sundays (12/52)

sunday, march the 24th (or, one month ago today): more snow than I've seen in a looooong time and my brother's beautiful chalks.

bits and pieces, every sunday. as much as I can.

sundays (11/52)

sunday, march the seventeenth (or, something like three weeks ago): things that belonged to my mother (special things, sacred things), red in the house (always red), my dad's sweet hand (and the class ring that won't come off), basketball on the television (always basketball on the television), her favorite cherry glasses (tiny happy vessels), mom (sweet mom, lover of cute red things).

home in illinois, first sunday I spent going through her things. not the last. 

spring, sort of

I have been in the land of lincoln, at my parent's home going through my mother's things. a type of sifting and sorting not recommended for the faint of heart. the truth is that my mother was a great collector of a good many things. I have spent the better part of nine days going through these things, going through and going through and going through. trying to decide what stays, what goes. because it cannot all stay. I wish that it could, but it cannot.

while I was here, spring came. sort of. my dad took me out of for a lemon ice cream cone and the sun was shining and I thought, this is one of those moments. one of those good moments that people always talk about. I should maybe file it away in that brain file we all have, you know the one. Good Moments For Remembering Always.

while I was here, sixteen inches of snow fell and covered the ground. the ultimate middle finger to spring lovers everywhere. this was a kind of snow that was not kidding around, not even a little bit and before we knew it we were snowed in with nothing in the pantry but spaghetti noodles and an almost-expired can of cherry pie filling. and here all this time I thought I wanted snow, have been begging for it every single day since the first of december. and then I got it. and wouldn't you know? I did not want it. this snow threw everything all off (including my flight home) and so I threw a little fit for about five minutes. and then I threw my hands up in the air and baked a cherry pie. because what I know now is that the best cherry pies are ones that are baked out of desperation.

I woke up this morning to the sound of birds. I am nowhere close to being finished with the sifting and the sorting of my mother's things and I miss my dad so much already. but I know pink blossoms and my people wait for me in portland.

instant illinois

so I decided to save that limited edition pack of nigo PX 70 color shade/color frame for something special. something special= summertime in illinois/summertime at my mom and dad's house/summertime with cousins. glad I waited. so so glad.

day two

(for 'roid week)

and speaking of summer

taken last summer in the small illinois town where my parents live and I swear to you, when I look at this, I can practically hear the cicadas. I can feel how thick the air is and I want to get on a plane and go home.

hello ghost town

a little bit more from the shoot with my brother. details: ray, an australian horse hauler plus downtown cairo, illinois plus PX 600 silver shade UV+ film.

the last of the year

the last of the last of 2010, friends. out with a bang. a quiet bang, but still. tomorrow= 2011.

winter poem

once a snowflake fell
on my brow and I loved
it so much and I kissed
it and it was happy and called its cousins
and brothers and a web
of snow engulfed me then
I reached to love them all
and I squeezed them and they became
a spring rain and I stood perfectly
still and was a flower

nikki giovanni

part three

and the last of the vacation polaroids. for a little while, anyway.

finally, illinois

(this is my grandma)



from atlanta, we hitched a ride to the state where I was born, where I spent the greater part of my childhood. Illinois, where spectacularly flat land stretches out before you for days on end. this is where my parents live, the two greatest people in the world. this is also where the thrifting is so good you sort of want to cry.

a list of polaroids I did not take but wish that I had:

miles and miles of cornfields
olga and her house of stuff
the giant ice cream cone just off highway 55
my mom's sweet collection of white antique pitchers
my dad and the way he magically spins the basketball on one finger
lightning bugs, lightning bugs, lightning bugs

next time for sure.

photobooth friday

identical twins jim (my dad, on the left) and john, sometime around 1950.

I'm tellling you, it's crazy how much of ezra I see here in my dad. crazy. oh yes, this is ezra through and though-- right down to the furrowed brow (aka corrona scowl), retro buzz cut and implied stubborn streak. this photo has been slipped into the tiniest little frame and sits among an impressive army of old white vases at my parents' house. I love it, I have always loved looking at it. I hold it close to my face to really examine it, I squint as if I might catch any previously undetected details. in my head, I hear the stories my dad tells us about growing up, about the time uncle john threw a rock at the kid who wouldn't shut up. everyone loves to hear the story about the kid who screamed 'NANNYNANNYBOOBOO' so loud and so long that uncle john finally threw a rock to make him stop. now, whether or not uncle john knew that rock would fly straight into the kid's wide-open piehole and choke the taunt right out of him, well-- I don't know. but that is exactly what happened, that's how the infamous story goes. like something out of a movie. and folks, so many more stories like this. I can hear them over and over and over, I'm never bored. and I never get tired of looking at this tiny photobooth snapshot-- I am in love with the details. the matching striped shirts, how worn out and soft it is with all the folds and cracks and years. oh, I love it.

and the scrappy little twins (who just turned 60 on the first day of summer) went on to lead entirely different lives. fantastically juicy stories for another day, really-- stories that involve: an undercover narcotics cop and high school sweethearts and two hardcore marines and the vietnam war and a purple heart and thirty-plus years of coaching and harley davidson choppers and legendary drug busts and motorcycle gangs and a bible college dean of students and even a bit part in a cheech & chong movie. I'M NOT KIDDING. another photobooth friday, another photobooth friday.

can I get a photobooth friday witness? right on, my sisters:

jesC
the whole self
woof nanny
nessie noodle

home

(ava at the friend's farm we visited last week)

we are home and I am somewhere between relieved and melancholy. and yes, exhausted. I'm still reeling from all that we managed to pack into ten short days. so many people/places/things and so much fun and now here's the part where I talk about how ridiculously tired I am (yawn). there's really no good jumping off place with all of it (lest I sound like I'm standing in front of a third grade classroom reading, 'what I did I on my summer vacation' with all the 'we went here' and 'then we went there' and 'we saw that').

