Celebrations (and the smaller explosions)

Spring is such an explosion of life already, and with our lives tied into the University schedule, it is also the culmination of all classes and arts events - so much to see and do!!  So here is a blurry whirlwind of what the last week or so has held for us...

Eliza had a week of triumph and excitement: she finished a year-long math program that she's been working on, she won second place and a cash prize in an Earthday contest for a bag made of recycled pants, and had her first dance concert with the hiphop class she's been loving since September. Huzzah!!

there she is in the middle!

There was such good energy on stage when her class came out; it was such a fun dance and they all enjoy themselves so much.  It was awesome.

Ani, Eliza and Esme

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It was May Day this week, of course, so down to the farm for a little Beltane celebration.

The girls might not know that May Day isn't something everyone celebrates, but we started a tradition when they were young and you know how those go...doesn't everyone take a honey bath on May Day? We picked some blossoms on our way home from the farm, tossed them in the bathwater, lit some candles, and talked about the things we most love about our bodies as we washed them down with handsful of honey: strong legs, sharp eyes, hard-working feet. Smooth skin and "I don't have a word for this feeling, mama, but I'm feeling..." "Content?" asks Eliza. "Yeah. It feels like a new year."  Ahh, lovely. Time for bed.

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One year ago Dan was working on revisions on his dissertation, his advisor was giving a talk in Sweden, and I was in Jerusalem.  He decided not to walk in the commencement ceremony.  A month ago he told me that he wanted to walk this year.  Never too late for some closure!  Commencement ceremonies are understandably long affairs, and I had some good time to think about how hard he has worked since we moved here - weathering the doubts and frustrations, the pains of a growing brain and his commitment to balancing family with school.  The best advice he received from his advisor along the way (in my opinion) was to keep family a priority.  He told him, you don't want to finish your degree and find that you no longer have a marriage.  Good man. We made it!!

I love ritual and ceremony, and I was so proud to watch my husband pass through this milestone in this public way.  It felt important, even a year later.

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Then there were the slow bits...homeschool learning coop, picnics, reading, writing, living...

Ani and Ari

Ani had another presentation for her geography class at coop.  This time it was Japan, and she rocked the sushi-making (really, this class should be called "Food Around the World" or something - it's always about the food) and threw out facts about Japan along the way. 

It's spring, so it's been raining and the river and creeks are rising higher than I've seen them before.

How high's the water, mama? Six feet high and risin'...

group haircutting project

Warrior Poet's writing class

Someone I don't know well asked me the other day how I was, and without thinking, I answered "busy".  I immediately heard how that sounded - like busy was a burden, a weight.  The busy I am feeling is so much more inspired than that right now. Yes, there are the days where we long for a "Sunday", which in our family is a euphamism for those days when one thing leads to another, which leads to a lovely hum, and we're all happily involved in whatever we're doing - but Spring is all about the small explosions, the unceasing movement and growth, and we're feeling it inside and out.

Poison Ivy?

Everything grows where we live; abundantly green and lush, our woods are some of the most diverse in the world.  Of course, along with the spring ephemerals and rarities, we have some of the most aggressively growing vines of poison ivy I remember seeing.  Dan has discovered that he is quite allergic, seemingly destined to catch it with the first woodsy golf game of the season, so we have become adept at identifying it.  

I should actually give the credit to Eliza, who is a master of identification and does not have to remind herself, as I do, what she is looking for every spring.  I'll holler, "this one? Is this poison ivy??" and she'll dutifully come and refresh my memory.  It doesn't help that our woods are also full of box elder, which looks surprisingly similar to poison ivy, which was alarming when we first arrived here.  I thought poison ivy grew as big as trees!  Actually, the vines can grow so large that at first they can appear to be a tree.

Ack! Is it a tree?? No! It's a Poison Ivy vine!

