Ionine.

I was delighted to read this article about violets, because I think it speaks to the essence of my own Violet very well:

There are plenty of scents that we become accustomed to over time. We smell a perfume that gets spritzed on us intensely for the first five minutes or so, less so over the next hour, and finally we tune it out like we would any constant stimulus — the feel of our clothes against our bodies, the exact shade of artificial lighting at work. Violets are something else. They can't be entirely tuned out.

It goes on to explain how violets get their scent from ionine, which stimulates, then binds to our scent receptors and temporarily shuts them off completely. After a few breaths, you'll be able to catch the scent again, rather than becoming immune to it, as it is.

That's Violet, she of such sweetness that lingers. She goes quiet, retreats into herself for a time, but before long you'll hear her flitting through the house, or see that smile that lights her eyes, or catch the light bouncing from one of her many bracelets. And there she is again, all sweetness, tugging at your sleeve, crinkling her eyes, announcing, "I wuvs you, Mama," before pattering off again.

Invisible but for its wake.

Sometimes the world just seems so disgusting, so deep and dark. I think if I see anymore Florida zombie headlines or even a glance of that surveillance video screen shot, with the naked limbs peeking out from under the overpass, I will curl up into myself and weep.

To that end, I am grateful today for the loveliness of the book I'm reading. This quote seemed apt:

Survival often depends on a specific focus: a relationship, a belief, or a hope balanced on the edge of possibility. Or something more ephemeral: the way the sun passes through the hard, seemingly impenetrable glass of a window and warms the blanket, or how the wind, invisible but for its wake, is so loud one can hear it through the insulated walls of the house.

And the author includes the following quote from Rainer Maria Rilke:

Try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.

Nightmare

The monsters unfold in more sinister versions. They have specific shape and face and name, and they come at me directly instead of lurking in shadows. Unspeakable Things happen; the innocent are contorted and broken and I am tasked with stopping it. But to stop it, I must observe and then do Unspeakable Things to the monsters in order to vanquish them and the darkness presses and the tears threaten and my eyes don't want to see but they see they see they keep seeing.

Until with a start my eyes are open in the darkness of my room because Madeleine has pushed the door open to crawl into bed, snug between me and her dad. She sits and waits without saying a word for me to lay my arm out so she can lay on top of it, and I can pull her in close and we snuggle. She's my sweetheart, my light, she's keeping the monsters at bay just now, thankfully.

What the bearded dragon knew.

The glass is smudged and my vision is somewhat questionable, but I still watch her with interest, because maybe she will see and bring me crickets. Tonight she dances to some strange music, limbs flailing while she intermittently picks up the mess the small ones have left behind. She mouths the words and she looks insane. Last night she watched a baseball game and drank wine. She seemed despondent as her team lost. She was mostly quiet. It's like this sometimes. And sometimes she marches through the house with a look of grim determination as she picks up messes and more messes and more messes. In and out of the room. Until her shoulders slump with weariness. And sometimes she stands in the kitchen for the longest periods of time, washing dishes and watching me absently. I watch her and sometimes she brings me food. What a strange life this is. What is she doing. What is she even doing. I want some freaking crickets. Not a salad. Not this. I don't even like cherries.

Dance party fuel!

We've all had a rough day, and it's nearly bedtime, but the girls are done with their baths and they want to dance. And so we dance.

Little lion tamer.

Astride the mighty lion, Violet is brave enough to withstand the heated game of tickle tearing through the house at high speeds. Normally these games send her hiding in her room or lolling about on the couch with her blanket, shrieking "No! Don't tickle!" while she flails her feet out in an effort to keep any transgressors away from her.

But today I am chasing Madeleine through the house, and she is shrieking with laughter, running but waiting for me to catch her so I can send her into fits of breathless giggles, and Violet is on the rocking lion, pressing its ears so it roars when we get too close. Her eyes are bright with joy and from the way she's watching us I know she wants to be involved, and I know not to push her too much.

So on the next pass through the room where Violet rides the lion, I break from the chase and veer toward her. She shrieks with laughter too and frantically presses the lion's ear so it ROARS ROARS ROARS. I can tell this is supposed to be a deterrent so I shout in mock fear and scurry away from her. She laughs and laughs. Mad skitters into the room and shouts, "Mom, aren't you going to chase me?" So I take off after her with a start. And the chase resumes.

This time Violet jumps in and joins the chase, running from me, and goes straight to her lion when we pass through the room where it rests, waiting for her. Another press of the lion's ear sends me screaming away in terror, and the chase is back on. And on and on, until the tired little warrior and the exhausted little lion tamer are ready for bed.

The lie in it.

It's not a good day when I observe the color of paint in the play therapist's bathroom, notice the muted gray-blue of it, set so nicely against the creamy white-brown walls, and think of the lie in it. I am washing my hands, watching the walls; one minute thinking it's so nice and calm in here, the next realizing that someone wanted me to feel that, here in the therapist's bathroom. Someone came in and painted so carefully those calm colors. What a strange kind of manipulation. It's a bathroom.

