the busy heart

Elroy Rabbit Henrietta had her first playdate, which is just amusing for me on so many levels. A nice woman in the ward invited us over. I think she could see I was in need of friendship, and since she mentioned having a PhD in medicine, and that she studied art therapy with refugee children in Bosnia, I was curious about her, too. She has a six-month-old girl, whom we'll call Alice, and Alice is the youngest of four. Alice is a big baby. Granted, Hen (we'll try out a nickname, shall we?) is a small baby. Last we checked, she was 9th percentile for weight, and next to Alice, she looked it. Hen's never met a baby aside from her cousins, and in the few weeks since she's seen them, she's grown much more aware. Alice figured her out immediately, and was wide-eyed and chattering, saying hello, hello, little baby. Hen didn't really see her until we set her on the floor in a Bumpo seat, and then, well, then Alice was terrifying. Alice leaned forward to greet her,...

On Sunday we had the best weather of the year.  Sure, it rained, but it was also 77 degrees and mostly quite sunny, so we did the only logical thing: we took a walk along the Charles River.                                  [i didn't get a good pic of sam. he'll thank me for not posting a not-good one.] [boats. we have big plans to ride one of these boats very soon.] I love spring here.  I wish it would feel more springy and less wintery already, but the trees are blooming, and I'm remembering how obsessed I get with them.  When I'm walking downtown, I have to be careful not to run into buildings or cross streets without looking both ways, because all I want to do is look and look at these incredible trees.  I love how dark the bark looks, and how green the green looks--like the freshest thing in th...

Sam and I scored a deal on Groupon to stay at a resort in Vermont . It was lovely, like a castle, and we enjoyed just about every second of our stay. We got massages at the spa, which was Sam's idea. I admit to always being a bit skeptical of massages (strangers touching me? eww?), but I was a full convert. After we were done, we walked around like noodles, very happy and relaxed noodles. We didn't really have set plans for the next day, so we took the scenic slow route home, driving through mountain roads and stopping when we felt like it. I love road-tripping with Sam. We listened to Psapp's album Tiger, My Friend which we both love. (links to two of our favorite songs there.) And then, because he knows this song makes me inexplicably happy, we listened to Hall and Oates "You Make my Dream Comes True" And when the song was over, I didn't have to tell him to restart it. He just did. He knows me so well. I rocked out, dancing in my seat, kissing his hand r...

This pictures seems to capture so many things that are lovely to me. (Did I post it already?) Open windows. A sunny day. Green green leaves. Gauzy pretty curtains. Framed postcards from Europe trip. Decorative object from Portabello Road. Handsome, contemplative, tail-less kitty. Our first apartment in Boston.

I'm teaching right now. Sort of. I'm sitting on the grass with my students and they have their laptops open, writing. The sun's setting, light coming through the trees and bouncing off a big map of the school, so that every time I look up it blinds me. The students are lovely here, bent over their keyboards, young brows furrowed. Can I say their young brows are furrowed? They are. It's not quite as romantic as it sounds. I mean, it's lovely out here, and the sun is well-deserved after an astonishingly gloomy summer. But I think I'm moving back into my depression, old friend. It's arrived fiercely in the last few days, leveled me. It feels shameful. I'm working on kicking it out the door, but who knows how long that could take. The students and I have had a semi-painful discussion about poetry, in which I had to explain why it's not true that "there's no wrong answer." If you can't support it with the text, folks, it do...

I'm running again. Thrice in the last four days. Up (or, often, around) the big hills of our neighborhood, under the pink canopies of blossoms. And before you think it sounds romantic, let me assure you, it ain't pretty. Imagine (or don't, please don't) my hulky frame jouncing and bouncing in a too-small tank top and cropped pants, sweating like the dickens ... you get the idea. People pass me. Not just svelte figures with swinging ponytails. But old men. Old women. Dads pushing strollers at a leisurely pace. Frogs. Snails. Two-year olds with polio. I used to run a lot--several times a week for an hour. I'd listen to a whole episode of This American Life, doubling over laughing when it was funny, little tears mixing with pouring sweat when I was moved. But that was in Mississippi. And since then my health has made it impossible. It's only now, coming out on the other side of all that, that I realize just how impossible it was. Running takes a 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...

