the busy heart

Honey Dewlicious Melon And then, one morning this past week, I felt settled. I cut up a melon for breakfast, and it was in the top five most delicious melons I've ever tasted. The three of us sat at the table, eating melon (or rejecting it wholeheartedly, in the case of Henrietta) and talking. The house was in good enough shape that I cleaned up easily, without stepping around enormous boxes or having to look at a baffling mess in the living room while I did it. We had all rested. We had things to do which didn't seem like pressing emergencies in order for us to live in this place. We could just be here, working out our days in this new house with the big, green trees out our windows. The view from our bedroom window I'm not sure why exactly, but so far Alabama--the place itself--hasn't been the difficult transition I expected. It is undeniably beautiful here, which I'm sure helps. On my way to Target I pass green fields full of horses and the most incre...

I woke up this morning to the insane news in Boston and spent the day hearing about places not far from our old house mentioned on the news, and receiving updates from friends via Facebook. Stuck inside, they reported eerie silence aside from near-constant sirens and circling helicopters. Some had law enforcement run through their backyards carrying machine guns. Some had them knock on their door and ask to search every room. The suspects lived a few blocks from friends of ours. One of them attended the community college Sam used to teach at. Right now we're listening to reports of police zeroing in on a house that's a two minute drive from our old place. I've been thinking of Boston all week, feeling like I couldn't possibly speak to what happened, not directly. That all I could really do is speak of my little corner of it, while acknowledging what a very small corner it was-- which is what I tried to do on Monday , but it didn't sit right with me, didn't fee...

Usually the mean voice in my head shows up in the evening, when it's almost time for bed. And I start to despair and say really hopeless things, and Sam has to practice remembering that I don't actually think they're true , I'm just exhausted. And exhaustion manifests so much like sadness, for me. But today she showed up much earlier, while I was getting dressed for the day. I went to get a dress from my wardrobe, and I told Sam, "The mean voice in my head came out early today." "Did she? What's she saying?" he said. "Do you really want to know? Like, what she's actually trying to tell me?" "Sure," he said. "In the last two minutes, she's said the following: My thighs are disgusting. I'm a worthless human because I haven't vacuumed yet. I should stop blogging because it doesn't matter anyway, it's not really writing. I have neglected to mail x and scan and email y and write to z, and I...

I don't how it is for everyone else, but I definitely had that feeling, when they sent us home from the hospital, that maybe it wasn't a good idea to send the baby home with me . I mean, I liked her well enough, but I wasn't a mom . I was just a person who had a baby. And while that identity has been slowly solidifying ever since, I really think I became a mom--or at least gained some confidence as one--in a single moment when she was about three weeks old. This is how it went down. Sam had been on a work-related trip for three days. Well, one full day and two half days, but it felt like three years. She of course screamed most of the night the first night he was gone, and I only got her to calm down and sleep by taking her out to my car at one a.m. and driving around until she zonked out. I spent the next day--literally, all of it--going to Target, getting her a motorized swing, getting the swing back home and assembling it one-handed while I held her, realizing ...

Greetings, Earthlings. We're developing a routine, the lady and I. Would you like to hear a slice of it? Though she wakes up at various earlier points, she's generally ready to join the world around eight, and she cries to say so, and I creep into her bedroom and peer over the side of her crib, where she's flopping around like a green fish in her green swaddle. And at some point in her flopping and wailing she'll see me standing there, and she'll stop, and she'll look up at me and grin and flex her legs in joy--the full-body smile, my dad calls it. Obviously this is the most significant world event of the morning, this smile. I scoop her up and feed her and change her and pick out her outfit--another favorite task--and bring her down to the kitchen. She kicks and talks to me (so to speak) from her throne--a baby seat I put up on the kitchen island--and I tell her about the day ahead, talking her through the ingredients of my green smoothie and details o...

I posted some Instagram pictures of the nursery on Facebook (oh gosh, I'm getting so social media-y!), and though Instragram pictures are charming, it's hard to really see what's going on in the ones I took, so here are some more, with details. I'm not done with it, but I'm more done than I thought I'd get, so here it is. Here's a shot from (one of the) doorways. (There are three (!) doorways.) I made all of the rugs. Crocheted them from strips of fabric that I cut myself. Should I tell you more about how I did it? They took forever, but they are exactly what I had in mind, and I couldn't find anything like it in the real world. That's the dresser we found on the side of the road. I got the knobs on clearance at Anthropologie (the top two are golden snails, the bottom ones are turquoise-y and gold. It still needs a little love, but I love it. I love that it's full of her little cupcake suits. My dear friends came over and pu...

