a tunnel or two. He was right.

I can't wait to see what tommorrow will bring in the ant farm arena. In the meantime, I overheard Prophet conversing with a friend. "What have you been doing?" her friend asked.

"Oh, ballet.... and I'm an ant farmer now," Prophet confided, adding, "It's really hard work."

"Why? What do you have to do that's so hard?" asked her friend.

"I have to watch the ants," replied Prophet. "I have to watch them A LOT....."