Because I Can't

Music is not one of my talents. Yes, this might seem odd coming from a guy who has five guitars, but it's largely true: I have very little talent for music. I've got a tin ear, can't read music to save my life, and Deborah has been so baffled by my sense of rhythm over the years that she doesn't even comment on it anymore.

So why am I doing this?

I publicly committed myself to playing an offertory with Paul. Why? Because cello and bass sound so cool together? Yes, but also, because it's the only way I'll get better.

I'm not normally one to sit down and practice every day, just for the sake of practice itself. I need a reason. I am told that mountain climbers will occasionally put themselves into positions where the only way they can go is up. "When the only way you can go is up," I read, "you jolly well go up."

Same deal: I volunteer for public performances precisely because I'm bad at it. It might take me a month, I might have to painstakingly figure out each note, and practice until my fingers bleed, but I will get it. I will play.

And, in the end, play I did.

I forgot to bring the camera to record our final performance together, which in many respects is just as well. The fact that I made it through a difficult piece (well, an easy piece I'd made difficult by trying to play two parts at once!) will have to be the reward — learning, stretching, climbing that mountain, not because it's there, not because I can — but because I can't.

Cookie Love

We were still working through our stash of Halloween candy when Deborah bought candy canes for Christmas. I groaned: We're given enough sweets, and we go through them so slowly, that I figured I'd be finding dessicated, sticky canes at the bottom of the candy bowl next Halloween. I was still occasionally pointing this out around Valentine's day when Deborah told me she had plans for those candy canes.

Well. I can complain no longer.

Deborah sealed the candy canes in bags, and let the kids go at them with hammers. Then, she took her already-excellent dark chocolate cookies — the ones that burn delightfully with unexpected cayenne, and instead of decorating them in the usual way, mixed the candy cane fragments into frosting, and made sandwich cookies together with the kids.

Did I say I complained? Let me go back and strike out all mention of my complaining. Deborah can buy all the candy canes she wants at Christmas. These were good. Dangerously good.

Fiona made this one especially for me. I melted.

It got me thinking about the nature of love, as well. The more I looked at this cookie, the more I realized how much had gone into it. How many analogies for love could I find in this one cookie?

I came up with a bunch: Love is ...generous and overflowing; dark, and surprising (particularly when red pepper is mixed in!); drawn from the past, and applied to the present; giving good things despite whining... but in the end, I kept coming back to one that defined it all:

Love is inexpertly applied, with great enthusiasm.

Wait, I thought I had seven more years...

...but Fiona seems ready to be a teenager already:

OK, so the 'do was for "Crazy Hair Night" at church, but the expression wasn't prompted!

That's How We Roll

As I found them

Often, as I'm walking through the house, I'll come across something the kids have been playing with, and have left to go do something else. Most of the time, the kids aren't there to explain what it was, so one just has to wonder what they were playing when they made these creations...

I can't help but wonder... is he breathing fire? Is it a speech bubble, and he's warning the other dinosaurs about the coming comet?

I'm not sure about this one, either, but I'm sure it would make a pretty good children's story.

Fiona wants to know....

...what this symbol means:

She found it on the lid to a jar of applesauce. She said I could look it up on the internet (the source of all answers, obviously!) but I haven't had any luck so far. Maybe you know?

Being Amazing

Deborah and I watched Julie & Julia the other night. If you haven't seen it, do: It's a very sweet, funny movie, and very well worth your time. For those who haven't seen it, it's the parallel stories of a bored diplomat's wife in Paris (Julia Child) who learns French cooking as something to keep her occupied, and a frustrated writer/government secretary (Julie Powell) who decides to work through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year, and blog about the process.

In both lives, separated by many decades, there's the question, What should I do with myself? and the relatively straightforward answer, What do you want to do? What are you good at? Each attacks the challenge with gusto.

It's a question that hits close to home, for nearly everyone, but also here. Deborah, especially, has been vacillating on the question of what to do with herself. My weak admonition — usually on my way out the door — is "Be amazing."

Of course, that gets interpreted in various ways. I leave it open-ended: washing all the dishes is amazing; so is calling up friends to organize a get-together, trying new recipes, teaching Fiona to play the piano. They all count. The stuff that doesn't count? It's the stuff that fills up most of our time in between planned activities — little games, Facebook, idle clicking through channels, blogging (no!), things that don't advance the cause of anything. Now, don't get me wrong — we all need down time. But we need up time, too. How many of us while away the hours and never go do something amazing? I know I'm guilty.

Be amazing.

I wish it were that easy.

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.
Ecclesiastes 9:10

Wild Irises

Love should grow up like a wild iris in the fields,
unexpected, after a terrible storm, opening a purple
mouth to the rain, with not a thought to the future,
ignorant of the grass and the graveyard of leaves
around, forgetting its own beginning.
Love should grow like a wild iris
but does not.

Love more often is to be found in kitchens at the dinner hour,
tired out and hungry, lingers over tables in houses where
the walls record movements, while the cook is probably angry,
and the ingredients of the meal are budgeted, while
a child cries feed me now and her mother not quite
hysterical says over and over, wait just a bit, just a bit,
love should grow up in the fields like a wild iris
but never does
really startle anyone, was to be expected, was to be
predicted, is almost absurd, goes on from day to day, not quite
blindly, gets taken to the cleaners every fall, sings old
songs over and over, and falls on the same piece of rug that
never gets tacked down, gives up, wants to hide, is not
brave, knows too much, is not like an
iris growing wild but more like
staring into space
in the street
not quite sure
which door it was, annoyed about the sidewalk being
slippery, trying all the doors, thinking
if love wished the world to be well, it would be well.

Love should
grow up like a wild iris, but doesn't, it comes from
the midst of everything else, sees like the iris
of an eye, when the light is right,
feels in blindness and when there is nothing else is
tender, blinks, and opens
face up to the skies.

— Susan Griffin