When I got pregnant again, I began to long for stories, for people to whisper in my ear what this felt like, so I could check it against my own feeling, and open up the experience for me. I didn't exactly know I was craving this until I found these three books and felt myself relax into them, and hold them dear in a way I haven't held books dear in a long time. In case you're in the market for a pregnancy read, or really just a good book, all of these were wonderful. Magnificent even, in some spots. * Great with Child: Letters to a Young Mother by Beth Ann Fennelly.  I've read (and really loved) Beth Ann Fennelly's poetry, so I was excited to discover this book, which is a collection of letters she wrote to a young friend and former student who was pregnant and far away from family. They're loose letters, meandering through her own experiences as a mother to a young child, and her memories of becoming and being pregnant (as well as of a miscarriage). They...

Emily Dickinson House and Museum Last fall Sam and I drove to Western Mass to visit Emily Dickinson's house . I'm slightly (okay, really) obsessed with her. We stayed in a Bed and Breakfast in Petersham, drove to Amherst, paid for the full tour (an hour and a half of Emily magic!) and I basically cried through the entire thing. My reaction sort of surprised me. I held it together okay, but if I would have been alone, I would have really been wailing. I think a lot about that day with Sam. I was pregnant then, which is probably why it's stuck with me. It seemed like the only time we were out and about with that news, wholely happy and clear about it. Even then there were some signs we would lose the pregnancy, but it felt, to me, like we were both clinging to it, grateful to even be where we were as briefly as we would be there.  And I don't know how to explain my tears other than that. I was emotional anyway, an...

There once was a shirt.  It looked like this: It grew too big for me.  Much too big.  But I liked the pattern so much--look at those delightful, firework-y bursts of white!--that I saved and saved it, thinking I must someday do something with it. Yesterday, I did something.  Before work I took that gathered bottom of the shirt and turned it into the top of a skirt.  This was very exciting.  I used the sleeves to give it a bit more length, at which point I had the following:  [I'm shy about the pictures, so I'm posting the awkward ones ...] Not too bad, eh?  I rather liked how it turned out.  I may have gone a bit crazy adding color, but I'm having way too much fun to tone things down.  The skirt is actually just the top piece.  I also made the little lacey petticoat type skirt over the weekend, which is what's underneath here.  I've been wearing it under skirts and dresses that are just a...

                                                          [present house, fireplace guys] We move tomorrow afternoon, and this morning I took one last run through our little neighborhood.  I saw a family of wild turkeys (?), a mama and two baby turkeys, on the side of the road as if waiting for a bus.  We've loved our neighborhood, and not for the wildlife, since that's rare, but because it's just beautiful here.  And on my run I was thinking about all that's happened here in the last year.  A lot, that's what.  So much that it doesn't feel like there's time to go into detail before I go to work, but work is part of it.  Sam and I weathered the bad job situation here....

[I usually forget to smile when I'm taking pictures of myself.  Sam had already left for work, and it took concentration...] It's not the bravest color combination, but I felt pretty.  I've recently caught onto this wearing skirts higher on the waist thing, and I dig it (hides the tummy!).  I don't know why it takes me so long to see trends.  I had to be sitting on the train with a woman standing directly in front of me with her skirt up high and her shirt tucked in to realize ohhhhhhh. 

I'm still not eating treats, and the world is a better place for it. Treats and I don't get along: I love them; they hate me. And so, I drink tea. This makes me feel like something special happens, which is all I'm really looking for when I have a treat. On Saturday we watched "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" (which we LOVED), and I decided to amp up the specialness by cleaning out a decorative teapot and using a pretty cup. One of Sam's students gave him a set of these cups as a gift for writing a letter of recommendation (nice kid, no?). While I like them, I decided I need/want a really fancy teacup. Maybe I'll hit up the thrift store? [cat, teapot] [teapot, husband] [i like this one because he looks like he's pontificating. i think he was telling the cats not to fight.] [girl, tea, a quiet world]

After three full days of outrageous, pummeling, constant rain, the sun is out today. It's nearly 60 degrees, which feels nothing short of a miracle. So after eating my lunch, I decided to walk down to Copley square to drop off some film. I listened to my iPod, watched all of the people taking pictures and eating their lunches and wearing pretty shoes, and felt so happy I thought I'd burst. I was literally just grinning (as in last post) like a fool, giggling occasionally for no reason at all except that life, at the moment, is good. Reasons to rejoice: a. Sam's parents are in town, and they're just lovely people. They take us to dinner and tell me stories about Sam as a wee boy. b. After over a month of searching, I am the swooning owner of a new work bag. See below. I got it on etsy, and probably paid too much, but what else can one do when they see it and gasp and know deep in their heart that they are beholding the bag of their soul? See the pretty insides? S...

