Half A Dozen To Go: June 2007

Parenting Links

Mom-101
Great site by a very funny woman. Has two children and a wicked sense of the world. Says "If only I knew what I was doing." Don't believe her. She knows better than most of us.
Two Straight Lines
Having a big family means you make things. This is a great site on how to make things fun. And practical. Still sigh at some of the sewing suggestions. My button sewing skill is becoming a limit. Maybe velcro is next.
The Ambrose Beirce Appreciation Society
Never heard of the guy? Master of understanding people and children. They would have been two differnt categories in his mind. Maybe three.
Barbara Coloroso
Barbara has been offering advice for a long time. I mean this out of respect. Saw her speak in Brantford once. She is shorter than I thought, but book pictures do this to you.

Reads

Sigmund Freud: Civilization and Its Discontents
What you notice first – before the modest gardens outside the bay window, and before the rows of books and drawings spread along the back wall just behind the couch – is the forest of antiquities that cover his desk and spill out onto the surrounding shelves. The idols and figurines of a Godless Jew – as he once described himself, more reminiscent of an excavated past than a troubled present. But archeology was always one of his favorite metaphors, and he used the comparison often. His belief that what was hidden, what was outside of everyday perception, was the key to understanding our lives. Even from the comfort of the couch, draped in the thick, earthy browns of an oriental fabric throw, you could not directly see him. You saw his possessions – objects that had once been buried and long forgotten but were now part of a seemingly foreign present. You could hear him scribble in his notebook while you talked, and sometimes he asked you a question for clarification. But you could not see him. Like his objects he was there, and he was not there. (*****)
Rudolf Flesch: The Art of Readable Writing
Rudolph Flesch writes for himself. He is clear, concise, and his ideas on writing have influenced all writers, whether they know his name or not. First published in 1945, The Art of Readable Writing is the companion book to his earlier The Art of Plain Talk. Flesch doesn't mess around with words. He gets to the point, illustrates his point, tells you why its important, then moves on. He talks to you. But his works are not dry. He doesn't try to be funny, or cute, but his writing advice reads like a good talk. He is witty. He invites you into his conversation. In one chapter entitled The Importance of Being Trivial, Flesch uses anecdotes to explain what it is that people remember about a story. Hint: it's not the cleverness of the writer. And it's not the fact that this book was published in 1945, and is still available today. Writing books come and go. This one is a going to stay. (*****)
Sylvia Plath: The Bell Jar
Her face never gave it away. American blond, pretty, 32 white teeth all in a row. Born in Boston she liked the sea, and would often go to it for comfort, for images. The first time they found her she was already gone, pumped full of sleeping pills. She was 28 then, so they brought her back, and stuck her together with glue for another 2 years. But you couldn’t see what made her tick from the pictures of her face. You had to read her poems for that. There she was confessional in a way that her face never was. Not like a diary – more personal, a sharing of images and thoughts that made you a witness, made you intimate without the presence of a pretty American blond. But they always left you sad and stripped bare, left you reading her words again and often, to see if maybe you misunderstood, that what she wrote were just words and somehow not real. You wanted to call her and ask her if she was all right. Ask if maybe you could drop over and just see her for a bit. But you never could, because at the age of 30 she turned up the gas stove on a cold, February morning, and never shut it off. (****)
Ludwig Wittgenstein (Edited by Anthony Kenny): The Wittgenstein Reader (Blackwell Readers)
After writing a philosophical bestseller in 1922 called Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein stopped writing because he believed he had solved all the problems of philosophy. Life was good. He taught children to read and write, and built a house for his sister Gretl. Did some gardening. Seven years later he was back to writing, admittedly, because philosophers were too dumb to take him at his word. He thought. He wrote about language and how we say things. He wrote about whether there is a private language at work in us, or if a picture theory of meaning is the key to all our communications. Story, in a philosophical way. Propositions (logic) are pictures. Language draws them for us. When he drew his last breath in 1951, Wittgenstein said: “Tell them, I’ve had a wonderful life.” Who can say he didn’t? (****)
Joan Didion: The Year of Magical Thinking
No one told Joan Didion that death would hurt so much. That her feelings for her husband, John Dunne, after his sudden death, do not pass through simple emotional states. She knows he has died, but she wants him back. She doesn’t believe what she knows to be final, is final. She struggles with the idea of time. She wants to take time back, to bend it over and over again to stop the hurting. Times passes through The Year of Magical Thinking as a physical thing, as something that can be talked about, reasoned about. Always after the fact. Didion dissects the the events of her husband’s death, trying to understand the time when he actually died. The cause of his actual death. Medical terms. The many ways to understand what happened. She knows this is a helpless task. And she knows this knowledge changes nothing. But it’s something she needs to do. A part of her acceptance. A way for her to balance the feelings she has for her critically ill daughter with the sudden death of her husband. Didion takes us through the sickness of her daughter, and the re-examing of her life with her husband, through her memories of things past. The little things. In the end she misses him. The comfort of him. The life they had become together. And how unapologetically it ended. (****)
Oscar Wilde: The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Wilde had some issues and most of them involved younger men. In a time when you did hard time for things like this, Wilde did two years in Reading prison. Three years later, before his death, he wrote this poem, remembering his time in prison and a hanging - which he witnessed. But this is no chronicle of facts. No allusions to Greek gods or goddesses. Oscar is no longer Oscar. Prison changed him. This work is emotional, heartfelt and humble. You can read it in one sitting (the chapbook with Frans Maserell’s woodcuts is best). Wilde is both himself (prisoner C.3.3) and the condemned man. I wouldn’t call this poem an apology, but it is an admission, in one sense of past actions, in another sense of the social beliefs of the time. Religious, Catholic guilt reconciled on his deathbed when he formally converted. Read it. Still carries a lot of feeling today. The condemned man “had killed the thing he loves, And so he had to die”. Oscar to the end. (****)

« May 2007 | Main | July 2007 »

June 2007

June 25, 2007

Stress above and beyond

After grade three testing.