Poison Ivy vine on a Walnut tree at Blennerhassett Island

This is what it looks like here this week...Shiny, small, a little sneaky.  The girls reminded me on a hike a few weeks ago that I'd better not squat to pee in the woods this year, 'cause last year let's just say that I saw nothing and found out the hard way that poison ivy had started to grow...

I need a tutorial every spring on what to look out for, so Eliza drew this for me a few years ago, and I find it very handy!

Opposite stem = Box Elder, Alternate stem = Poison Ivy

Hairy vine, shiny leaves, red dot where the three leaves join

Here is another illustration of what alternate stemming looks like. Wasn't it nice of the plant to pose so beautifully against the wall?

Should you find yourself rubbing up against some poison ivy, have a look around for some jewelweed, which is just starting to grow here.  When I'm on the ball I'll puree some jewelweed in the fall and stick it in an ice-cube tray for those first encounters with poison ivy in the spring.  The stem is juicy and if you break it open and rub it on the contact area, it will help to counteract the chemical urushiol in the poison ivy and can prevent or minimize a reaction.  This works best if you treat it within minutes of contact with poison ivy.  Dan reacts so quickly that last year he actually took a poison ivy pill - meaning, a pill that contained poison ivy, as a homeopathic preventative.  You have to take it before you have contact with the plant or it can exacerbate your reaction.  I have to say, it was the first year in many that he did not have a terrible rash at some point in the summer...

the poem from my pocket

When you can't find the poem

you want, the one that travels

out to the frozen river

at dusk, and listens

for the first crack

of ice breaking

apart, revealing veins

of pewter and white

in the dark, that moment

when meaning opens, a current

under the rigid surface

loosening, beginning to pull

the world along

into the first days

of spring, into the question

that answers everything - seems

to answer everything - 

when that poem

will not be found, you must

celebrate its small life

with another

 ~ Wendy McVicker
If you are not fortunate enough to have this poem handed to you in passing with Wendy herself, it can be found in the collection A Ritual to Read Together: Poems in Conversation with William Stafford.

hello, buckeye!

"Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night." Rilke

pear tree

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pysanky egg decorating

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Trillium - photo by Eliza

Pesto from market ramps, redbuds sprinkled over everything, the sweet smell of onion grass as the grass in the neighborhood is mowed, every flowering tree has exploded into fireworks...hikes, decorating eggs, feasting with loved ones, dance recitals, story-writing - it can feel so busy, but maybe it's just full.

nobody loves me true like you do*

Yes, she is fierce.  Fiercely funny. Fierce in her loving. 

Fiercely loyal and so wicked smart. 

She is my little sister.

Goofball, playmate, wrestler and driver-of-long-distances. Oh my gosh, we love you.

She cleans out our grossest cupboards. She's the keeper of the birthday wish lists.  She's the one who doesn't laugh that you have a "grown-up size tricycle" on your list, and tells you to keep putting it on there, 'cause one day who knows?? (Same story with "puppy", thank goodness)

Lovely lady. She had me in belly laughs for much of this visit - once because I just knew we were thinking the very same thing while watching a dance concert and the shaking of the seats was unbearable, like trying not to laugh in church. I thought we might bust, but we lived to do our own version of the dance (grapevine quickly across the floor and then FALL) whenever the mood strikes us.  She remembers the pop songs I remember from junior high (and plays them for me so I can dance in the kitchen when I should be washing dishes or something more useful) and can harmonize to the song we made up once when we were kids on a long car trip across Europe.

Oh yeah, and she has this amazing child who is a sister to my girls. Maybe even better than a sister, with all the deep love and less of the bickering.  This girl sparkles and only sits still to write and draw with her cousins.

Wake up and PAINT

Writing, writing, writing...so many stories.

When my girls are feeling less than grateful about having a sister, I remind them that mine became closer to me than I imagined possible.  One day maybe they will be that lucky.

SISTERS! photo by Lucy

*lyric by Andrea Wittgens