Family

Talismans

By / August 30, 2011 / 3 Comments

On the first or second day of WorldCon an gentleman stopped by our booth to talk to Sal and Caryn. He was wearing a silver chain mail shirt. I’m not just talking about the color silver. The shirt was made of actual silver, which he had purchased in blocks, spun by hand, wound into links and the fashioned into a mail shirt. The man was Loren Damewood, and he is a master of knotwork and chain mail. I’m also told that he is marvelously patient teacher who will sit with children by the hour and teach them crafting. As he spoke with us Loren was weaving with cotton cord and a needle. When he was done he reached for my hand and slipped what he’d made onto my wrist.

He assured me that it was just a piece of string and that I owed him nothing for it. I know for a fact that it is more than string. I’ve certainly never been able to make string dance so prettily. Having the bracelet made me happy. I wore it several times during the convention. On Sunday morning I put it on very deliberately because I knew it had happiness in it and I was in need of happy things. I thought it made me happy because it was a representation of amazing skill turned to kindness, but it was more than that. Only when I arrived home did I realize what else caused me to have such an immediate positive reaction.

These are the hammock swings I purchased earlier this summer. Since I bought them I have discovered that they are the perfect place for me to let go of my stresses. I’ll sit in one, put my feet in the other, close my eyes and drift. Sometimes I drift off to sleep. Other times I just feel the sun on my skin, the breeze in my hair, and listen to birds rustling nearby. My hammock swings are a place of peace. Several times during WorldCon I longed for them. The bracelet Loren gave me is made of exactly the same cotton cord which holds up my swings. These are the chords I often wrap my fingers around while resting. Loren gave me a tangible reminder of something from which I draw strength. He gave me a talisman.

It is not my first talisman.

I bought this pendant last winter and wore it daily for most of January and February. With it I carried brightness and flowers with me even though the world outside was gray and cold. When I was tired I could touch the smooth surface and remember the bright blue skies of spring. I did not call the pendant a talisman when I bought it, but it is. I purchased it very deliberately to remind me of things that I needed to keep in my mind.

Realizing that I have talismans helps me understand one of Gleek’s quirk’s better. She accumulates small things. The most visible manifestation of this is necklaces. She started with one, but it expanded to two, three, four until she had a tangle of chains and strings around her neck. I could see the untidiness of this particular fashion choice, but it came nowhere near the list of things worth arguing about. Also I think I sensed that she needed them. I knew that some had specific meanings for her, particularly the bag of worry dolls.

Here are Gleek’s talismans. The stripped bag is full of tiny Guatemalan worry dolls. She got them from her grandmother. At least one of the necklaces is a mood ring. The leather pouch contains the instructions for it. I think if you untangle all those other chains, you find that there are four or five necklaces. They’re all sturdy, which is necessary considering that Gleek doesn’t slow down for jewelry. She has worn them constantly for several years. When she took the pouch and worry dolls off at her cousin’s house to jump on a trampoline, then accidentally left them behind, it was a catastrophe of epic proportions. She fretted and made multiple phone calls until the necklaces were found and promises to mail them were extracted. Gleek needed her talismans.

I photographed them today while she was at school. She took them off several days ago (again because of a trampoline) and has not missed them. This is the best possible sign that the new school and new life patterns are exactly what Gleek needs.

Flying free

By / August 27, 2011

I pulled the van into the driveway and the children gathered their backpacks to climb out. It was Friday afternoon of the first week of the new school year.
“No homework. Go play.” I said. With those words I set them free and they flew. There are so few long evenings left for them to roam the lawns on adventures. I let them continue to play until full dark had fallen. The following morning we all slept late. It was a good reminder that the new schedule still allows for us to have unfocused time.

After WorldCon, The First Day of School

By / August 23, 2011 / 1 Comment

For what feels like the first time in three months I am alone in my house. I can feel the silence wrapping around me like a comfortable blanket. Even more I can feel the absence of imminent requests. As a mother and as a business manager I live my life on call. Then today I ushered my kids out the door and knew that (barring emergencies) they would not need me again for six hours. Howard slept and then headed out to a movie. He does not need anything from me today either. My computer is full of neediness. There are social media sites to catch up on, blogs to read, and emails to answer. Yet I am aware that this is mostly an artificial need. I choose to skip catching up on facebook and assume that I’ll be otherwise informed about things that are critically relevant to me. I barely skim twitter and google+. I haven’t yet touched my blog reader. The things in there are longer and require more focused energy.

