thankful for uncles
Photos by Billy and Papa
William is thankful for his uncles: my brother Greg and Billy’s brother Steve, who we got to see this Thanksgiving at Mimi’s house; I am thankful for the value they place in seeing him.
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Filed under family matters, photographs | Comment (0)bringing william back
car portrait: six hours to South Carolina and six hours back last weekend
Photo by Billy
He’s not even listening to you, the woman working at the Holiday Inn in said.
Really, Lady? I wanted to say. Instead I asked if there was any semblance of a lawn around the hotel.
William had run up ahead, but at least he waited at the side door. At least when we walked outside it was balmy for November, and under the heat, William’s boisterous movements seemed small, inconsequential.
For a half hour, I watched as William collected acorns, kicked up dried pine needles masquerading as mulch, halted at massive ant hills.
Another ant hill, Mama? he asked.
We’d driven six hours to Lexington the morning before, and were preparing for six hours back. Mesmerized by much media, and under the haze of familial love for Grandma and Papa and Uncle and Nesa, William was mostly compliant for our trip. Except for a notably painful night not sleeping and an equally restless breakfast at the Holiday Inn.
Back home in Charlottesville, I still feel foolish, embarrassed. He’s not even listening to me. I know this is my responsibility, the very crux of parenthood: to moderate someone else’s movements and desires.
I vow to be so much better. To not shy from mandates. To follow through. To try again and again. To bring William back.
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Filed under family matters, motherhood, photographs | Comments (2)mimi and the museum
Photos by Billy
Thank goodness for Mimi, here taking our inquisitive boy to explore at the Children’s Museum
check out artist Marta Sanchez’s latest here
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Filed under family matters, motherhood, photographs | Comment (0)a true weekend
Special edition C.L.A.W, Charlottesville Ladies Arm Wrestlers, with Jennifer dressed in honor of celebrity attendee: John Waters
Photos by Billy
Getting ready and going to the Live Art’s Gala and Afterglow
copyright Will May
Gala overview by the lovely, talented Will May
Wednesday has always been ‘humpday’, but since motherhood I’ve lost my sense of the arc of the workweek; that uphill climb beginning begrudgingly Monday morning and ending with a precipitous fall into Friday night. For me, parenthood integrated work and play and week and end into one wide-eyed thing. It wove even those dark hours when one ought to be mindlessly asleep into a new kind of vigilance: What if the baby wakes?
But this past weekend was like a true weekend. The old school kind. The kind when from Friday through Sunday you completely lose your everyday self. And you stay up late, or sleep in, or take a nap. And giddy on sleep or sleeplessness, you see people and go places and polish your nails and coat your lashes.
I can’t say for sure which is better. Enlightened types might say the integrated, woven week, and some rainy Mondays I’m inclined to agree. It’s all time, Monday through Sunday, and all the same ticking.
But the girl in me, the lost and irrelevant and sometimes impatient one is sure that a true weekend is better. Better, she says, to have that unevenness; that mind numbing grind of the regular week, and then the free fall into Friday night.
This weekend we attended C.L.A.W, went to the Live Arts Gala, enjoyed Mimi as master babysitter, and spent Sunday afternoon at the park. What did you do this weekend? What is a true weekend to you?
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Quintessential fall day romping in a leaf pile at the park
fall back
Jack-o-lanterns and dressing up…Frida Kahlo is the coolest, right?
Photos by Billy
What does this moment require of you? the woman on the radio said.
I drive to work listening and listing out the day’s plans, barely noticing the deluge of of leaves raining down on the road.
Later I watch William,
fold laundry,
and update my Facebook status about something other than those things.
I write up fifth grade lessons; place peanut-buttered pills in the dog’s slobbery mouth, thinking already of the next thing to come.
Whole moments lost in a fog of fumbling forward.
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Filed under family matters, photographs | Comment (1)mamping
William and Billy and friends ‘mamping’, that is man-camping, a few weeks back. William’s only request: Girls next time.
Photos by Billy
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