Hudson's Travels 6: Flying South

Hudson is incapable of holding still long enough to do any more travel pictures, but I had an entire calendar planned for the grannies, so it is lucky that I love making collages in photoshop. The babe is completely obsessed with airplanes hence the following traveling pic. That is H in the cockpit, but with the filters and size it's hard to tell...I'm hoping to write/illustrate a book for his first birthday and love how this turned out so much that I may scratch the original 5 travel pics and do illustrations like this instead. I'd also like to add "illustrate children's books" to my already way too long list of desired professions...

Ten Years . Ten Months

It's been so long since I've blogged I'm pretty sure I've forgotten how. Unless you can call copying and pasting my favorite poems "blogging", I'm a smidge rusty...so my apologies in advance to the one person who actually reads this. I knew, however rusty I may be, that I HAD to post an update, as I can imagine Hudson 20 years from now reading this and wondering what was going on in his life between his 4th and 10th month. Month 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and almost 10 have literally gone by faster than I can believe...this summer has seemed the shortest of any in my 33 years. But it has truly been one of the most blissful. This month we celebrated Hudson's 10th month and Mr. Brady and I have officially been married for TEN YEARS!!!

TEN YEARS: I would be lying if I said I had a better friend in this world than Mr. Brady. I would also be lying if I said our past 10 years haven't been flawed and, well, sometimes pretty hard. We've had our share of fun, easy, happy. get-along swell, and laugh-a-ton days, yes, but we've also endured (pardon my French) a lot of pure shit times as well. So I have to say that I'm beaming proud of us for reaching this milestone...not only because we've reached it, but because we probably love and respect each other more now than we did when we first exchanged vows. The frosting on the cake is celebrating a decade together with our first child...which we quite literally did...and surprisingly enjoyed. I say surprisingly because after dinner out at a family friendly restaurant downtown we spent the second half of our anniversary evening at Mobius...a children's science museum...sitting cross legged in the baby play yard. Of all the million things to do in that play yard (a slide, train table, dinosaurs, etc) Hudson wanted to play with the books. We mused afterwards at how wonderful it is that we were getting to spend the night surrounded by toys...because it meant spending time with our favorite little person. We spent the rest of the weekend eating out way too much and justifying it by saying we were still "celebrating".




TEN MONTHS: Hudson, bambino, monkey...was I seriously not just bringing this tiny boy home from the hospital yesterday???! Hudson is no longer a tiny boy...he now looks like a 2 year old (already wearing 18mo-2T sized duds). He has 2 bottom teeth and 4 uppers (almost). He is crawling at the speed of light, and can say da-da and mum mum, the latter he usually reserves for when he is sad or upset...da-da when he is happy as well as other general baby babble including "na" sounds and "ssss" sounds.






He has discovered, much to my dismay, that vegetables don't taste as good as fruit, bread, and pasta. His fave foods include any bread (especially homemade pumpkin bread), bananas, pears, yogurt, berries, watermelon, sweet potatoes, spinach ravioli, and lasagna. He will eat veggies but pretty much only if they are cooked in with something else (he loves eggplant and zucchini risotto) or if it is pureed and mixed with fruit. We are bound and determined that this babe will eat his veggies so we continually try! We also want an adventurous eater, and so we are able to justify eating out as ways to "introduce H to new foods".



He is standing while holding onto something and cruising...it won't be long before he will be taking his first steps and he is getting plenty of practice with his walker. Our daily routine includes mornings spent in the playroom and sharing tiny bites of mommy's oatmeal. Our summer afternoons are usually spent at the library, swinging at the park, visiting friends, taking Sam-dog for walks, shopping, playing, and exploring the house. The babe could keep himself busy for hours playing with the mirror, dog kennel, and high chair...he also loves his Sam-dog who is a constant source of big baby laughs. Dad-dad loves giving H his bath and putting him to bed...so that is special "boy" time. H LOVES to read books and we have probably checked out and read over a hundred kids books from the library...more on that to come.



Speaking of children, mine just woke up...time to sneak some veggies into his belly and then off to buy supplies for little man's FIRST BIRTHDAY (squirrel) party...unbelievable!!! 

Interval

Interval

by Jeffrey Harrison

Sometimes, out of nowhere, it comes back,
that night when, driving home from the city,
having left the nearest streetlight miles behind us,

we lost our way on the back country roads
and found, when we slowed down to read a road sign,
a field alive with the blinking of fireflies,

and we got out and stood there in the darkness,
amazed at their numbers, their scattered sparks
igniting silently in a randomness

that somehow added up to a marvel
both earthly and celestial, the sky
brought down to earth, and brought to life,

a sublunar starscape whose shifting constellations
were a small gift of unexpected astonishment,
luminous signalings leading us away

from thoughts of where we were going
or coming from, the cares that often drive us
relentlessly onward and blind us

to such flickering intervals when moments
are released from their rigid sequence
and burn like airborne embers, floating free.

here

Hope is the thing with feathers

By Emily Dickinson
 

Hope is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

Joyfulness

The Poet Visits the Museum of Fine Arts

by Mary Oliver

 

For a long time
     I was not even
        in this world, yet
           every summer

every rose
     opened in perfect sweetness
        and lived
           in gracious repose,

in its own exotic fragrance,
     in its huge willingness to give
        something, from its small self,
           to the entirety of the world.

I think of them, thousands upon thousands,
     in many lands,
        whenever summer came to them,
           rising

out of the patience of patience,
     to leaf and bud and look up
        into the blue sky
           or, with thanks,

into the rain
     that would feed
        their thirsty roots
           latched into the earth—

sandy or hard, Vermont or Arabia,
     what did it matter,
        the answer was simply to rise
           in joyfulness, all their days.
Have I found any better teaching?
     Not ever, not yet.
        Last week I saw my first Botticelli
           and almost fainted,

and if I could I would paint like that
     but am shelved somewhere below, with a few songs
        about roses: teachers, also, of the ways
           toward thanks, and praise. 

I have never been a huge fan of roses, but how can you not appreciate them a little more after reading this? Our to-do list now includes "plant a rose bush".

When I Am Among the Trees

When I Am Among the Trees

by Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
     but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."

 It's officially summer...my favorite of the seasons! This time last year, I spent a lot of time daydreaming about sharing the gorgeous Spokane parks with my son...today we walked slowly through the Manito Gaiser Conservatory aka "The Jungle" and perennial garden. We stopped just long enough to snap a pic or two and talk to an adorable grandpa who was smitten with Hudson...the feeling is mutual!

In Praise of Coldness

IN PRAISE OF COLDNESS

“If you wish to move your reader,”
Chehkov wrote, “you must write more coldly.”
Herakleitos recommended, “A dry soul is best.”
And so at the center of many great works
is found a preserving dispassion,
like the vanishing point of quattrocento perspective,
or the tiny packets of dessicant enclosed
in a box of new shoes or seeds.
But still the vanishing point
is not the painting,
the silica is not the blossoming plant.
Chekhov, dying, read the timetables of trains.
To what more earthly thing could he have been faithful?–
Scent of rocking distances,
smoke of blue trees out the window,
hampers of bread, pickled cabbage, boiled meat.
Scent of the knowable journey.
Neither a person entirely broken
nor one entirely whole can speak.
In sorrow, pretend to be fearless. In happiness, tremble.

~ Jane Hirshfield