Confession: Internet, I am no longer vegan. Gasp. I know. You are shocked, dismayed; you care. Or not. I care, anyway. I've been sheepish about admitting it to my blog, since I was so, all, like, "I'm VEGAN." But whatever. I loved veganing; I feel like some day I'll go back to it, but for now I'm concentrating on other elements of my nutritional life. I still make a lot of veganish recipes, like the following: Raw Cinnamon Raisin Toast . I heard about it on one of my favorite foodie blogs, Heather Eats Almond Butter . Technically, the recipe calls for a dehydrator, but I just put my oven on 170 (lowest setting) and kept the door propped open for a couple hours. I failed to buy raisins, and I couldn't really taste the cinnamon, so it's turned into just regular old bread. Well, to the extent that this can be called bread ... But it's working like bread. Today, for lunch, I brought an enormous salad, and made little open face sandwiches wi...

Don't know if I can capture this experience, but I feel compelled to try. A few weeks ago, when I first started taking the train, I told Sam that watching people wasn't that interesting, because in Boston everyone's a student or young professional, and they pretty much all look the same. I've felt guilty ever since I said that. I knew it meant a piece of me was buried. It didn't mean they weren't interesting, it meant I couldn't see them, and that made me and my writerly self feel very sad. So last night, on the train, I was listening to a podcast ( RadioLab's latest: Animal Minds), and somehow, since my ears were occupied and not my eyesight, I could see how incredible everyone was. It was a crowded train, and I was up higher than about a dozen people, and there were these three kids, three young men (student ages)--and this is the part where I'll fail to describe what happened--they had eyes . I mean, all three of them had these insanely uni...

It's been awhile since I poked my head up and said hello. We moved and it was hard. The semester started and it was busy. We went whale watching (!), and that will be another post. It's late. I taught the third week of my night class tonight, during which this grown up accountant man said, "This class is like going to therapy!" I think that was a good thing, but I can't be sure. We were talking about childhood and identity and innocence and experience. And out of all the things I could pluck out of the hours of my life to tell you, it seems most important to say this: I am, finally, happy. Really happy. Pleased as a peach to be in my life, not really longing for anyone elses'. I can't explain this, really. I was depressed last year, and sick. And all of that seems so clear now: that I simply wasn't okay. Depression makes every moment into a brick; they weigh so much and take so long to stack up and once they're stacked you feel trapped an...

Tonight I went and saw (500) Days of Summer. Sam was more interested in hanging out at home, and the friend I called (check me out, calling friends.) couldn't make it, so I just went on my own. I've gone to a movie on my own once before, but that other movie made me feel crazy, and this movie made me very happy. I loved the music, the clothes, the insides of their houses, the wacky formal stuff they did (split screens and, well, I don't know how to explain it. it was cool.), and the story. After it was over I walked several blocks to my car. It was about to rain so the air was sort of heavy and cool and flashes of lightning lit up the street. I remembered why I love seeing movies at the theater: when I leave, I always feel like I'm in the movie. I think that's particularly true when I watch them by myself, so it's good that the movie was so happy (sort of--I cried at the end) and full of gorgeous details that made you know everything just by the way the l...

* Amara asked about the Nightmare Gallery in Salem . I must say, a love for frightful things is not something Sam and I have in common, so as we were going in to said gallery, while he was saying, "Ohboyohboyohboyohboy," I was saying, "Ohnoohnoohnoohno." But it wasn't bad. It was just a museum of horror movies. The weird part was that after nearly three years of hanging with the Sam, I had seen WAY more of those movies than I ever thought I would. I recognized characters, remembered lines. THAT was the terrifying part. * It's gorgeous outside, just gorgeous. I took a run, lapping up the vitamin D on my bare shoulders. A little puppy insisted on conversing with me. I stopped at the park at the top of that tall-tall hill, sat on the stone wall, looked at the city, and cried for my friend Scott, who died last summer in Provo canyon. Didn't know I was still mourning that. Anyway, aside from that, it was such a happy outing. *The other night I dreamed that Ma...

So today I made fat free vegan waffles and I know you're groaning over there, imagining how hard and icky those would be. But you know what? They rocked. And not as in hard as rocks, but really genuine rocking. Wow they were good. Especially with my special berry sauce, which really isn't special, just tasty. Come to my house. I'll make you healthy waffles. Also, Sam and I went on a walk because it was sunny and gorgeous and there were little tiny flowers, so there are SOME flowers up in this hood. He made me walk up this hill that was enormously steep, which was fine because there was a pretty little park at the top with a stone wall and a view of Boston and happy people were sitting on the stone, and I was in this lovely mood so I kept asking Sam if we could have a picnic some day at this pretty park, and I don't think he was digging my four-year-old-ed-ness. Whatever though, because if I make the food and I put it in a basket and I tell him we're eating...