Finally, it's Friday, and the sun is shining and we have a long happy weekend to look forward to. Bea is especially happy because she has just received a very special present, as you can see. At nearly four, she's exactly the right age to have a stylish bouncy horse to ride. She
has a plush horse named Floory, and a plush unicorn named Chuckster, both of which she occasionally stuffs into the sofa cushions. Ah, the long lovely days of childhood, and the joyful lack of responsibility for explaining yourself. Why shouldn't a unicorn be stuffed into a sofa cushion? Why not, indeed?
I just finished reading a wonderful book by Alison Lurie about the subversive nature of children's literature. In the book, which is called Don't Tell the Grownups, Lurie notes that the favorite stories of children have characters that are daring and sometimes even naughty. Take for example Peter Rabbit. He broke all the rules and lost his best jacket and nearly got whacked by the farmer...but then he got away and ran home to be scolded/cuddled by his mother and put to bed with only a cup of chamomile tea for his supper. This is the plot line that has captured generations of child readers. No one would want to be Flopsy or Mopsy or Cottontail if they could be Peter instead.
So Bea is out there on the deck bouncing on her bouncy horse today. In no time, she'll want to ride a real pony. Then she'll be like her Aunt Sara: she'll want to ride a real horse. And so it goes. And we love her, and we want her to have everything she might ever want or need.
Lastly, we ourselves--and by that I mean myself and all the rest of Bea's family and friends--must allow Bea time and room to think and to explore and to imagine. We can begin by allowing ourselves those privileges. We all need to test the boundaries of what we can think, do and achieve. A bouncy horse is just the first step, but at least it's a step in the right direction. Hi-ho, Silver, and awaaaaay!

Friendship across a lifetime

Bea is very tender with Leda, because she knows that Leda is very very old. Leda was enchanted with Bea when Bea was a newborn. She loved to watch over Bea as she slept. Now it's Bea's turn to watch over Leda.

On Sunday evening, I came to stay with Bea while her parents went out for dinner. She was in a very giggly mood. I had brought some fresh flowers and we spent quite a bit of time arranging and re-arranging them in a vase. This is a fascinating home-schooling activity, because we practiced sorting, naming, shaping, separating colors, discussing parts of the flower and so on. It was low-key, though, and a lot of fun. Bea is forever ready to learn something new. She loves the variety of things we talk about and do. We had a delicious pasta dish and some apple slices for dinner, followed by a bowl of Trader Joe's (Bea calls it "Traitor Joe's") honey-nut Cheerios, which Bea pronounced to be the "best Cheerios in the whole wide world."

When darkness came, Bea and I began calling for Leda to come into the house. We might as well have saved our breath. Leda is deaf, I'm sure. She might be able to hear a whistle, but she is very much an independent spirit. She wouldn't necessarily feel a need to respond. Where she goes when she wanders off in the woods in her geriatric drifty moods is something to ponder. I hope I don't get like her too soon. And if I do, I hope at least, like Leda, when the lights come on, I can find my way back to the house.

Please curtsey to the Valentine Queen. Bea worked very hard to make this imaginative crown, and I think it suits her well.

Valentine's day is a day when we remember with gratitude that we are here in this world because of love. When we were too small to care for ourselves, someone cared for us. And this unearned and unasked for kindness--for how can a tiny baby ask for anything?--made the difference between life and death. We have been given life. Let's enjoy it! Here is my poem of celebration!

How we survived

Someone made a place for us,

though the river was frozen,

wrapped us in skins to keep us warm,

while others did not survive the winter.

Though the river filled with ice,

someone searched for game or roots;

though some were dying of hunger

someone pounded corn and made bread.

Game cooked in the fire, bread in ashes,

Somehow we survived the winter

Someone saw that we did not die hungry.

By spring the water began to flow freely.

In time we had children of our own

Born when the river gave up its ice

We made them a place by the fire,

Remembering how we ourselves survived.

Day after day, we pounded corn.

We made sure the children had full bellies,

In spring, the river resumed its long ramble.

We bathed the children in its waters.

In summer, we harvested squash and beans

To fill our children’s empty bellies,

The river gave us fish and mussels;

we fed them to the children.

Like me, Tutu only travels through the snow when she absolutely has to.

It's only rain today for us here in the North Carolina Piedmont. We're the lucky ones. We would be overwhelmed by the amount of snow that the states just above us are getting.

When it's really bad outside, I remember when I was a child and our little house was warmed by a coal-burning stove in the living room. When it snowed, Mother cooked beans in a pot on top of the stove and baked biscuits down at the bottom where the ash pan was. Beans and biscuits? Not a bad supper!

