Anyone else feeling the February blues? It's even Mardi Gras today and I can't seem to snap out of my funk. Since Valentine's Day is this week too, I am going to post some pretty pictures to try and feel better.

Design*Sponge office windows. Hearts + watertower. 

One of my favorite design blogs (ever, in the world, of all time, etc.), Design*Sponge, hosted a Valentine's crafting breakfast in their Greenpoint office a couple weeks ago and I was lucky enough to go. It was terrific, with beautiful materials, really nice people, and good food (sorry about eating all the cinnamon roll thingys, guys). The D*S team really couldn't have been more gracious and fun. My only complaint was that it was over way too soon. 

Valentine in progress.

These pictures are from a couple posts I recently published on Two Blues Roses. Valentine cookies I made for a local event and a faux bois decoupaged valentine (oh la la!) that I made for a certain someone. 

Nom, nom, nom, wood you be mine? 
 

It's hard to feel bad looking at this smile:

He was very specific about his color choices. "My two favorite colors, please, turquoise and red." Felt oddly proud.

Unless of course you're the one paying for the orthodontia. But even then. Lowell has a severe underbite which they start correcting at this age, even though all his permanent teeth aren't in. He is absolutely thrilled to have them, even though they have been hurting a little, because now he has something in common with his older cousins. It's weird how different they make him look. Every time he smiles at me I feel a little jolt of panic. For one second I think he is older than he is and then remember, no, not a tween yet. I got a little more time. Phew. 

(AP) Obama turns back to take one last look at inauguration crowd.

I watched the Inauguration on Monday with Matthew and the kids. It was a much less formal affair than 4 years ago when we invited people over and I hung bunting and crap. This time it was just us in the living room on the couch under some blankets. I was surprised then, as we watched the ceremony, that I was even more moved than in 2009. Maybe it's because there is a certain amount of leave-taking in the mix with second inaugurations, since you know it's the last one. That, and the memories of the battles of the last four years, lent a note of melancholy to the day that made the whole thing more poignant. It was a midpoint, as much looking back as looking forward, and it made me sad for what hasn't been accomplished as much as I am excited for what is to come. I am a realist, often a cynic, but I do love Obama and I want his administration to be able to come through on some things before the lame duck malaise sets in.

Matthew has been watching "The West Wing" all over again on Netflix. I watch the occasional one with him but mostly I can't go through all that Sorkin-y stuff again. One thing struck me though. Do you know what they were debating in the first episode? Bombing Syria and gun control. Seriously. 14 years ago they were debating the same issues that are dominating headlines right now. Which shouldn't surprise me and yet I sat there with my mouth open. You don't expect a current events tv show from 14 years ago to only be dated by the clothing. I want so much for Obama to tick a few things off that short list he shared in his speech. Gun control, marriage equality, immigration, climate change. Meaningful movement in each of these areas is going to be a tall order in the 2 years or so before the next election seizes everything up or some world event sets everyone's hair on fire. But I am hopeful. Today I am hopeful that a few years from now when someone is having a "West Wing" marathon they will think, wow, things really have changed.

Friends, family, and acquaintances: Maybe you have noticed that I haven't been around as much this month? Also, when you have asked me what I was up to, maybe I seemed evasive? Even snappish? Well, it's time to come clean. I have been keeping something from you. This month is National Novel Writing Month and I spent most of every spare moment in November writing a 50,000 word (50,820 to be exact) manuscript. NaNoWriMo, as it's known, is an experiment where thousands of people around the world try to write a 50,000 word manuscript in 30 days. I tried it once before a few years ago, and I told everyone I knew that I was going to try and then I got to about 3043 words and stopped. It took me just those many words to realize that I was never going to write a novel and it was ridiculous to even entertain the idea and that stopping then was definitely the most prudent thing to do. But it gnawed at me. Every time I read a book the last few years it gnawed at me. That feeling that I really, really, really want to do this. I want to at least get these stories out of me and see what I can make of them. November rolled around again, as it does, and I thought, I'll try it one more time. This time I didn't tell anybody because it was embarrassing enough to fail the first time (to me, nobody else cared at all because the whole idea of writing a novel in a month is completely absurd). This time, this November, I did it. I did it and I am so fucking proud of myself I can't stand it. 

I am a poet by inclination and by the fact that the only creative writing that I have ever done seriously is poetry. (If you can call a BA in CW and one chapbook serious. No comment.) I love poetry and I love writing poetry, but I was always a little disappointed by not being able to write fiction. Every time I tried I gave up and went back to poetry because writing fiction was so hard for me. I was convinced I couldn't do it. And honestly, it didn't really matter that much because I loved writing poetry and it felt like it was enough for me. Except when I would read fiction that I really loved. That always made me want to do it so badly. And I had so many stories that just couldn't be contained in a poem. I have tried and they won't abide.

