Birthday Love

Matthew relishes birthdays. Any excuse to celebrate love; he's pretty amazing that way. It's started to rub off on me, the begrudging Scroogey type always making a big deal to not make a big deal out of these things. This, my quarter-century celebration, turned out to be simple and lovely.  We walked uptown and went to the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art. If you're in or going to be in Charlotte, at least visit the outside of the Bechtler and the Green across the street. There is an installation by Niki de Saint Phalle called Creation of a New Mythology, several large polyurethane foam statues with lovely stone, glass, and plastic mosaic detail placed throughout the Green. It was uplifting to see how that type of accessibility brought so many people off of the sidewalks to comment, touch and explore.
Here are a few shots of just how gorgeous a day out can be with twenty bucks and a whole lotta love:

Spring

Diaper changes are fun!

No need to comment.

Woman.

Family.

Thunderhead (also the shape of my engagement ring).

Skyward.

St. Peter's.

Synapses.

Textures.

Textures.

Such a lovely day.

Pax.

A Day With No Electricity

*I wrote this a few days ago after a huge storm knocked the power out.*
The excuse I use for not focusing on my craft is often, "You know, life gets in the way." This may be true, but after today, I find it more likely that the distractions I have installed into my day-to-day may be more the culprit. It may not be life getting in the way as much as my cell phone, facebook, Netflix, all of my frequented sites, etc. Left with no contact to my social environment, I am inside our apartment writing by the light of my once heavily used head lamp.
All of these things. All of these wires and cords. Their rainbow- black tangled heaps are sad looking now that I notice them. Jumbled webs not so well hidden behind the entertainment center and desk. Everything seems so dead. The apartment is so quiet. I've grown used to the hums and buzzes of modern living. 
And along the way, I've accumulated all of that noise and energy, too. It came to a head when Matthew and I were arguing over the spoiled food in the fridge and the wet laundry and the lack of hot water and our cells both being dead. What cacophony! A disgusting low class rant of a lower middle class citizen living an often unaware existence. What?! You mean for this one day, I can't continue my X Files marathon while brewing my expensive tea before giving my child a warm bath and going to bed surfing the internet on my Macbook Pro? BLASPHEMY!
Now, I have to actually reflect on the state of Japan, Ivory Coast, Libya, and the rest of the world instead of reading my Associated Press app to get my daily dose of desensitization? Send up a flare! I'm bored! So, even though the laptop is dead, I do remember how to use a pen and still have empty pages to fill, and I hope to share them more often.

Noise in the house

I'm a folk girl.  I consider myself to have a diverse musical palette, and some would go so far as to call me a snob.  But boy, do I love folk.  It's my go to genre.  In an effort to avoid listening to any Ryan Adams through the winter (Sorry Ryan, but you can quickly become a daily dose of S.A.D.),  I became obsessed with two albums I think deserve big nods:


The Fresh and Onlys, Play It Strange


Brief synopsis of the first:  Do you like Guided by Voices and The Byrds?  Then this album is a huge duh. Play It Strange, with it's garage pop and anthemic undertones, sounds best behind closed, thin walls so you can hear every echo and throw your body around, but it makes me want to pack up une bebe and tell Matthew to take the week off work so we can road trip it to San Fran with the windows down.  It all sounds effortlessly cool, somewhat familiar and just plain clever.  Tim Cohen has that aloof voice that makes you want to really listen to what he's saying, and what he's saying is deceptive and playful.  So, listen to it, and "tell me what are you fascinated by?" Oh, and this album came out last year, so expect their new E.P. soon!

The Head and the Heart, The Head and the Heart


I can name five albums that I can listen to over and over again, and the songs still hold the same sentiment each time.  I feel the same twinges and tingles from start to finish.  My reactions never morph into nostalgia for the times when those albums were most prominent in my life because they remain prominent in my life.  I have a feeling this album will make number six.  The funny thing is, it's just so listenable.  I challenge you to not like this band.  There just isn't a bad song--and I'm always looking for the weakest link.  Matthew and I can't quit blasting it everywhere we go.  This is an album about creating, destroying, maintaining--the everyday of most artists.  And the message is clear: "Don't follow your head; follow your heart."  So, I'll save the five album game for another day; but I'll tell you what I feel during each song on this album:
1. We're broke...it sucks but sometimes it's funny
2. I'm mourning my youth.
3. It'll all be over one day.  And that's ok.
4. I want simplicity.
5. I'm sorry.
6. I make things too complicated.
7. I'm not ready to move on.
8. I'm ready to move on.  Thank you.
9. We're broke...it sucks, but what we're doing is beautiful.

