Category — Domesticity

A very goofy angel

It took parenthood to awaken me to the fragility of life. 

These days, as I make my way through the world, fearful thoughts dart through my mind: 

“What if that car, racing the red, hit me? I’d be brain-damaged, mangled. Would my daughter recognize me? When they wheeled me out of surgery would her face still crest like the sun at the sight of me? Or would she not know me at all?” 

I imagine her life without her mother and my eyes well with a flurry of tears.

In other moments, I think:

“What if something happened to my little girl? What if she had a life-threatening disease, her body shrunken to a mere few pounds as she fought for life? How would I cope with feeding tubes being laced down her throat? Would I crumble like paper or would I rise up, warring in the fight?”

I find my lips whispering prayers of thanks for life, every day. It’s a new posture for me. For most of my life I have taken life for granted. It was given. I am living it. But now, with a small life entrusted into my faulty hands, I tread lightly. I am mindful. I want to drive slower, look both ways, meander more, notice. 

It’s the way God sees, I think. He watches this spinning globe He made and hones in on a delightful little boy kicking soccer balls in Argentina. He smiles. Delights in this young child, destined for a profession in plumbing, fatherhood, public service. He sees the fullness of a life unfolding beneath dusty feet.

God is a God of love, the Bible tells us over and over. 

Psalm 33:18 reads: “The Lord watches over those who obey him, those who trust in his constant love.” 

How would our lives look differently if we believed it?

I’d be much less fearful, I think.

Her fingers wrap around mine like a chord. Limbs darting up to tug at my linen, cotton billows, reaching out to declare: “You are mine.” Tenacious, yet layered with a heart like cream, Madeleine steals frames from faces in an instant. Translucent glass beads scattered about the floor save her from topples as she devours them with her finger folds. Snowy flesh. She is sitting better and better every day. At dawn each morning Daddy awakes to spend sleepy hours with her while I try and catch up from night waking. Enfolding one another in the day’s first light. This is our love.

His name is Remi, we are having a love affair, and my spouse knows about it. 

He is a Remington Portable. A archetypal typewriter manufactured in the mid-1930s. His ruddy grey body sits squarely in the centre of my coffee table, the focal point of our living room. And rightly so. As a writer married to a bibliophile, words are central in our home.  

And now more than ever. As new mother I have never been so keenly aware of language. Word by word I am naming my daughter’s world. Raffi songs are sung by heart, daily chores are narrated, and tastes, colours, sights and sounds are animated for her sheer delight.

My daughter teaches me each day that, when it comes to words, it is all about the delivery. For instance, plainly announcing “We are going for a walk” receives no more than a glance, while sing-songing the same line results in a mess of wild baby giggles.

Typewriters have a similar effect on me.

It doesn’t matter what words fall into Remi, he makes them beautiful. It’s this beauty, and the love of sending and receiving letters, that inspired my friend Marisa and I to co-found the Vancouver Letter Writing Party last fall. Each month a growing number of us gather for no other reason than to type. Letters are written, brimming with minutiae, and they are beautiful.

These words want to be read. They are climbing up, off of the paper, begging to be stamped, sealed and sent.  

When was the last time you wrote a letter — typewritten or otherwise?

::::

This post originally appeared on the After Hours blog. 

Timbers reach
groaning sinews
reaching upward,
upwards.
gentle pebbles
blanketing the undergrowth
lacing knees.
And she grows.

Clouds, pale,
climbing over
silver havens:
powder blue.
the skies,
they climb, up to
billowing suns.
And she grows.

Strangers pass
each other glances,
blackened ravens
feast on dry bread
together, they eat,
feasting.
And she grows.

An old woman
knits her last line
pearl, hook
pearl, hook.
a gift for an old friend.
remembering the first time.
recalling.
And she grows.

A fist opens,
then closes.
clench, reach
touch, lean.
change falling
through worn fingers.
they’re reaching.
And she grows.

A sparrow is born.
nestled in a hanging basket
on a patio, grey.
it takes its first flight
falling thirteen leagues
down,
down
to flight.
he’s soaring.
And she grows.