What I have realized from this exercise, which was well worth the pain and suffering, was that I can write fiction. I just can't write perfect fiction from the start. I have known this intellectually all along; you can't take a fiction workshop without learning the gospel of what Anne Lamott calls the "Shitty First Draft." But I have never been able to do it. Poetry (especially the kind of poetry I write, very short, precise poems) is really wonderful for a perfectionist. I could stand to write an insufficient first draft of a poem because the editing was instant. I didn't have to write pages and pages of dreck, I could write a few lines of dreck and then I could start tinkering right away. Having to write and write and write just to keep up with a decent word count this month forced me to finally write that elusive shitty first draft. And believe me, it is shitty. But it's mine. It's 50,820 words of stories I've been dying to tell. Now comes the hard part. I know that for sure. But to get this far has been a transformative experience. I am indebted both to the crazies that came up with this idea and to Matthew. He was the only one who knew I was doing this all along and he really propped me up when the, ahem, going got rough (we'll just put it that way). Now, I am going to go pop open some prosecco and sleep for a week.  

I was lucky as a kid to have a lot of great children's books. My family has many visual artists and serious readers so books were always a favored gift for me and my sister. It's hard to pick a favorite picture book from our eclectic collection, but Arm in Arm by Remy Charlip is always at the very tippy-top.* A few Sundays ago, thumbing through the paper, I saw Charlip's picture and name and was delighted for a split second until I realized was looking at his obituary. 

(* Challenged only by Who Needs Donuts? by Mark Alan Stamaty but that is an entirely different post. Stay healthy, Mark!) 

Charlip was a dancer, performer, choreographer, and most importantly to me, a children's book author/illustrator. If you're familiar with his work in any of these disciplines then you know that play is at the heart of all his creations. To him all art was some form of play and playfulness was something to be taken very seriously. Arm in Arm is filled with word-play, puns, jokes, riddles, actual "plays," visual gags, tongue-twisters, and songs. The illustrations, mostly watercolor and ink drawings, are shot through with a tenderness that's sweet and wry at the same time.

 

My sister and I must have read this book hundreds of times. We performed all the plays, sometimes complete with costumes and props. We recited all of the tongue-twisters, we copied the pictures, and sang the songs. To this day have several in-jokes based on stuff from Arm in Arm. For my birthday a few years back she even made me tea towels embroidered with Lady Agatha and Mrs. Haggarty. I have never used them and are among the things I would grab before running out of my burning house.

 

As a kid I remember looking at the picture on the endpaper of Charlip dancing with a bunch of kids. I remember thinking, wow, those kids are lucky, I would love to meet that guy. I never did meet him or see him in person but I feel a closeness to him that would be puzzling if it didn't come straight from the trusting heart of the kid I used to be.

Did you know that every time I am outside playing in the snow, or inside cuddly warm out of the snow, I recite these following two pages in my mind? Every. Single. Time. Such is the power of Charlip's words and images on the ever-so-slightly-OCD brain.

 

 

There are so many hilarious and wonderful things in Arm in Arm, these excerpts are a small example. It's still in print, as are many of his other books, so if you are inspired go buy it for a kid in your life or even for yourself. I guarantee that you will be charmed and it will earn a plum spot on your bookshelf.

So long, Remy Charlip. Thank you for your books and for the memories that are some of the best parts of my childhood. 

All images ©1969,1997 Remy Charlip

 

Growing up, we used to go to Lake Michigan in the summers. Either a quick drive to the Indiana dunes on the weekend or a longer stay with my grandmother at one of her many cottage rentals. I often say that I was a beach kid but, if you're from the Midwest, saying something like that gets a lot of skepticism. But in the summer that was where we were. Spending hours and hours on the beach was what we did. And that was where I loved to be more than anyplace else.

My favorite memory of the lake is from a time when I was about 15. We were staying with friends at a rental in Michigan on a bluff overlooking the lake. Because my parent's divorce had moved us far away, it had been a couple seasons since I had been there. One night, at sunset, I went down and took a walk on the beach. I was sunburned, not painfully, just enough that my skin was tight and I was a little dazed from being outside all day. My hair was soft and wavy, with just the faintest mineral scent from the lake water. I realized it was the first time I'd ever been allowed to be on the beach by myself at nightfall. I walked down the beach for awhile and had the place all to myself. I turned back for home and watched the sun drop under the water and the stars start blinking on. I had a feeling of total contentment that is possible only when you are a kid, but also the sensation of knowing I was feeling it, which was signalling the end of that kind of childhood emotional immersion. I think this dissonance is why I remember it all so clearly. 

There are many times when things are tight, when panic rises or anxiety starts to call the shots that I think back to that walk on the beach to calm myself. When I summon it I am right there. I am able to feel the crazy soft Michigan sand under my feet and the wind on my sunburned lips as I futz with the sleeve of an old thermal sweatshirt. I am there, I am content, I am a little dazed by the beauty of it all. 

Last month we went to Lake Michigan for a family reunion. It's been years and years since I had been at a lakeside cottage. One evening we all went down to the beach; from my 90-year-old grandmother to my 3-month-old niece. The sun started to go down and I snapped the picture above with my phone. There - I thought - now I have a postcard of my happy place.

P.S. I'll be at BlogHer this weekend. No doubt amidst all the excitement conjuring up this beach scene several times. I can hardly wait.