and now it has happened. everytime I come home from a trip, it happens. the first day back, I experience a surge of energy so superhuman that I am able to heave trucks into the air (or at the very least, unpack the suitcases). from the minute we walk in the door (which is usually in the middle of the night and this time we pulled into atlanta around 3 in the morning), I am off and running. nevermind I was fighting deep sleep just twenty minutes earlier. the moment we get the kids into their beds, I am going through mail, inspecting the house, mentally constructing the swiftest of game plans. the first day home, I am a machine. I attack the suitcases, cleaning the house as I go. 'to do' lists are promptly made up and I am swimming in optimism. then somewhere around day three, it hits me-- out of nowhere and I'm down for the count. I move in slooooooow motion and often catch myself staring into space. it's the kind of staring that you have to be jolted out of or everything turns blurry and your eyes begin to water. I'm extra-schlumpy and the one suitcase that has not yet been unpacked will inevitably sit for days. I will be living out of my own suitcase in my own home for many, many days. it's a wonder I'm even able to write.

still, there was the moment last week when I brought some belts home for ava from the thrift store. for some reason, she's been on a belt kick lately. when I pulled the three striped belts from the bag to show her, she immediately screamed,

"BELTS! JUST WHAT I ALWAYS WANTED FOR ALL OF MY LIFE!"

something about that makes me want to get dressed and face the day.

saturday(monday)/purple

I am hanging in the land of lincoln where the roads are spectacularly flat and stretch out before you in the way of forever. this is my home state (for the most part) and there's delight lurking in unlikely places. so I may not be present here so much this week, hence the late arrival of the purple. and speaking of color-- really honestly truly seriously really REALLY (for reals) bananas over all of your color, y'all.

free flow

last week, you could find me in a small town in illinois. I packed up the bambinos and spent a week at grandma and grandpa's house (while freedom-boy ward feasted on brown sugar pop-tarts, attended numerous midnight movies, slept peacefully through the night and ran recklessly through the house in his most rancid and ragged boxers, yelling YEEHAW). I could write for days about so many little adventures and have been stuck for several minutes now over the very thought. I want the words to flow effortlessly and form lyrically descriptive sentences that speak of cornfields and peaceful small-town nights, but I am so tired. and what is coming from my mind is this: it was good. it was not always easy, but it was good.

ava spent hours playing with my old barbie dolls (cher with her hair whacked off and the lovely and decaying farrah fawcett). she has been talking about this trip, salivating over these barbies for weeks and weeks. and when it came time to pack up and come back home, she did not want to go. who could blame her? we visited mema's best friend out in the country where we saw the most beautiful horses. infinite cornfields and aging red barns, it all really does exist. and yes, there was fresh air to be taken into the lungs.

the fabulous grandma that my mom is, she had cookies with pink icing and lucky charms cereal on hand. she read many, MANY books, dragged out countless old toys and helped ava to set up the mother of all barbie homes. we had a delightful time catching lightening bugs in the front yard to take with us at bedtime. and she stayed with the munchkins while I visited my favorite local thrift store (best find: little black vintage clutch for a dime. THAT'S TEN PENNIES, PEOPLE). she tirelessly followed ezra up and down the stairs while I grabbed moments of alone time in the cosmetics section of wal-mart. so many little acts of kindness, mom. too many to name. thank you.

ezra drove me a little nuts. actually, he drove me to a place of craziness inside myself that I have not visited in awhile. he was into everything and going full-speed at 73,000 m.p.h ALL THE TIME. the nights were the worst and I have not experienced such sleep deprivation since the first days he was born. I was jarred from sleep several times each night and often found myself standing and holding him at four in the morning. sitting/reclining in any way was not acceptable and often met with high-pitched screams and full-body protests. only when I was standing perfectly still did his little body relax into sleep. this is such a torturous thing to do when you're in that drunken half-asleep state that is usually so delicious. too tired to cry, I felt it necessary to devour as many little cupcakes as possible while watching the magic bullet infomercial in the dark. I've decided that everyone should own a magic bullet. and if you have to ask what the magic bullet is, then you are missing out on a world of goodness.

the ez had his moments, though. they were so ridiculously sweet that all the dark hours I spent in sleepless frustration must be forgiven. on one of our nightly walks in the neighborhood, he learned that if he held the pinwheel up in the air, the wind would make it spin. his little squeals of glee upon this discovery were almost more than I could take. we continued to walk through the quiet, my cheeks wet with tears. everything sounds different in a small town. I can say this because I grew up in a very small southern illinois town. it really is quiet, there really are the sounds of crickets. and people sit out on their front porches.

every moment seemed so full of some sort of something going on, something always happening. I'm having difficulty believing it all went down in the course of seven days. there was a lovely lunch with my best friend, such a rare luxury that I could cry just thinking about it. there was a visit with my great aunt louraine, one of the most fantastic women I have known in my lifetime. there was the momentous occasion of ava placing the stamps on her birthday party invitations and then the big walk across the street to the post office where she dramatically mailed them herself. there was ezra imitating mema and papa's dogs barking, learning to say 'thank you' and feeding himself (and everyone around him) ice cream for the first time. I never got tired of the sight of the old downtown movie theatre marquee lighting up each night. and my dad and ezra-- they were amazing together.

there's so much more. there was a trip to ryan's buffet that needs to be addressed, the discovery of some splendid vintage gift wrap (courtesy of my great aunt lo-lo) and my inability to allow ward to guiltlessly experience a little bit of freedom. oh, there's so much more but I'm feeling the need to stop here and possibly do some sleeping. it was good. it was greatness.