Take the A Train

They used to put short poems and excerpts from classic literature up in the subway -- Poetry in Motion they called it. I read this on the ACE my freshman year at NYU and scribbled it down (before Google was so prevalent you only had to remember key words for later). It used to get stuck in my head and I'd say it over and over again. I love the sound of it. It laid dormant in my brain for many many years until it came back again a few months ago. 

God I love poetry. Good poetry that's like an all out game of tag... Just out of reach and then you catch up to it, and grab it, and its meaning is revealed to you. This one is mostly just fun to say, and that has its reasons for existing too. 

Plus, it's peach season. Go get one and honor the moment with one of the earths juiciest fruits. 

Peaches 

A mouthful of language to swallow:
stretches of beach, sweet clinches,
breaches in walls, pleached branches;
britches hauled over haunches;
hunched leeches, wrenched teachers.
What English can do: ransack
the warmth that chuckles beneath
fuzzed surfaces, sweet velvet
richness, plashy juices.
I beseech you, peach,
clench me in the sweetness
of your reaches.

-Peter Davison

Snapshots from MDW 2016

At work, we opened a hidden tiki bar. There's a rum drink under all those plants.

Kept my pie commitment and brought two plum pies to Lobsterfest.

The prettiest little irises in the garden at Lobsterfest.

We finally got some warm weather! The sprinkler came out.

Mr. SevPrez redid both the foundation beds in front of the house... A lot of hard work.

The girls and I laid on a blanket in the lawn and stared up at the sky while he worked.

Aside from our showstopping lupines, these humble mountain laurels are keeping it real.

One More Time

Early May and June

This is our time,
A reassurance that there are some
sensations I will never forget.
The sun coming back,
the heat,
the trees, their leaves, the natural world.
This is the time that we found
each other —
we confirmed each other.

In eighty years I know
even if I don't remember who I am,
I will see the particular neon green bouquet of maple buds,
and hear the playoffs whistling in a room
down the hall of my convalescence,
and I will return spring of our courtship,
when we were lucky enough to gleam a future
in each other's eyes.
-DDH
(c) 2010.

Ikebananas

Last week I took an Ikebana workshop with my husband and mother-in-law through our county park system. Ikebana is a Japanese art of flower arrangement. I still couldn't tell you much about it, but Wikipedia does a great job. 

It was held at our favorite park, Deep Cut Gardens, and I think I signed up for it because I was hoping it would take place in their magical greenhouse (it wasn't). But I find floral arrangements to be one of the great pleasures of life, along with watching a baby nap, sheet cake that's better than it needs to be, falling asleep on the couch, and The Met. Plus, I'm always looking to add to my bag o' tricks.

Once we arrived, I was excited to learn a different approach to flower arrangement that uses materials, shapes, and proportions uncommon to the Western style. All my arrangements tend to look the same. I do a lot of round stuff with one kind of flower. Any time I diverge from that, it gets awkward. 

We each made an arrangement, and mine was OK. To be honest, I'm not sure I know good or bad yet, it's so foreign to my eye. I'm not a natural minimalist, and I didn't think my materials vibed together all that well. I wasn't sure if I'd do it again by the book, but I was inspired to try again with plant materials from our yard.

So today, after Mother's Day brunch, the babe was napping, the mister was mowing the lawn, and Pip and were looking for something to do to pass the time until our next meal. (Why not put it bluntly.) She came with us to the Ikebana workshop and was eager to try her hand at making her own arrangement. We took clippers outside and found a ton of good stuff to use. 

I gave her a traditional vase and I used a wide, shallow bowl more typical of Moribana (the style of Ikebana we "learned" -- that's a stretch). We had two colors of Japanese maples, azaleas, lilacs, and Japonica. There are a lot of specifics to the proper placement and geometry of the branches in Ikebana (refer to our handout up top), but I despise following instructions in all circumstances except when giving my children medicine, so we wung it. Basically: tall thing, slightly less tall thing, wide thing out to side, something protruding toward you, something heavy down low to anchor it. This is probably blasphemy but I find it works.

Mama Ikebana

Pip took a more maximalist approach and made the most beautiful arrangement I've ever seen (I'm not exaggerating because I'm her mom). I'm telling you, you'd have to pay $130 in Brooklyn for this thing. It is hauntingly beautiful, and all from found clippings in our yard. I would have been hard-pressed to summon the freedom to make something so luscious and exuberant and great.

Pippa Ikebana

It's something I've noticed whenever she paints too -- she has an innate understanding of beauty. It's direct, it's colorful, it's free, and she knows exactly when to stop. Picasso said, "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once you grow up." Kids. You learn something from them every day, if you pay attention.

...

On a side note, the babe is ten months today! She has her bottom right front tooth, and all the others seem to be just below the surface. She loves to eat real food (clementines! ricotta! meatballs! banana!). She isn't quite crawling forward yet, though she just figured out how to get over her other leg, and she loves to do "So big!" and clap for herself. She says "da da" all the time, and yesterday she said "Pippa" (we both heard it). So far she has no interest in saying "Mama" -- not even for Mother's day.

Spring

New front door, new house numbers. Just in time for our Easter brunch. It made a much better backdrop for the group shot of all the kiddos after their egg hunt. 

Baby Margot is almost 9 months and has a great sense of humor. She plays peekaboo (she prefers to hide), looks like she's getting a bunch of teeth any day now, and manages to scoot backwards when she's in a crawling position. 

Her big sister is becoming the sweetest lover of life you'll ever meet. She radiates joy, is honest and kind and wickedly smart. 

Very blessed around here.