Bits and pieces

So strange. The weather seems to have taken a cue with the flip of the calendar page to September. Suddenly the air has that crisp hint of memory, and I look at the still green trees knowing that they are ready to burst into a flaming shimmer of their former selves. I get more reflective than normal this time of year. Every song I hear seems to harken back to something I will soon be remembering, like I'm walking through a scrapbook photo that I haven't taken yet. For me it has the strange combination of new beginnings and savored endings all at the same time. The fading sunshine, cooler than even just a few weeks ago, seems to become part of the air so you can actually breath it in. I fill my lungs and hold it there, trying to store some up for the dusky days ahead.

My wife and I met in this season, we were married in the fall, and we had our first wonderful child in the fall. And I'm glad of that. It just feels like the right season for epic life changes. Who knows what it will hold this time around.

So I've been ruminating, and here are a couple things I've started to write that didn't quite flesh out to a full post of it's own.

"One thing that's happening this fall is that I've started to become dumber in the eyes of my children. I was aware that this would happen. It is inevitableble as the teen years takes it's sometimes ugly hold of my beautiful babies. It was just so delayed in my daughter that I thought maybe we were unique and gifted by God to be spared this part of the journey. But no, we were only given the extra time to prepare, which, it would seem, I have squandered. And now is the winter of our discontent, and my storehouse is already nearly empty.

Not that the kids are what could be considered bad really, and not that we don't still share a whole heapin' helpin' of lovin' around still (more times than not), but there has been a dramatic spike in the number of breathy under-the-breath non words being uttered around our house, accompanied by rolled eyes which all have the same basic unspoken translations: "That's so stupid!"

And not only has it come, it's holding nothing back, leaving no child left behind. My 8 yr old is aiming to be an over achiever, entering his teen years very early. He takes great pains on every occasion, with evangelistic zeal, to explain to me in great detail how his plans are so very wise and my counter desires only reflect folly. Typically when we have 5 minutes to get him to school and he still doesn't have his shoes on because every time he tries his shoes "bug" him.

Even down to our youngest member is trying on teen-age behavior he is witnessing for size. This has caused my wife to give our youngest, the little Bear, a new nickname. Mr. Frass. Which is short for Mr. Sassafrass, because lately he is trying out just where the limits are. We refer to him by one or the other of these two names. Bear when he's being his wonderful, cute little self---Mr. Frass when he's testing boundaries. And he's is a master of this double identity.

He will be go back and forth between these two personalities 3 or 4 times within seconds, to see which will serve his purposes best. His latest Mr. Frass is including the phrase "I said. . .!" before the most recent demand that is not being heeded. Well hey, why not, it works for the giants living here. My wife reported this latest development to me. She asked him to do something and he of course said No, because that's the default answer.

It's funny, even when you ask him something like, "Bear, would you like some ice cream?", he inevitably gives his immediate No. But when the question would actually benefit him, the 'no' is followed by a moments hesitation, like an internal systems check where you can see that little ensign on the bridge chiming up, "Um, Sir. With all due respect, you may want to reconsider. She did say ice cream, after all." To which the little internal Captian replies, "What's that?! Ice cream you say? Why wasn't I informed??! Full Steam REVERSE!!" and as we're leaving th kitchen, he suddenly comes padding after, "Yes. Yes. Ice cream, please!"

So, in the latest incident, the wife asks him to do whatever it was, and he says no. So, of course, she has to a little more firmly ask him again--to communicate that she wasn't kidding. Only this time, instead of seeing wisdom and conflict avoidance in complying, he turns and takes a firm stance and tone himself and declares, "I said NO mommy!"

She did say, though, that there was the slightest little crack in this new facade where she could see the thought occurring, "Hmmm, is this going to make me die?"

He's also gotten a new habit. Once, at a family gathering, he was doing something that caused him to go into fits of uncontrollable laughter. Of course, we all thought this was totally fun to see. However, he got such a good reaction that now it's his latest trick in his little bag of cute. He'll pull that out now as a tactic when he feels like he's loosing ground in any situation. Only the counterfeit is not cute at all. It's shrill and loud and makes you want to pull out your eyeballs and wipe the grit it puts on the back of them."

After all that, I was writing about some music I gave my mom for her birthday. I made her a playlist of music I found on the iTunes music store (which is down right now, this Tues 9-12-06 morning, pending an Apple announcement this afternoon---aren't you excited! I know I am). I put together songs for her that reminded me of growing up, and then explained them for her as we listened to them at her party. I'll post that playlist and it's explanations when I have it written up in it's enirety, but in the meantime I had this reflection as I thought about all those tunes:

"This music reminds me of when I was like 5, maybe. And I would be in the living room in mid-November at about 4:30, when it was getting dusky outside and very cool. There might be uncharacteristicly early dusting of white powder being cradled in the fallen leaves on the ground, but nothing you could call snow with a straight face. It would be just before Dad got home and carried in some of the metallic outside air on his coat, and it would fall off of him onto me like spilled water when he stomped his boots off at the door.

I would be sitting there watching something on PBS that my mom would have turned on to entertain me after the 3 mainstream networks had switched over from afternoon cartoons to early evening news programs. I would be sitting there running my fingers absentmindedly through the channels in our green sculpted carpet, the air made thick with the scent of the warm dinner she was cooking in the kitchen.

That was the decade I remember as smelling of natural fiber macrame twine and brown leather and fondue burner fuel. It was painted in paisley and tie-dye, denim and polyester, olive green and burnt orange. It was a time so full of youth that even the plastic felt young, like this wasn't was plastic would someday be, but it was a good start. People seemed confused and inspired and sad and quietly angry all at the same time. I could feel the tension of recent disagreements between people, but I never saw the arguments myself. Somehow I knew that the cause of all of that was very far away from the warm summer sidewalks or the cold winter snow that sometimes kept us from being able to use our back porch door, and so I shouldn't be too worried about it. Worries would come another day.

But even that young I had a feeling that the world was more sensual than it have ever been or would be for long, and that somehow my sensual exploration of the sights and sounds and textures around me was more in line with this "new thing', than it was in the lives of the adults that surrounded me. I had no idea that the near future held for me a rendezvous with Mad Magazine, Hulk and Spiderman comics, and the ultimate experience that would launch me into my very first pop culture frenzy, one that started "A long time ago in a galaxy far far away. . ."

This was the music that flowed out of roller rinks, pizza places, swimming pool loudspeakers and through the rolled down windows of cars without air conditioning. It was trapped on 8 tracks in glass topped display cases with holes in them for your hands, allowing a 6 year old to touch it but not possess it.

It felt like this was the soundtrack to a rebirth, and I was just fortunate enough to be born right along with it."

So there it is, a couple bits and pieces. Sweep them up, do with them as you may.