sketchblog – Page 84 – Stephanie Sicore

August 3, 2006

Garden of Earthy Delights

The chicks are hardy in the heat. This has been the hottest week this summer and they’ve spent the whole time outdoors in their new tractor. I’ll return home at noon from the gym, walk barefoot to the edge of the deck, and peek down on them. Looking back at me are three chicks that are always an ounce heavier, more feathered and panting with open mouths. Every few hours I give them cooler, fresher water. I love the way they peep quietly as I move about, rinsing and rearranging.

We’ve been terrestrial lately, despite the heat outside, tending droopy plants, cultivating the soil, digging. We have a few good books to inspire more curiosity and garden-play: Diary of a Worm, by Doreen Cronin, and Thumbelina, by Hans Christian Anderson. Ford digs Thumbelina. Yak yak. We haven’t yet made it to Microcosmos yet. Then, of course, we have all the nonfiction we could need at home. The huge sci/nature nonfiction library in our bedroom: that would be my fault.

This afternoon, Ford and Chas helped me pin together a 3x4ish compost bin out of some remaining galvanized builder’s cloth. Once we’d finished, they helped me rake leaves and pile them into the compost bin. Somtimes they’d run through the piles and the lawn would look no different than it had before I’d organized the chaos, and a fuse would blow in my brain, but I’ve been more mindful of my wiring today. I’ll have to write more about that later, about what it’s like lately, ramming horns all day with the four year-old rebel. But right now I’m slipping like mercury through planks of burnout. And I’m falling asleep. But god, he has his Hallmark moments, too:

August 2, 2006

SPC: Enclosed Spaces: Living the RVida Loca

When Ford was about six months old, and we were weary of living in a hotel in Connecticut, we slung our money into an Airstream trailer. If not just as an escape, we bought it so we could toodle around the East Coast for a while. We trailered it with a converted stepvan that had a wireless satallite atop the hood, which served as Damon’s workspace, and I’d follow the trailer around New England in our family car, birddogging through the convoluted Boston construction, around granite cliffs in Maine, along quaint historical neighborhood streets. I loved every part of the journey, even the perpetually damp and confining bathroom that served our family of three and any visiting guests.

During the days that Damon worked at the brick office in Middleton, Connecticut, Ford and I spent our mornings and afternoons at the beach. I’d jog along the trail, he’d fall asleep under the billowing mosquito net ofthe jogger, and when he awoke we’d hang out on the beach itself. He learned to crawl on the sands of Hammonassett State Park. I’d put gossamer ctenophores in his hand, and they’d glisten little rainbow hairs as they slipped through his fat fingers. He’d wave his hands through the floating garden of red and green algae, slick translucent stained glass that looked entirely edible. He’d put rocks in his mouth, I’d sweep them out.

During the middle of the day, when it was too hot to be outside, we’d be confined to the trailer. And this was all good and actually lovely when he took his afternoon nap. I would steam up a latte and write or read. But when he was restless, we went a little stir crazy in the 22 foot trailer.

In this photo, Damon caught us decompressing against the screen door one hot afternoon, when we were too chicken to leave our three-odd square feet of cold air-conditioning and head to the beach.

Last May, we downsized and sold the trailer where Ford spent most of his first year. I miss it dearly, but what’s shocking is that Ford misses it, too. The other day I asked him,
“What do you miss about the Airstream?”
“The stickers in the windows. And the bed with all the windows around it.”
I miss the bed, too. I miss the encapsulation of our family within a small space, streamlining our experience and always having home to return to at the end of a bust day exploring some foreign place. That’s why I dream of a sailboat, of taking the kids for a year or so around the world, when they’re old enough not to need a “time out dinghy” or a line of drying cloth diapers hanging from the mast.

See more enclosures at SPC.

August 1, 2006

Poolside Confessions

The other day, when I finished a lap at the pool, I cleared out my goggles and confided in the lady in the lane next to mine. “You know, learning to breathe on both sides is really hard!” I blabbed through upcurled eyebrows. To that one confession, she donated the rest of her workout towards coaching my bumbling, barge-like freestyle into bilateral breathing, tilting my body upwards, so that I felt as if I were gliding across the water an hour later. I love her. I wish I could be that helpful to someone else. Well, beyond the normal butt-wiping and nose-wiping that comes with motherhood.

The first lap felt like swimming in a storm today: the water spraying from the sprinklers into my face, my nose, my mouth; the traffic of the experienced swimmers. I stabbed the water with my arms at first, struggling to remember her pointers: head down, tilt head only as high as the inside corner of my mouth, gentle roll left, right, left, right. Don’t think about getting air, just poof and it will return back automatically.

What I have discovered about swimming is that it may start out loud — the bubbles and splashing assault me when I first get in — but within a half hour, just like in running, everything gets really quiet. No music, no newscast– nothing but the roving tiles and dancing sunlight on the bottom and the steady rhythm of puffs and rolls.

edited to add, with an embarrassed blush:
HOLY CRAP! It’s (still, thank God) August 1st! Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!!! See you Friday 🙂
Love,
*s