Al Salam.

The Story of Us

OK.  I've been working on this for a while.  So here's the story of our little baby bird's birth:

I was unaware of the deficits in my life before I had a child.  Not in the fiscal sense or the success sense, but in the fulfillment sense.  Motherhood is a constant reckoning of emotions and identity.  It is an evaluation of everyday, even if you, like I, try to function as organically as possible in everyday life. 

The one thing I have tried not to spend too much time assessing is our birth story.  I think it's time, four and half months later, to finally attempt a summation, not for validation or because I think it will help someone else.  I need to tell it to let it go, to accept it and love it.  

I went into labor at 37 weeks.  My water broke while I was peeing at 2:30 in the afternoon.  I stood in the bathroom trying to figure out if I was still peeing or if this was, indeed, the moment.  This went on until I was sticky from my thighs to my toes and the bath mat was completely soaked.  I called Matthew at work, who proceeded to freak out and speed home while I calmly packed up our hospital bags.  We went to the OB for a check, and sure enough, that strip turned bright blue.  

I tried so hard to stay out of that hospital.  We had put together this beautiful birth plan; Matthew even laminated it for me.  I wanted so badly to have Adeline Sparrow without any medication or interferences.  I knew that because my sac broke at one centimeter, it was going to be a long journey.  I made Matthew drive the speed limit, and we even stopped at my favorite gourmet/whole foods store for trail mix and cookies.  Then, I was ready.  

I proceeded to be ready for the next 20 hours before anything really happened.  At that point, my natural labor was nothing more than a few contractions here and there and a lot of hunger pains. I walked, I lunged, I squatted, I even skipped and did Monty Python silly walks through the hospital corridors.   At 26 hours, they finally convinced me to try pitocin; two hours later, they were pumping 30 cc of it into me, and I was officially confined to an i.v. and the area surrounding my bed.  I started having active contractions, but there was still no progression.  I was 50 percent effaced and still at one centimeter.  

At 28 hours, I was officially disheartened.  The doctors wouldn't let me labor much longer without intervening because my sac had been open for over a day.  Then, the most terrifying experience I've ever had happened.  All I remember is a searing contraction that lasted seven minutes, the nurses grabbing my wrists and pulling me from my side to back, the excruciating pinches of a suction scalp electrode and a syringe full of lack of permission going into my i.v. set up.  They had lost my baby bird's heartbeat.  The contractions had gotten fierce, but she wasn't going anywhere.  My adrenaline spiked so high, I spent a fair amount of time uncontrollably convulsing afterwards.  

And then, my contractions stopped all together.  As the story goes, they convinced me to try an epidural.  Three hours of sleep ensued, and the contractions just wouldn't pick back up.  Interventions and all.  

At 32 hours, Adeline Sparrow's heart rate was dropping.  I was surprised at how calmly my doctor acted.  Even with all of the drugs, I discerned the looks of concern on the staff's and Matthew's faces.  It was time for a cesarian.  

Before the incision, they asked me how I felt when they started pushing on my numbness.  "I feel like a trampoline," I said.  "Like all of you could just bounce up and down on top of me."  

I wanted to cry, but I was all out of tears.  It felt so strange to not be attached to that moment.  The surgery was so quick; and instead of my hands pulling that beautiful tiny babe out, four latexed pairs removed her from her refuge.  

I couldn't see her until they put her on the scale.  Six pounds four ounces and nineteen inches.  She was a beautiful, blurry mess.  They put her next to my head for a few seconds.  I touched her hand.  Matthew took a quick picture, and then he was off to do skin-to-skin in lieu of my presence.  

I wanted so badly to be there; that ache was coupled with an air pocket under my diaphragm that caused pain worse than any contraction I had felt.  

I have tried to dissect that overwhelming amount of feeling during those thirty minutes from pre-Adeline to post-Adeline.  All I can say is they ran the gamut.  