We went to this place: A bed and breakfast on Cape Cod. Late at night, in our pretty room called "Moonglow," we sat in reclining chairs facing a big window, looked at the stars, held hands, and talked and talked and talked. Today we drove all the way to Provincetown. It's at the very tip of the Cape. Sam and I have decided that the Cape looks like Popeye's flexed arm. (We don't know if this is a cliche. Has anyone heard this before?) Look: So we were on Popeye's knuckle. We ate lunch. This is Sam eating lunch: Then we tried to get close to a lighthouse and failed. But we did find a beach and spent 1.5 seconds on it until we decided it was COOOLLLLDDD and literally ran back to our car. I can't tell you how much we needed to go away. Since our wedding was quick and the cross country move followed on its heels, we didn't really honeymoon. This was kind of a mini-honeymoon. A minimoon. We've both had a rough time adjusting to all the ch...

Don't get me wrong, it was still fairly cold today. And I hear the hoggie saw his stupid shadow. But it was actually, sort of, warmish today. A bold 42. I didn't even wear my coat once I got to campus. I could imagine what it will be like when my long sleeve shirt is unbearable. And yet, I fell on my tush. I've been stepping lightly for weeks now, mincing my way like a grandma down our sidewalk so as not to slip. Of course this evening, when the warming weather brought down my gaurd just a touch, I ate it. Good thing I have such a cushy rear, and good thing I landed on it and not my bones.

Just before I wake up, I've been dreaming that it's spring. I notice it's spring because everyone's wearing light pretty dresses and the sun is warm on my arms and shoulders and forehead and we're outside in the grass eating strawberries or something lovely like that. It's that perfect, cool, breezy warm. And I'm happy. For some reason our house has been toastier in the morning, and I feel so cozy under our faux-down comforter that I believe it's spring. I think about what to wear to work, and I have to remind myself that it's chin-freezing cold outside, that there's a three-inch layer of ice on our driveway and sidewalk, that I must incorporate tights into my outfit or die. And still, I don't believe it. I think, but it was just sunny and springy, wasn't it? Self, I say, that was a DREAM. Give it up already. And still, at the end of the day, when I'm trying to steer the cold wheel with the tips of my fingers and avoid crashing into ...

Back in Boston now. Went to temple this morning for the last session of the year. It was lovely, peaceful, hopeful. Until I got outside. When I drove to the temple there was the littlest bittiest layer of snow on the ground--powdery and kind. When I came out after the session it was inches thick, blowing and angry. I cleaned off my car and by the time I was done, it was snowed and icy again. I drove home, saying prayers in my head, hunched over, trying not to spin. At one point I got cut off by a snow plow, and honked my wimpy little Corolla horn. At another point I cut off an ambulance (the lights/sirens weren't on or anything), which, yeah, is really smart. The ambulance horn is not wussy: it's a growling roar. I'm still getting used to this driving in the snow thing. Before we left for Christmas, we hadn't had ANY, aside from a gentle fluttering one Sunday, and a nonthreatening slush the day we left. And now, this nonsense. But I made it! Here I am, home a...

I've had this raging cold for several weeks now, and my mom suggested, as a joke, that I might be allergic to cats. We have three, you know. So I asked Sam, "What would you do if it turned out I was allergic to kitties?" The man said, "We'd just take out a personal ad: 'Well-behaved Mormon Female to good home. Friendly disposition. Toilet trained. Likes pillows and cupcakes.'" He likes the cats. Anyway, no more school. Big sigh. We're under the Tucson sun, visiting Sam's family. Went shopping with his mama, had a fancy dinner with the whole crew. The first grandbaby is about to make its debut in the world. Any hour now. We watched Emily's belly at dinner, saw the little feet kick it out. Back in Boston it's 16 degrees. My school campus is closed because of the millions of feet of snow on the ground. And we are here in shirtsleeves. The sky is very big.