Allie comes home, flops into a kitchen chair and tells me “It’s over”. I pour her a glass of juice and hand her a few crackers. She looks like hell.

“You OK?” I ask.

She nods her head yes. “Just tired,” she says.

Well,” I say, “I have your favourite juice box for your lunch tomorrow, but I think that given the stress you’ve been under it wouldn’t be out of line for you to ditch that and bring in a little bottle of white rum.”

I can tell she doesn’t understand my suggestion.

“Did you get some Cheezies?” she asks.

Nine year-olds are so cute. And sober.

June 25, 2007 at 09:57 PM in Family | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

June 19, 2007

Straight Eyes

It took until grade two for Matt's lazy eye to get the better of me.

It wasn't that I ignored it. For years we saw specialists in Cambridge and in Hamilton. We tried patching, glasses — everything we were told to try. I even bought him a stuffed parrot to wear on his shoulder with the patch, to complete his pirate look. This made him happy until the dog got Buddy the parrot, and ripped his stuffed wings off.

Years later when we buried the dog, Matt smiled. I never understood why he called the dog Treasure until that moment.

But that time in grade two, when I met him after school and saw Marty Feldman looking back at me — enough was enough.

The operation took place months later on a Tuesday morning. I sat in the waiting room, reading a current article about Liz Taylor's third husband. An hour later I was called to recovery.

Matt was lying on his side on a gurney. His head was on a pillow, and a hospital blanket was pulled up under his chin. He was so small. I stared. I could barely speak. He was hooked up to a monitor. I heard the beep of his tracked heartbeat, and watched the green line rhythmically plot the strength of his heart. It was not a serious operation. Nothing to worry about. I wiped the hair back from his face and held his hand.

"Everything went fine," the nurse told me, "He's just a little groggy. We'll wake him in a few minutes." Her hand was on my shoulder.

I kissed his cheek. I watched his breathing make the blanket rise and fall. I placed the stuffed Dalmatian next to him. The tag around its neck read "Buddy". That made me smile.

I remember thinking how strange it was how the monitor distracts all your attention. You don't even notice the person you are there to see. You focus on that sound, on that line. I thought it would be better if it was just gone. And in the next moment, it was.

The sound changed to a constant shrill. The line was straight and green across the screen. Stunned, I looked down at him. He wasn't moving. The blanket was still. I stared at the screen. What did this mean? I reached out and shook him.

"Matt," I said gently. Nothing. Then "Matt!" not so gently. My feet started to move. I turned to run down the hall, to yell for help.

"I just knocked the thing off my toe," Matt calmly said, his eyes closed tight. "It was bugging me."

I pulled the blankets away from his feet. I found the clothes-pin with the wire attached, and stuck it back on his toe. The beep and the green line resumed their place on the screen.

"Jesus Christ, Matt!" I said, "Don't ever do that again!" The nurse was standing next to me. She didn't say a word. She disapprovingly nudged me over.

"That clothes-pin thing..." I said. Then stopped. Better to just stand quietly.

"Matt," she said, "Wake up Matt. I need to see your eyes honey."

Matt groaned.

"Com'on sweetie," she said, "I need to see the colour of your eyes Matt."

Matt. Seven years-old. Deadpan, expressionless response: "They're brown."

Sometimes, in life, we laugh alone.

June 19, 2007 at 02:22 PM in Family | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 12, 2007

Realize

The discovery of a mistake we only ever admit to ourselves. Proof that hindsight is a form of mental abuse, e.g. "Ken realized that nine years ago the words 'I will' should have been 'We'll see'". We never realize anything out loud, unless it's to our benefit. n.

June 12, 2007 at 09:00 PM in Definitions | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 08, 2007

Beethoven doesn't live here

I remember my son Edward back in grade five.

We were on a class trip, and the historical house had a piano that was property of the original owners, 200 years old - pointed out by the tour guide. She asked, “does anyone know how to play?” and the class responded, “Eddie! Ya, Eddie can play!” So Edward made his way up to the front and sat at the keyboard. He had four years of lessons before him. I smiled at the other parents. Edward took a moment. Then held up his arms so his sleeves slipped down past his wrists. Made a fist with his right hand and played that knuckle song to the horror of the tour guide. One parent whispered in my ear, “those lessons have really paid off, huh?”

June 08, 2007 at 08:56 PM in Parenting | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 04, 2007

Food for Thought

Just made 10 o'clock french toast with the kids. Late for Allie, she should have been in bed, but so many good things get missed by should of. Five slices of bread, eggs, milk, and some cinnamon. Bit of butter in the pan. Five minutes later were sitting at the table with the lights out, glasses of milk, and laughter over a day of living. Grade three testing, basketball finals, petition to keep a teacher. Day's end with maple syrup.

June 04, 2007 at 10:33 PM in Parenting | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Half A Dozen To Go

Categories

About

Comments Welcome