Throughout our labor, I had Sigur Ros' Ageatis Byrjun playing almost nonstop.  This is the Sigur Ros album with the alien fetus painting on the cover, and I think the loosest subjective interpretation of the album title is "a good start" or "a good beginning."  That is what our birth story is.  

I want to let go of the clinical parts, the terror of losing control, the terror of almost losing everything, the anti-climax and all of the negative.  I guess that's why it's taken me so long to try to pull this together; I've been stuck in the trauma.

When my little baby bird asks me to tell her about that day, here is what I will say:

I will tell her that we took our time; that we ate our favorite cookies; that we danced and did Monty Python silly walks in the hospital hallways; that she was held like a little joey so close and safe to both her mommy and daddy's hearts after she came out; that we were one sticky mess that fit so perfectly together, the little curves of her sleeping body in a crescent between my breasts.  I will tell her that I will never be able to describe that first wave of emotions and do justice to knowing she was safe and healthy and finally with us.  I will let go and relish in the monumentally beautiful parts of the story of us.

Friður.

One fantastic vegetarian accident

So, we are mostly vegetarian and completely organic around here.   I was a strict vegetarian before getting pregnant, but when I was super sick every hour of every day for that first trimester, chicken was reintroduced to my diet.  I am now going back to vegetarianism (although Matthew needs his chicken and fish fix every once in a while).
The trick is finding things that will fill his belly; it's sickening to be carrying around an extra 25 pounds while feeding someone with the metabolism of a hummingbird, but I can manage most days to make something relatively healthy and filling.  This dish was super easy (easy enough to cook at 11 p.m. when Matthew was getting off work), and I am so happy when delicious and nutritious accidents happen!

Polenta and Black Eyed Peas 
(serves 2)


1 16 oz packaged polenta
1 16 oz can of black eyed peas
1 Tofurky soysage link (Kilbasa)
2  cups sweet potato
1/2 cup chopped yellow onion
4 garlic cloves
2 tsp jalapeno powder
1 tsp dried/fresh sweet basil
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp kosher salt, divided
2 T worcestershire sauce
11/2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp cajun spice (redfish magic)
Olive oil
salsa and sour cream to garnish


heat oven to 350
slice sweet potatoes lengthwise in thin strips and then cut in half; 
place them in a glass pie dish lightly oiled/buttered; 
bake until soft (~15 minutes)


while potatoes are baking, combine black eyed peas, chopped Tofurky, 2 minced garlic cloves, jalapeno powder, basil, lemon juice, 1 tsp salt, worcestershire;
 heat over medium heat until mixture is a thick soupy texture, simmer on low while cooking everything else


heat 2 T olive oil in a skillet on medium high heat;
slice polenta into 6-8 1/4-1/2 inch wheels
sautee 2 minced garlic cloves and onion until tender;
add polenta and add chili powder, salt and cajun spice
sautee, turning until golden and crisp on the outside;
add chili powder, salt and cajun spice


When potatoes are tender, place the polenta mixture on top and bake for 10-12 minutes at 350


I garnished this with fresh garlic salsa, but I think a red pepper tapenade would be great on it as well (I plan on trying this with the leftovers).  I fully intend on using this at our next dinner party by doubling the ingredients.

Rendered Speechless

The problem is,
I have no purchase.
Each day is filled with words
all jumbled, falling, tripping over themselves
before they even get through that front door.
And then when I speak, 
I realize that what I am saying is quite meaningless.
And I remember the monks, 
 barely audible but somehow making points
while pacing and twirling beads.
I remember my grandfather sitting in silence
While everyone squawked and scrambled to be heard
at the dinner table.
And I watch my daughter,
who watches me,
Her tongued tied, so that every grunt and squeal
hits the roof of her mouth with purpose.
Her lovely experiments remind me
I need to tamper with my words,
Give them measure before they leave the gate.
To communicate out of necessity, and wonder, and observation-
each word crafted with effort and effect in mind.

Friede.

On the other side of the world

Today, the sky was that blinding blue that makes me want to curse my lost sunglasses and at the same time, stare vertically up, up, up even if it does hurt.  Anytime I see a sky this blue, I want to immediately jump in a plane and go back to Tibet.  So, I thought I'd share an article I wrote while I was in Lhasa.  I am so glad I can say that I've made that trek.  