The silence in my house reminds me that when school let out I was in the middle of finding a better balance between doing things for others and giving myself space to grow. I put that on hold and need to return to it. So I’m doing the same thing I did all week at WorldCon when I had more things clamoring for my attention than I could manage. I made a hand gesture to the observant and trustworthy sources of clamor. It was a single finger upraised, meaning “I see you. I’ll get to you. Let me finish this first.” The thoughts on life balance subside and settle in to wait patiently. I have accounting to do. In this case the accounting is not just money and inventory. I must account for the uses of my energy and Howard’s. These calculations are not easily weighed against each other, except by feel. How does a week full of sleepless nights rank against getting to see Steve Jackson and Monica Stephens every day? How does feeling ill on the night of the Hugos measure up to having David Brin stop by our booth to tell Howard he enjoys reading Schlock? And then there was the time that Larry Niven happened by and Howard was able to speak with him and gift him a book. The list of people I met for the first time is long. The list of stunningly beautiful, touching, dramatic moments is also long. I have to remember these things when I am so completely unable to be useful for business tasks today. The balance on WorldCon is overwhelmingly positive. I need to make records of this so that when I’m mired in pre-WorldCon stress next year I can check the balance sheet.

My children were delivered into my hands on Sunday, both tired and happy. We all made the trek home, traveling over night and into the morning. Then yesterday I walked with my youngest two through the halls of their new school. They bounced to their classrooms and spoke with their teachers. I did not bounce and any time I sat down I had to fight off sleep. Yet I was still able to feel that the place was good. I think that my children will do well there. I could see some of the small tensions in them relax. When they come home we will begin with establishing solid homework and bed times. I have hopes that after all my preparations for this fall to be difficult, it will not be. I might be more stressed about the whole thing if I had energy to spare. Instead I need to muster the brain cells to answer email.

Sometimes the Timing is Just Right

By / August 5, 2011 / 1 Comment

Howard went off to GenCon and I had a few days where I was done with GenCon planning and not yet into the urgent pre-WorldCon scramble. The kids needed and outing, so we went to the zoo.

We arrived just as some of the early arrivers were leaving for lunch, and so we got a close parking space. We wandered in to the zoo where we found that the baby elephant was taking a bath. I snapped a picture just as she flapped her ears adorably.

We wandered onward to discover that the bird show was due to begin in just moments. We found seats near the front. They weren’t shaded, but when the ranger asked everyone to scoot in, we scooted right into the shade. The bird Show was amazing and I had a couple of perfectly timed shots.

We walked out of the bird show to discover that the carousel had no line. We all found animals to ride, except Link who declared his disinterest in the whole thing with a particularly 13-year-old-boy tone. He elected to sit on one of the carousel benches. I told him to make sure he rolled his eyes a lot as we went round.

We wandered up the hill and had lunch at uncrowded tables because everyone else had already eaten by then. As we were ordering lunch a woman came up to me. She was a Schlock Mercenary fan and recognized me from a presentation I gave at LTUE last February. After lunch, we happened into the small animal house just as they were feeding many of the small animals. This meant that the animals were active and cute rather than sleeping. There we met the Cheshire Cat.

The sign said “Sand Cat” but I know that face. He blinked at us in a very impressive and knowing way.

We exited the zoo just as rush hour was headed into it’s peak. Traffic was heavy all the way home, but despite the truly impressive construction zones we had to traverse, there were no serious traffic blockages. Home was calm and welcoming. Howard called and we talked for a good thirty minutes about the convention and the zoo. Then we wished each other a Happy Anniversary. All is as it should be.