A mother’s hands
crawl, trembling…
around newborn skin.
she watches:
almond eyes growing
wide with wonder,
searching.
giving name to her world.
And she grows.

::::

Life is full. I am happy. Madeleine is the joy and wonder of our life.

I tasted these date bars for the first time last month and begged the recipe off of my wonderful friend Grace. The orange zest makes them! Enjoy.

Grace’s Date Squares (from the Five Roses Cookbook)

Mix together well and spread ½ in 8 x 8 greased pan
1½ c. flour
½ tsp. baking soda
1 ½ c. quick oats
1 ½ c. brown sugar
1 c. margarine or butter

Over medium heat cook until dates are soft and water is absorbed, add vanilla and cool slightly.
1 lb. pitted dates, chopped
½ c. hot water
¼ c. white sugar
Pinch of salt
¼ c. orange juice
Rind of ½ orange
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla

Spoon cool date filling over crumble mixture, pat remaining mixture on top. Bake 350, 30 minutes.

(For thinner squares you can use 9 X 13 pan)

Christmas card, 2009 by Christina Crook

I’ve been wondering why I haven’t been writing on here a heckuvalot lately. For me, blogging happens in bursts. Sometimes I am spilling with things to say, and other times I’m not. I don’t want to fake it.

Plus, it has been busy. Christmas is around the corner. (Literally, I can see him peering, wiley, from behind our apartment-sized tree.)

This year’s Christmas baking included the tried-and-true: shortbread (with a red and green twist,) a newcomer: orange-laced date bars (I’ll post the recipe tomorrow,) and the kick-ass: the chewyist brownies you’ve ever laid your teeth into (I took the liberty of adding cranberries which, as Michael can attest, was a spectacular choice.)

I’ve also been back at the crafting. 2009 marked a new tradition — the inaugural year of homemade cards. Not cheesy scrap-booky-kinds but collage-y ones hacked out of magazines and pasted on beautiful cream papers from Granville Island’s Opus. I likey.

Here is one of my favourites:

Also, I made a ton of my little magnets. I love sorting through bins of paper and meticulously cutting circles… It’s a little bizarre considering the fact I normally hate this kind of monotony.

Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la.

:::

To view more picture of our little munchkin, click here.

I’ve found my Christmas crafting inspiration! Ornaments! Thank you, Anthropologie.

I’ve decided to give my typewriter a place of prominence in our home: on our coffee table. Part aesthetic and part practicality, I think it is a lovely statement of the centrality of words in our world. Many more letters will be written this way, I think. 

A side note about our home: We are moving. But not far. We are selling our condo but are staying the neighbourhood. We have worked so hard to make this area feel like home. We are falling in love with our new little church, we run into more neighbours each day, and we’ve developed a rhythm here in our little neck of the woods. Speaking of woods, we will be living closer to the ravine where Madeleine and I take our daily walks!

Stay tuned about the details of our new digs…

Emotionally, motherhood is the deepest well from which I’ve ever drank. The Chantal Kreviazuk quote I shared the other day speaks to this. I feel a new lease on life. Freedom. A peace with myself. An altered view of the world.

… Afternoons are spent speaking to trees. Walking through the ravine behind our house, infant in arms, smiling at sunflower gold and the rainbow of rust dancing off branches … 

Spiritually, motherhood is a deep well. There is a sensitivity and awareness growing through the stillness that’s demanded of me.

… I gather up moments of reflection like a blind man reaching out for a steady hand …

Intellectually, socially, and actively, motherhood has seemed abysmal. I don’t expect it to remain this way but I don’t view it as a failure either. For the first time in my life I am the last to know. My evenings are spent inquiring of the day’s affairs from my husband. I gobble up front pages as I pass them by at the grocery store. No reason to purchase the paper, it won’t get read. I am still working on my third story from last weekend’s Globe and Mail. 

Creatively, I can envision motherhood being a deep well. Pictures, projects and stories are steeping in my mind. But where are the moments to write them? Pencil them? Paint them? Collage them? My hands are tied to my child.  

I must trust the hours are coming…

The well is waiting.