The prayer flags wrap around the river, an adorned necklace of tattered spirituality in a nation surrounded by mountainous elevation and mounting contention.

It is here I ascended the white pumus stairs of Potala Palace to walk the path of a Buddhist Mecca. It is here I saw the whitewashed walls of a temple once fragrant with yak butter candles and flaming with the rituals of second sons.

The only monks sitting vigil now are Han Chinese guards, red robed, listening to walkmans and snapping their fingers at the Swedish tourists trying to touch the last of the Tsong Khapa statues sitting celibate in the meditation halls.

On the streets of Barkor Square, Lhasa echoes with the resonance of informal market economics. It is May, a time when Tibetan Buddhists will travel through the pastoral panorama up to 900 miles to prostrate in front of the ceramic urns billowing incense as the chants of monks and the begging of alms crescendo.

The streets of Lhasa were once architectural representations of the Buddhist sects here; all of the buildings trimmed with pictorial crests of Tibetan history. Since the construction of the train from China to Tibet, the stone carvings of tantric faces and guardian demons have been covered up with laminated signs advertising bath houses, pretty young Chinese bodies prostrating in a different way -- neon-electric.

An elderly man, face tanned like yak hide, kneels in the road (small wooden blocks strapped with cloth to his hands), lies down on his stomach, and moves his prayer beads to his mouth. A large truck rolls right over him; he keeps down, eyes closed, muttering something I wish I understood. The truck passes in the heavy congestion. I wonder how long he has traveled to get to Jokhang Temple. "You are 12 blocks away," I want to say.

A bus ride to the outskirts of Lhasa, a long hike to 16,000 feet, and I am facing the gates of Ganden Monastery. It is the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. Scattered orange, yellow, red and gold temples housing one of the last active monasteries in this area.

Inside the main temple, 50 monks are taking lunch before afternoon meditations. I make my way in a clockwise path through the temple, walking through the crowded hallways winding up to the roof. I climb through a small attic opening and step out to the red rooftop. I sit in the middle of a cloud, watching the condensation bubble and roll over the mountains surrounding me.

Against the protests of goat herders and monks, I take a compelling climb to a Tibetan sky burial sight, ascending a steep two miles. I kneel in front of a pile of white rags that very recently housed a body. The sky burial is performed in a modest and quick way. The bones of the dead are broken, the body carried to the highest peak of the monastery. Wrapped in white cloth, the body is left for its next bardos - the spirit taken to the sky and the flesh left for the carnivores that will take it as carrion or back down the hillside.

After a demanding hike back down, and a crowded bus ride to Lhasa, I reach the hostel at dusk. I see monks in Adidas buying new robes from a stand. One of them is laughing into a BlackBerry.

That night, I dream of the river with the prayer flag necklace. There is trash cluttering the stream, tourists tearing off flags and wiping their sweating foreheads, and monks talking on BlackBerries as another man prostrates himself in congested traffic.

Pax.

Home, Sweet Home

My mother used to tell me stories about those first unstable days of being young, newly married and pregnant.  There were always descriptions of a terrible hand-me-down plaid couch or relations of just how closet sized those closet-sized barracks were in Iceland.


However, the maintenance man, just hours ago, pulled a dead rat out of our bathroom plumbing.  That's right, I said a rat--in our shower drain, no less.  Now, my mother also once told me she woke up with a cockroach the size of her hand on her face while living in these shipping freight-sized barracks; that may have been true, but I kid you not: A RAT!  Oh, wait, I'm sorry, a "piece of rat," as the very hesitant maintenance man said under his breath as we caught him running out the door.  There is a general consensus among our friends that "a piece of rat" sounds way worse.


So, my fiancee, Matthew, is standing naked with one sock still on trying to decide if it's safe to shower now.  We've both gone nine days--apparently a perfectly reasonable time according to our apartment management--without showering ("bird baths still happened, don't worry).  I'm not sure what to tell him.  I'm still standing in the bathroom door, sponge in hand, contemplating if my last thirty minutes of sterilizing worked.  I scrubbed the precipice with borax.  I dumped bleach down the drain.  I threw away anything surrounding the crime scene.  But I still hovered over the tub to wash my crotch for fear of residual rat juices.