Promises

By / August 5, 2011 / 2 Comments

The fabric was cut and folded neatly, ready to be sewn. When it was done it would be a fairy dress, floaty and beautiful to match the dreams of a young girl who fell in love with a picture on a pattern in the craft store. Gleek clutched that pattern and begged with big brown eyes. I couldn’t say no. Then we raided our fabric stash at home and found the pieces we needed. All was ready and waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Other sewing bits got piled on top as I occasionally rummaged in my sewing box to make various emergency repairs. Mostly the sewing box resided in the closet with the cut fabric hidden inside. Life marched on. One Halloween passed, then another. The dream dress was mostly forgotten, except every so often when the Gleek would remember and remind me. I would sigh and carefully not promise exactly when the dress would be done. Promises matter. I don’t want to break them. Yet the cut pieces of fabric were like a promise. They were a task incomplete.

Another dress was dreamed of. This time it was mine. I bought an out of date dress and had grand plans to re-make it into something lovely. Stolen minutes went into the measuring and cutting of bright chiffon. Time came to hem and I dusted off my sewing machine. I pulled out my sewing box of supplies. The pieces of that previous dream dress were there. My dress needed to be done within a week. It made sense to work on it first. The project with a deadline takes precedence. Yet my kids so often must be patient when I have a project. They spent the summer at home instead of with lessons and trips because I needed the calendar to be empty. They foraged for their own meals far more often than I want to confess. My kids must wait on me for permission and for most of their dreams. Gleek’s dress had been waiting on me for two years. I put aside my bright chiffon and finished a fairy dress for my daughter to dance in. She looked beautiful.

Howard on the Eve of our 18th Anniversary

By / August 4, 2011 / 4 Comments

Tomorrow is the 18th anniversary of the day I married Howard. This year I’ll be spending the day at the zoo with the kids. Howard will be spending it running a booth at GenCon. This is right in line with our tradition of not planning our lives around anniversary celebrations. The best possible celebration of our marriage is living and working together each day. Also, with all the other exhausting planning that we have to do for summer conventions, neither of us has left over energy for orchestrating an anniversary event. That said, I do try to take at least a minute or two on the anniversary day to look at that guy I married and think about how lucky I am.

There he is. Making me laugh, just as he does almost every day of our lives.
The banana has a story, of course. Howard was standing at the booth next to Tracy Hickman (of Dragonlance). Howard put down the book he was showing to customers and in a signed-too-many-things-today haze, Tracy picked it up and signed it. They joked together that Tracy would probably just auto-sign whatever was in front of him. Howard put it to the test by placing a banana in front of Tracy. So Howard had a Tracy Hickman autographed banana for lunch.

I made a really good decision all those years ago when I held his hand and said “I will.”

Staring at Another Busy Week

By / July 31, 2011

My list is full of urgent tasks. I am supposed to be ignoring them because it is Sunday and I don’t work on Sunday. Except that somehow I slid into working today without meaning to. Oh I didn’t ship orders or do accounting, but I did answer a business email. Howard and I have had a dozen conversations about business things relating to merchandise or upcoming conventions. I spent an hour updating Howard’s electronic calendar to reflect all of his GenCon events. And I was supposed to pack his suitcase today. I know these things don’t belong in my Sunday. I do a much better job of keeping my Sundays holy when I’m not scrambling to keep up.

However, I spent three hours at church. During those hours I listened to speakers and lessons. I felt my heart open and some of my pathway in the weeks to come felt a little more clear. I also wrote down even more things which I need to not forget to do. I always emerge from church with a list of To Do. The good news is that at least 50% of that list was about house, family, and spirituality. The bad news is that my ever-expanding list expanded yet again. Top on that list was taking Kiki driving. We’re running out of time on her permit and she needs to take her road test soon. I did that first. Then I sat down with my kids and watched the Sci Fi movie classic The Cat from Outer Space. They loved it. If you add in two family meals, the total is 7 hours where my focus was on family and spirituality. This is good, but it is not the same as having a whole peaceful sabbath day. I was hoping to spend time working on my Hugo dress or on the guest blog entry which I have 90% percolated in my head. Perhaps I’ll get to them later this evening, if I don’t run out of evening.

