Monthly Archives: April 2009

Weird New World

Posted on
15

Today, because I live in the land of the teenaged, I spoke to Charlie,  who is upstairs in the kitchen as I write this (from downstairs in my office), on Facebook chat.  And you know what?  It was sort of fun.  Tone of voice, which can so easily derail a conversation with someone you love who also happens to be under the influence of, well, whatever it is that makes you a teenager, is entirely absent when you type.  No one rolls his eyes.  No one raises her voice.  No one expresses disdain or impatience or irritation.  Maybe we need to spend the next four years texting and twittering and chatting.

I am beginning to see the charm of micro-communication.  140 characters need not always be superficial communication.  Those 140 characters can add up to something quite substantial when they are partof an ongoing series of micro communications.  On Facebook, I know when my friends are happy or worried or feeling elated. I can see the shifts in their moods, the moments that make up their days and what they really, really like to eat.  (Who knew there was such a thing as a sushi burrito?)  And because the price of admission to Facebook for my children was that they had to publicly acknowledge me as their friend,  I know when my child isn’t too crazy about school, or misses Easter, or is loving his freedom this weekend.  I don’t DO anything about any of this — except maybe a thumbs up (not to the teenagers — they really don’t want your thumbs on their facebook page) and an observation or two of my own.  But all this information accumulates into a sense of who people are — or who they want to be, or who they’re working toward being.  It’s terribly interesting and awfully weird, but really quite wonderful too.

Happy Birthday

Posted on
7

It’s Shakespeare’s official birthday today and, in celebration, William and Jack’s school had a poetry recitation.  William recited a poem by Billy Collins that really cracks me up, so I am giving it to you today, in honor of both William, the son, and William, the writer of all those sonnets, and comedies, and tragedies and histories and the other plays which are harder to classify, and also in honor of Poetry Month in general.

Another Reason Why I Don’t Keep A Gun In The House

The neighbors’ dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.

The neighbors’ dog will not stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,

and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
his head raised confidently as if Beethoven
had included a part for barking dog.

When the record finally ends he is still barking,
sitting there in the oboe section barking,
his eyes fixed on the conductor who is
entreating him with his baton

while the other musicians listen in respectful
silence to the famous barking dog solo,
that endless coda that first established
Beethoven as an innovative genius.

Billy Collins

Spring!

Posted on
13

I am aware that it appears as though I’ve been loading up my  u-haul for the last three weeks in preparation for my move to the East Coast, where I will be pitching a tent in the Guilford Green and taking showers in the Guilford Free Library, because I will have no home and no job there when I arrive.

But, in fact, that’s not what happened after my recent trip to the east coast.  I got home to Berkeley.  Spring’s arrival is unambiguous.  Poppies everywhere.  Jasmine blooming in huge bunches.   Meyer lemons bursting on our bush outside.  How could I live anywhere but where I live?  And so I became distracted from blogging and everything else, and for three weeks I’ve been picking bunches of blooming things and coloring easter eggs and cooking stuff.   Lovely.  

While doing all that, I’ve been thinking about this particular time in my life.  Spring is universal and timeless.  It comes.  It goes.   Things burst into life and then they are dormant.  Against that backdrop though, my children are becoming teenagers — a season I won’t ever see again, but one I love watching from a distance.  

What I’ve noticed is that this  bursting-into-life, their spring, is actually pretty wonderful.  Adolescence is a time of big, gusty emotion, which can be a pain to deal with and can really unbalance a woman who isn’t used to that kind of drama (except when she’s doing it).  It’s also, though, a hugely fun time.  My kids are mischievous — they tease each other and me, and although I know that doesn’t sound like a big thing, I love it that they feel enough freedom to give me a hard time about listening to Lady GaGa.   I also love it that Lady GaGa, with her many weird outfits exists this spring.  And my kids are excited about being freer, about going to a big urban high school in the fall, about finding their own way — on the bus and at that school and then into the bigger world.  

This weekend, Jack’s performing in Rigoletto — he has three lines on that huge stage, but he belts them out beautifully.  And Charlie?  He’s jumping off things on his skateboard that are very big — and spinning around when he does it and then landing and looking like it was all no big deal.  (While he wears the helmet I force him to wear).  It’s scary and exciting and fun to watch them.  I love being the mother of these kids, love the way they’re stepping onto the stage and launching themselves into life.  

Happy Spring!