So this is the anecdote I get to tell my darling fourth-month-old daughter one day?  How do I romanticize that?  There's nothing quaint about a dead rat in your plumbing.


I guess the point is, we're trying.  We're all trying.  My parents, both in their early twenties when blessed with lil' old me, tried.  Matthew's mother was relating to me the other day that she and her husband first shacked up in a cousin's garage when they got married.



I am becoming quite comfortable with setbacks.  For everything that goes wrong, the number of things I can count as blessings most certainly outweigh these few ridiculous days.  There are plenty of things I can be proud of.  Matthew and I were both working less than living wage jobs when we met, fell in love, and two months later, found out we were pregnant.  We've come up against a great deal of sighs, gasps, tisk-tisks, and any other skeptical sound you can think of.  We've matured together, we've managed our money with moderate intelligence, and we've even procured the fundamentals needed to make a place look like a home. (Thank you, Ikea.)


Don't get me wrong, I fully intend on taking the apartment management on to right the health hazards wrought upon us poor, meager apartment renters.  It will be a long, exhausting process contending with the management.  I feel a little resigned and sick, but I have eight hours until tomorrow starts. And, this evening, snuggled up to my beautiful baby bird in our comfy bed waiting for my man in one sock, I am grateful for this life, its obstacles, and its rewards.  Ok, but not the vermin.  I'd be ok without the vermin.

Peace.

I Read Out Loud: Books I like this week.

Books: 

These are all great Christmas presents given to me by friends who know me too well.

Secret Lives of Great Authors, Robert Schnakenberg: with a name like Schnakenberg, I guess it's easier to write nonfiction about great fiction writers.  Either way, this book is ceaselessly entertaining! I found out H.G. Wells was an anti-semite and Mark Twain once delivered an entire speech about farting to a royal audience. 

The Book Thief, Marcus Zuzak:  This is one of the most surprisingly poignant contemporary pieces of literature I have read to date...and it's a young adult novel! When I first read this book a year ago (this will be my third time reading it), I was hesitant to read something written from the omniscient perspective of "Death."  I figured that the idea of writing from Death's perspective had probably been toyed around with by many, many talented authors, and they all decided it was contrived.  Zuzak's narrator, however, speaks in boldfaced lists, short outbursts of poetry, and a benevolent, sympathetic tone for the protagonists of his plot.  And rarely is a novel started with such a lovely preface.  The first three pages of this book are so poetic and organic, it was exciting to open it up again.

Wild Ducks Flying Backwards, Tom Robbins: Dear Mr. Robbins, thank you for helping me to decide to take my honeymoon to the Selous.  You alone could make the danger of the tsetse fly seem so incredibly romantic!  This is a collection of short articles, observations, et. all by one of the masters of the quirky word.  It's a travelogue that offers revelry and escape--great faculties for the mind and soul during the god-forsaken gray of January.

Insignificant ramblings of a not-so-quiet heart

2011.  I've never actually accomplished the completion of a New Year's Resolution; except when I went through that phase after college where I resolutely attempted to accomplish nothing.  That worked out well.  So, for this year, I set goals that are supposed to make me feel like an active member of society.  What better way to become an involved citizen than to--that's right-BLOG!  

I have wanted to do this for a long time, but I just had a child, before that taught full time, etc.  I just want to set up a cyber-closet full of all my proverbial laundry.  Is that narrow enough for a blogging topic? No? Too bad.  So this will be partly reflections on the day-to-day as a new mother, some creative writing that just needs to be somewhere other than piled between dusty covers under the coffee table, observations of art, etc.  I called this the Clamorlogue because if there's one way to describe me, it's frenetic.  My life is filled with noise.  The cadence of a hungry child, the thumps and thuds of my apartment neighbors, the inner-workings of a prototypical machine of a partnership, and MUSIC.  Oh, how we love music around here.  My baby girl actually wakes up if it's too quiet at naptime.  

I guess if I had a goal for this new year, it would be consistency--to consistently be frenetic, even.  To embrace and behold.  Right now, I am besotted with my life.  I never thought I'd be there.  So, here's to 2011 and each and every noisy day.  I hope you enjoy!