too much is not enough
computer drawing by me
I watched a woman getting out of her Hummer in front of a shop the other day. She climbed out of the vehicle, then hoisted her two year old daughter down. The woman and girl looked freakishly small beside rubber and metal and glass, like the opposite of that old circus trick where a string of clowns, bearded ladies, and the like pour out of the smallest car possible. Here was the American version – the inhabitants were the ridiculous objects, dwarfed by their possession.
To lampoon this woman beside her enormous vehicle would be the easier thing. It would be a good excuse to say ‘at least I don’t have that car- now that is really obscene’ — much more difficult is reigning in the boundaries of my own desires; much more trying is confessing what it was I so urgently needed to buy, why I was even at the shops that day.
For inspiration to buy less, I sometimes check out adbusters
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Filed under drawings, motherhood, the world we live in | Comment (0)little man
Photo by Billy
Will is nearly five months old now and we call him ‘little man’ because of his knitted brow, his enormous imploring eyes, the way his pants sit so high on his belly. We call him that because of the cleft in his chin and his bewilderment at the unfathomable pace of the world.
As if he is a little old man, we feed him soft, ripe things:
banana and avocado mashed smooth.
Will makes unexpected, comical faces as the food touches his lips,
as if these are the most exotic, most beautiful foods in the world.
Billy and I hover ever ready with the next tiny spoonful-
“open up, little man,” we cajole, we whisper-
our eyes as wide and expectant as a child’s.
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Filed under motherhood, photographs | Comments (2)the lost woods behind our house
Photo by Billy
They are tearing down the woods behind our house, the ones we watch out of the back windows; the woods made up of proud, towering trees, mostly deciduous, tinged this time of year in orange and gold. Fat groundhogs, gray foxes, venture out from these woods. Bashful deer, emboldened by hunger, brave our dogs to munch on loriepe and ivy. I want William to grow up knowing wild, natural spaces.
I wish they’d work to the side of our house, where there are junky woods full of poke and poison ivy. Flimsy pines shoot up out of shallow roots and fall after heavy rains. These side woods house an understory of invasives: potato vine, multiflora rose, Japanese honeysuckle, all ripe for clearing, if something must be cleared.
But they are not clearing the sides – they are clearing the back woods, beyond the stream. With loud, heavy machines they level acres of earth, kill the deepest roots of trees even beyond their plot; healthy trees where cardinals, blue jays, and even that hawk we saw all summer, live. They will replace those ever-changing, irreplaceable woods with flimsy, unremarkable, overpriced houses.
They work, we watch, and William will not even remember.
This book sounds interesting: Last Child in the Woods.
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Filed under motherhood, photographs, the world we live in | Comment (0)his own good effort
Mom and William, Photo by Michael Johnson
Lately, when I lay Will down on his back, he tries to flip over. Bucking and arching, he works out a system of torque and weight. He knits his brow, contracts his muscles, and sheiks gleefully at his own good effort. But then when it becomes obvious that he does not yet possess the skills to turn over, he becomes exasperated, frustrated, piteous – like a turtle on its back. I hover, wanting to nudge him over or else rescue him.
I resist intervening as long as possible. Parenthood makes it plain that struggle itself is necessary, bearing the seeds from which all accomplishments spring. Sadly, it seems that no matter how much you love a person, you cannot suffer even small difficulties to spare them – without vanquishing, in equal measure, their rewards.
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Filed under motherhood, photographs | Comment (0)paring down
computer drawing by me
Your story starts as the seed of an idea, and then, with luck, words spill out onto the page. For hours, days, weeks your writing swells with possibilities. Your story wants to grow up to be a doctor, a lawyer, a diplomat; it wants to run for president and change the world.
Then comes the work of focused paring down, massive restructuring, cutting away whole sections. This hurts a little, but it is for the greater good. Your story becomes leaner, more humble–important for its singularity–like a favorite teacher, or a old friend you love with ambivalence, or the guy you sat behind in civics class who always made you smile.
Always helpful are other readers to tell you what your story is and could be. A friend turned me on to Zoetrope.com Virtual Studio, an on line community of writers workshopping each others stories, screenplays and more, brought to you by Francis Ford Coppola. I like it; maybe you would, too.
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