Want to see my list? …

Staring at Another Busy WeekRead More »

Joy and Sadness on a Summer Morning

By / July 21, 2011 / 3 Comments

I stepped out on my front porch in search of my younger two children. I’d come up from a deep work focus with a vague awareness that they’d gone outside to play. It was time for me to ascertain their exact whereabouts. On my next door neighbor’s lawn eight children had formed a band. A CD player provided the music. My son and his same-age friend were dancing about with pvc pipe constructions which yesterday had been swords, but were obviously now transformed into guitars. Two four-year-old boys swung pvc pipe drumsticks to pound on imaginary drums. One ten year old boy was the lead singer and everyone else rocked out as back up dancers. The pavement was cool against my feet as I watched the joyous energy from a distance. Later it would be much too hot for such vigorous energy outdoors, but in the morning sunlight they were beautiful.

My joy at watching them tipped over to sadness. In the background of their frolic was the For Sale sign. Half the children in the band would soon be living somewhere else. The parents of the other two neighbor kids are engaged in a country-wide job search. My mind’s eye subtracted all those other kids, leaving mine alone. A tear trickled down my cheek. These are not my kids’ only friends, they have many, but this game, played in this way, with this group, would soon vanish forever. I will miss it.

My Car Thinks I Live in Canada

By / July 19, 2011 / 4 Comments

We’re planning to drive to Reno for WorldCon. This means 9 hours, in my car, across a desert. A pre-road trip check up was definitely on the schedule. It became urgently on the schedule when the air conditioner stopped blowing cold and started blowing warm. Since I was taking my car in anyway, I decided to make a list off all the issues it has to see whether they could be fixed and how much it would cost. My list looked like this:

Air Conditioner!
oil change
tire rotation
tune up
windshield wipers too small
windshield wipers range of motion
sliding door jammed shut (for over a year now.)
back hatch handle broke off
Odometer showing kilometers instead of miles.

In the actual event, I forgot to mention the back hatch handle, so that isn’t fixed. Everything else has been addressed. The wiper range of motion was addressed twice when I returned to make clear that having a five-inch-wide swath of unwiped windshield on the edges was exactly the problem I wanted fixed. I don’t need extra blind spots. The sliding door now opens for the first time in over a year. This will make carpooling and loading much easier. I hope it stays fixed this time.

The most amusing fix was the odometer. At some point, (a year ago? two years ago?) it started showing kilometers instead of miles. I’m really not sure anymore when it happened or what pre-dated the change. It may have been the same disastrous cracked windshield replacement which caused the problems with the wipers and during which the glass company put in the wrong window, then put in the right window but didn’t seal it, then finally got the window right but broke the wipers. Yes, I think I’ll blame them.

Having the odometer proclaim kilometers is a mild annoyance. It means that I can’t use the odometer to count miles during road trips without also doing math. It means that any time I take the car in to be serviced it appears to have traveled twice as far as it really has. The mechanics at the dealership looked at it and told me that there must be a short in the control block which is setting the defaults to Canadian. I think this is tech speak for “I have no clue, but if we replace this really expensive part I bet the problem will go away.” Then they showed me a magic method for inducing the car to show mileage when the engine is turned off. I say magic because the mechanic demonstrated and it looked simple, but I’ve been completely unable to reproduce the feat at home.

So my car thinks we’re in Canada, but I don’t mind because it blows cold, has a squeaky-clean windshield, and the side door now opens.

Evening on My Porch

By / July 16, 2011

Gleek dashes across my field of view in the darkening twilight. She is pulling our plastic wagon which has been transformed into a pioneer covered wagon using branches clipped from our pear tree, a piece of white knit fabric, and duct tape. Historically accurate it is not, but it is enough that Gleek can imagine the rest. She’s ditched the long pioneer skirt and bonnet in favor of clothes which let her do tricks on her bike. The bike is parked in front of a house across the cul de sac and the wagon is the vehicle of the moment.

I am seated in a camp chair on our front porch. It is not the most attractive of porch decor, but I love having a place to sit. The house felt too close, too full of noise and people. I needed to be outside, so I came here with my laptop. I sit typing, and witnessing the evening pass. Most of the neighbor children have been called indoors, Gleek still pelts her way through her games. The house is too small for her most days. I notice that the street light has become the primary illumination. My laptop screen is bright in my face.

“Are you ready to come in?” I call to Gleek.
“Ten more minutes mom! Please?” She does not wait to hear my answer. She dashes on past with the empty wagon clattering along behind her. Go ahead and run for a bit more child. I’m not ready to go in either.