So then I take a minute and notice the other things about this bathroom: the tall trashcan is nearly overflowing with paper towels; the Bath & Body Works lotion is the energizing citrus scent. I wonder about this choice. A rejected Christmas gift? The clearance bin? I just would have expected some soothing scent, ocean breeze or lavender. I wonder if it was a strategic choice -- some secret the play therapists know -- that the smell of fresh orange helps awaken the mind before a session, maybe.

And maybe not, maybe there's no rhyme or reason for any of it. I leave the bathroom and the play therapist is ready for me; I follow her down a short hallway and pass the bowl of tootsie rolls that has probably been there since last year. It's been six weeks since our last parent consultation.

"How old is she now?" the therapist asks as I sink into the plush, dark gray couch. "Four? Almost five?" She's six, I say. Thinking: this is something you should know. She talks about the regular power struggles we've had with Mad as I pull off my glasses and try to wipe the smudges. There seems to be a spot of coffee on the rim, somehow, and it won't come off.

I should have shaved my legs, I think, pulling my dress down over my stubbly knees. My thumb traces a bruise on the opposite hand. I try to clean my lenses one last time.

The small fountain on her dresser burbles along, filling in the silences.

What a careful display all of this is, I consider. I notice the ruffle sleeves of her cardigan, one small nod to whimsy in an otherwise simple, sedate outfit. She shaved her legs. I wonder if she has kids. Shouldn't she look more tired?

Everything is mostly good, I tell her, measuring it mentally. But isn't that always the case? Even here in this place that sells me the idea of good through throw pillows and the right shade of blue on the walls. Everything is mostly good. Or maybe it isn't. Maybe we've just gotten really good at tricking ourselves through home accents and smooth skin and energizing citrus. I think this again, stepping out into the mid-day. The sky is a blue that goes on and on, and for a moment I chase it down, over buildings and down highways. What is this place? I wonder, and I'm not really thinking about here; I'm mostly thinking about the whole world sprawled out around me.

Love songs.

Love has changed shape and texture, from soft and light and floating into something more stately. From pink cotton candy held aloft by a child's sticky hands, smiles charged with sugar, into a thick oak chest against a scuffed bedroom wall, filled with balls of socks and old underwear. It's the marriage of folded t-shirts resting on top of each other in a crooked drawer.

Now songs like these make me turn my eyes away, almost embarrassed. How naive, how young you sound, singing "you walked into the room just like the sun" against your earnest acoustic guitar. Love isn't "you and me will bloom on the windowsill." Blooms wilt and die. Sunlight fades. You can't live like that forever, now can you?

Still, it's no small mourning, hearing this and thinking of a time when love was a thrum of electricity in the blood. Holding hands on the curb at night. Walking home one summer morning, delirious, drunk with kisses. Hands tangled in hair, words on a page, a voice in your ear, a smile to live in. Love isn't that. You silly, happy fools.

Iceland.

Do you think the air just crackles with magic there? Like, an old kind of magic that hums along on the breaths of goblins and fairies and trolls?

(All of these images are from ovaratli's photostream on Flickr.)

Plump grub in honeysuckle.

Letter to My Future Child

by Megan Amram

The way you don’t exist is remarkable
When I have been hotwired, cobbled from
Spongy tubes specifically to birth. At least to bud

Would be preferable, shedding a child
Like petals drooping from a center.
I apologize profusely to you,

But I am content in my selfishness and
My love of this girl I’ve created.
Today I watched the bees graze,

The perfect mix of threat and song and binge,
And I felt I, too, could bob and maneuver.
I guess they reminded me of you:

Your toddling bumble, your absent suckle,
Your mere addition to the swarm.
You would be a plump grub in honeysuckle

Were you to be anything, but you will not
Be. This is something I’ve decided.
There is only so much life to go around; I’ll take

Two rations. The petal and the pistil.
And, hey, the calyx. The ability to share is mythic,
Like you, and who needs another creature,

Another sea monster? I already have the
Swooping vertebrae of my back, I have my bones
Diving above and below my skin

Filled with just the right amount of people:
One. How could I bring a child into this world
When I want it all to myself?

Life is that right and full of love, flowers, et al.
I’m sorry for me, sure. But most of all, Little Bee,
I am sorry for you.


(poem found here)
("Plump grub in honeysuckle" is going to be one of those phrases from poetry that gets stuck in my head.)

That was winter.

City Dog, Country Frog, which is written by Mo Willems and illustrated by Jon J. Muth, is such a wonderful kid's book. The illustrations are so lovely, and the book is completely moving. Particularly in one scene that always gets me -- you you read, "That was winter," and when you turn the page there is a spread with no words. The silence built into the story there is probably the best part of the whole thing. It's quiet, reflective, and packs kind of a gentle emotional punch in the context of the story. Kids or no, it's worth a read.

(Disclaimer: It is a sad one! With a tinge of happy at the end -- but still sad.)