LJ Idol Homecoming - Week 1: Resolution
“Anson, that’s beautiful!” I wrestle with our finicky kitchen faucet for a moment, struggling to stop the last trickle of water that never wants to stop, and wipe my hands on a dish towel. It’s been such a long day already.
“What was your inspiration?” I ask. The drawing she’s shown me is amazing. In it, fantastic Gaudi-like houses hang up in the sky like gourds in winter. They remind me of the birdhouses my dad used to carve from gourds, but these are much more intricate- obviously they’re intended for humanoids.
“They’re Bell Houses,” she explains. In art class they were doing an assignment where they got to draw houses, homes, or dwellings; any such structures their imaginations could conjure, and she put her houses in bells among the trees. I love it.
I am completely ready for a vacation from my dirty kitchen to Endor, or maybe to the dystopian future version of my own house that I’ve imagined high in the branches of the big Sweetgum tree in our yard.
“They remind me of the Rhododendron Fairy,” I tell her as she spins the story of her art class assignment and what everyone else chose to do. “I mean, I think the Rhododendron Fairy’s probably too big for your Bell houses the way I had her envisioned, but they seem like something that could exist in her universe.” I am completely caught up in a wave of creative longing over these houses that Anson created. They are reminding me that I want to create, too, that I had promised myself more time to do that this year.
***
It was still cool up there in the Georgia mountains, when we went for 4th of July weekend and I recall that the humid cool air felt wonderful. I remember watching it stirring the trees around the campsite and stretching out on my cushy car camping pad. I remember hearing the girls exploring outside our little tent. It was another last minute planned trip, another late late Friday night on the road, but it was so worth it. I wasn’t planning activities that weekend. It was going to be a weekend of connection with this place and with each-other.
I was even thinking of writing that weekend, having packed journals and pens.
We ended up spending a gloriously lazy day in and around our tent, hiding inside when rain showers blew through and playing board and card games. The rhododendrons were at the end of their bloom. Near sunset we took our old dog for a short walk and in the slanting light between the dark green ridges it was easy for me to imagine running into spirits of the place. How would we explain our scattered existence to such beings? Would they take the forms of manitou or fey or something more mysterious still?
That night in the tent we told stories as we drifted off, and I spun a tale of a rhododendron flower fairy who needed some kind of help because of human incursion into the woods disturbing the balance. I didn’t finish it, thinking I would have time to write more later.
But the next day we managed to meet up with another family of good friends that moved north years ago, and with them we floated down the headwaters of the Chattahoochee on inner tubes and cooked out and reminisced. It was a wonderful day, but my fairy story wasn’t finished.
***
It’s hard because this is a year in which I’ve promised myself to make friends and community a priority. Part of that is pragmatic: I get by much better with help from my friends. Times aren’t always easy for any of us. But part of it is that I lost a dear friend last year and she was always conscientious about the importance of our chosen communities. I want to carry that torch forward now for all of us.
It seems like forty years old with ten year old daughters is a season of constant striving, and of realizing that even despite that, things are finite and choices have to be made. I’m trying to chose to give myself, and all of us, the space that we need to be successful and go forward with confidence. But the struggle is constant. Every one of us has a full plate. We each just have to make sure the things we’ve chosen are the things we care the most about.
“What was your inspiration?” I ask. The drawing she’s shown me is amazing. In it, fantastic Gaudi-like houses hang up in the sky like gourds in winter. They remind me of the birdhouses my dad used to carve from gourds, but these are much more intricate- obviously they’re intended for humanoids.
“They’re Bell Houses,” she explains. In art class they were doing an assignment where they got to draw houses, homes, or dwellings; any such structures their imaginations could conjure, and she put her houses in bells among the trees. I love it.
I am completely ready for a vacation from my dirty kitchen to Endor, or maybe to the dystopian future version of my own house that I’ve imagined high in the branches of the big Sweetgum tree in our yard.
“They remind me of the Rhododendron Fairy,” I tell her as she spins the story of her art class assignment and what everyone else chose to do. “I mean, I think the Rhododendron Fairy’s probably too big for your Bell houses the way I had her envisioned, but they seem like something that could exist in her universe.” I am completely caught up in a wave of creative longing over these houses that Anson created. They are reminding me that I want to create, too, that I had promised myself more time to do that this year.
***
It was still cool up there in the Georgia mountains, when we went for 4th of July weekend and I recall that the humid cool air felt wonderful. I remember watching it stirring the trees around the campsite and stretching out on my cushy car camping pad. I remember hearing the girls exploring outside our little tent. It was another last minute planned trip, another late late Friday night on the road, but it was so worth it. I wasn’t planning activities that weekend. It was going to be a weekend of connection with this place and with each-other.
I was even thinking of writing that weekend, having packed journals and pens.
We ended up spending a gloriously lazy day in and around our tent, hiding inside when rain showers blew through and playing board and card games. The rhododendrons were at the end of their bloom. Near sunset we took our old dog for a short walk and in the slanting light between the dark green ridges it was easy for me to imagine running into spirits of the place. How would we explain our scattered existence to such beings? Would they take the forms of manitou or fey or something more mysterious still?
That night in the tent we told stories as we drifted off, and I spun a tale of a rhododendron flower fairy who needed some kind of help because of human incursion into the woods disturbing the balance. I didn’t finish it, thinking I would have time to write more later.
But the next day we managed to meet up with another family of good friends that moved north years ago, and with them we floated down the headwaters of the Chattahoochee on inner tubes and cooked out and reminisced. It was a wonderful day, but my fairy story wasn’t finished.
***
It’s hard because this is a year in which I’ve promised myself to make friends and community a priority. Part of that is pragmatic: I get by much better with help from my friends. Times aren’t always easy for any of us. But part of it is that I lost a dear friend last year and she was always conscientious about the importance of our chosen communities. I want to carry that torch forward now for all of us.
It seems like forty years old with ten year old daughters is a season of constant striving, and of realizing that even despite that, things are finite and choices have to be made. I’m trying to chose to give myself, and all of us, the space that we need to be successful and go forward with confidence. But the struggle is constant. Every one of us has a full plate. We each just have to make sure the things we’ve chosen are the things we care the most about.