Driving home from Coolidge corner and the sun going down. Gentle oranges, marshmallow blues, etc. And in the middle, straight ahead, floating lonely at the end of Beacon Street: a big cloud, in the shape of a fish, precise. This has never happened to me, seeing a cloud picture without looking for it. I can't even remember it happening to me as a grownup. Has it happened to you?

I find these autumn leaves shocking. I mean, I expected them to change. I looked forward to the reds and yellows and oranges. But I forgot: when leaves fall, they stay put. We are past the trees that look like they're burning. We're before the trees put on sweaters of snow. So now the trees are mostly bare, and at their feet are mounds and drifts of leaves. They fill the ditches, cover cars and sidewalks and speckle the street. The other morning, driving down a street lined in swaths of gold, I saw a red boxey truck with an enormous black hose attached. Two men wearing galoshes and rubber gloves were using the hose to suck up all the leaves, shooting them into the big red box. They were vacuuming. Which makes sense. In a place like this, where there are so many leaves, leaves upon leaves upon leaves, one must do something. Leaf collection can't just be rakes and bags in the front lawn, jumping and scattering the piles. Sometimes the cities have to get serious. Sometimes th...

Sam and I took a wee walk today, around a reservoir near our house. I've gone there a few times, and for some reason, that place feels more New Englandy than any other place I've been. So I always end up walking around, chanting in my head, "New Englandy, New Englandy, New Englandy." Which inevietably leads to remembering a principle of linguisitics that Sam told me about, which is that it's nigh unto impossible to actually say New England, with a real E. Our tongues blend the words together so that, despite our best intentions, we say New Wingland. Try it. Bet you can't say Eng. So this time I took some pictures, because the fall colors are really starting to pop. Pretty, no? We're liking this place more and more. Especially since this week has shown us temperatures that hovered around 70. Didn't Utah get SNOW today? Bless your frosted hearts. My favorite building on the path--an old waterworks building, which is now a museum. It was sunny, so Sa...

In news that has nothing to do with the slacks, I can hear a big flock of geese out my window, honking, announcing their flight South. And yesterday, the Sam and I went to the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plains. Pretty pretty. Some pictures. The first one represents our best attempts to take a picture of ourselves. Notice all the trees we managed to include ... Now, the fiasco: This morning Sam tried to wear a pair of black pants to work. He prefers jeans, but a while back I bought him a nice shiny new pair from Kohl's and I've been whining a little that he hadn't worn them much, especially since they've caused a fair bit of hassle. (No, they aren't actually shiny.) What happened was, I bought the pants. And they were on clearance, so I got the NICER pair, because my bargain hunting sometimes frightens Sam. I brought them home and presented them triumphantly, like a caveman presenting his woolly mammoth kill. Now. When I get new clothes, even when I'm the one w...

We're inching towards a New England fall, and I can hardly stand it, I'm so excited to see the colors. I was in Mississippi for three years, surrounded by disappointly green pine trees, so the seasons feel like a thrill. I know I won't think so when it's icy freezing winter, but for now I'm happy to be in an Autumn world. I take the Mass Pike to work every day, and every day the trees are a bit more changed. Today I felt like I was driving down a corridor of red, and not all of the trees have even decided to participate yet. I'm trying to figure out how we can possibly afford to cruise on up to Vermont for a weekend. Isn't that what one is supposed to do? I mean, it's a cliche, but I'm willing to make the sacrifice of cliche-ness if it means I can walk through a forest of colors and kick up pretty leaves and eat soup by a fireplace while wearing a scarf. Maybe we could eat nothing but potatoes for a month ... That's a fall-ish food, right?