If only we could all just dwell on the positive side of our memories. Many dollars are being paid these days to people who are still wounded by childhood incidents of abuse or rejection. I say, let the dead bury the dead. Instead of reopening the old wounds, declare yourself healed and spend your money on a trip to a warmer clime. There are folks whom I know very well who are wounded by their parents. They have come to expect pain in all their relationships, and if they don't find it, they create it. When you are really ready to put aside all the drama and just be simply happy in the present, you are well on the way to healing. Now take Tutu, for instance. She is clearly not taking a quiet stroll in the snow. She is doing what she has to do so that she can return to her snug catbed and drift off into kitty dreamland. Tutu respects herself too much to cause herself discomfort. If only human beings could just be as wise as she.

Well you never know about snowmen. This one turned up with antlers and a copperbottom pot on his frosty pow. Somehow they suit him!

Tim, my son-in-law, looks rather Tolstoyan in his black cap. For all we know, this scene might have come from the Russian steppes! How cool!

The recent snowfall has complicated things for many of us. It takes folks like Tim and Bea to show us that art cannot be suppressed by precipitation.

Since I could not get to work yesterday, I read Elizabeth Bowen's 1937 novel The Death of the Heart. Bowen is noted for her novels set between the first and second World Wars, when cynicism and innocence clashed at the highest levels of society. We are in just such an environment now. Our children deserve the right to a childhood free of anxiety and bewilderment. But how can we give them that when we as adults have become cynical beyond belief? Our innocence died with John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe. Many of us have lost our religious faith. Many of us have been the victims of agencies that should have been looking out for our welfare. The AMA? Wall Street? Toyota? They've let us down.

We have to go to the children with their antlered pothead snowmen and say, "We will not let you grow up in a world of falsehood. We will protect your innocence, as ours was once protected. And we will not leave you a legacy of debt and war." And then, we must do what we have promised.

A Woman of Mystery

I know just how Bea feels as she peers through her magic magnifying glass at an ever-more-mysterious world. How can things be so blissful one moment and so terrible the next? We will have to teach her (as if we ourselves knew) how to roll with the punches.

I was stunned to hear about the destruction of the city of Port Au Prince, Haiti. Why would an earthquake strike the capital of one of the poorest nations on earth, where people are already struggling for existence? If I were a traditional believer, I'd be asking, "Where was God when this was happening?"

But as I look at the photos and videos coming from Haiti, I know that God is there--in the hearts and hands of people helping each other, and in the generous donations and prayers offered by folks of all nationalities and beliefs for the relief of the stricken. Most of all, I behold the Christ spirit in the people who are coming from other countries to set up hospitals for the wounded and to reconstruct the homes and buildings that have been destroyed.

God doesn't make bad things happen. Sometimes (often) people make terrible things happen. And sometimes it's just Nature. We are spiritual beings in human bodies and we are subject to the workings of our planet. What is a disaster for many is also an opportunity for many to reach out with kindness and tenderness to our fellows.

In this photo, Bea is the watcher and Monkey and Paco are her children. She is only a little child now, but already she is conscious of a world bigger than her home, bigger than her yard, even bigger than her city. I pray for her that she will be a generous and loving woman, and that she will be God when there is help to be given to others. And I pray, too, that she will be forever under the protection of the Universe, where the Mystery dwells.

Here is a photo of Bea with her cat Tutu. Tutu used to be named Chloe, but after Bea came along and started calling her Tutu, now we all call her Tutu. And she couldn't care less.

I have to admit that all the women in our family are pretty commanding. If you were being held hostage in a foreign land, with a knife at your throat, no sight would be prettier to your desperate eyes than the women of our family coming to your rescue.

We are simply tough and determined.

Recently an old friend said to me, you are too independent to tolerate a husband. Tolerate a husband?

Is that what I'm supposed to do?

Surely not!

A husband is someone to cherish. I have, in my lifetime, cherished not only husbands, but several lovers and boyfriends. I have cooked for them, done their laundry, paid their bills, remembered their family's birthdays and treated them with all the tenderness I could muster.

However, I have never tolerated any of them, and perhaps that is my failing.

This is a new year, and I believe that it is going to be a great one. I believe that all of us are going to move forward in our lives, and if we've been stuck in a rut since last Fall, we're going to break free and strike out in a new direction. I have never been afraid to reinvent myself, nor have I quailed at seeing my daughters reinvent themselves. Sometimes it's necessary and lifesaving to just pull up your roots and plant them in healthier ground.

I pray for my children and I pray for my country. We haven't always lived up to our own standards. We have gone astray (or ganged agley, if you're Scottish) and we have self-corrected and started over. This is a good a time as any to do it again. Forward!