wishing for a(nother) winter wonderland

i gotta say it: christmas always comes too fast. i would like there to be 2 months between thanksgiving and christmas. there are just not enough days for me to prepare. and i am even more behind than i've been in previous years. christmas cards not even started yet! i do not like being stressed over xmas lists and shopping that needs to be done, because i actually do like that part. i like giving to the people i love. it's just that it always seems to come all of a sudden, and i am very bad at accumulating items over the year, or even starting in november. i wish there were more days also, because, simply, i just really love the xmas season. and added to the wonderful reason for the season, i confess i do like the material tokens of tradition as well: i love the carols, the decorations, the tv specials, the food. and plaid. and the christmas tree. i wondered/worried that we were robbing francis of the joy of hunting down the perfect tree with the fact that we are re-using the same tree from the past 2 years: we bought a little potted tree about 3 ft. tall, and it "lives" in the upstairs hallway, out of sight, off-season. but he was excited to bring it down and use it again. it had lost some branches, and is even more charlie brownish than last year, but... it seems to fit with our apt. and mood.

so i'm trying to embrace the beauty, amid the shortness of days. to indulge in all the christmas traditions we love. discovered a new favorite channel on pandora: swingin' christmas music. francis has again asked for gingerbread cookies, so we have baking days ahead. and movies to watch, for the 37th time. the only thing missing from this picture is my family. we spent last year's christmas at my parents in PA, with all my siblings, their spouses, and my grandma. so it's going to seem a little quiet here, on the homefront, on christmas day, our little family of three. (we are already planning to group-skype! that should be interesting, and nice. well, it will have to suffice)

so. since i never did get some pictures up here from our 3 days of snow before thanksgiving, here are some. it is hard to tell by the pictures just how steep our hill is, as i am standing on a little flat half-way down, acting as lookout, a necessary job: from the top -looking down- you cannot see past the dip 2 blocks down to tell if some fool is ignoring the "road closed" sign and trying to barrel up a hill of ice. this did happen a handful of times. we went out the first night because lessons have been learned that when you see the snow, you need to hit it; it'll very likely be melted by the following day. but the next day, it wasn't melted! and still below freezing. so francis called some friends to walk down, and they sledded all afternoon down 65th street. when night came, and they went home, i thought he'd be sledded out, but, i was wrong. after dinner he was dying to go out again. and again the thought it wouldn't be here tomorrow prevailed, so out we went a second night. by the third day, we were completely amazed it was still below freezing outside, the hill was still iced over, the road still closed, so the friends tromped over again and repeated it all over again. by thanksgiving, it was mostly all melted away. one of our friends has apparently misinterpreted my grumpiness at the seattle gray, and commented on seeing me all decked out in snow pants, hat, mittens, scarf: " how you holding up? i thought you didn't like all this cold." i said: "what?? i don't like gray. but i love seasons. i like my summers hot, with sun. and winter is supposed to be cold, with snow." so, my hopes might not be shared by many here, but i got a kid who wants to use his new sled (!) for more than 3 days this winter. and i'm crossing my fingers, saying a prayer, and hoping some returns for christmas... i'd like it to be white...

waking up looking down...

not often does the song i hear on the radio send me scrambling to find it once i get home.

but last friday, i got a call from greg, could we pick him up from work? it was pouring outside, already dark out, and he wouldn't get home til after 8pm at this rate, so francis and i hopped in the car, with francis choosing his new privilege: riding shotgun.

there was crazy traffic. moving slow, we hopscotched around on the radio, he didn't want to listen to classic rock, i didn't want to listen to christmas music (already??!!), so when i finally heard the beastie boys, i breathed a sigh of relief and turned it up. LOUD. i looked over at francis and his little shoulders were already groovin' to the beat, and i asked him: do you know this song? he said no. i said -- THIS is the rap music of MY school-days. i think he was a little surprised that he could like something that was so old. it didn't sound old. it sounded, well, awesome.

and then, while we were sitting there stop-n-go in the rain, in the dark, music loud, with the red tail-lights glowing off the windshield, the song morphed into a song HE knew. arcade fire. i said: you know this song? he said yes. everybody knows this song. and then he was really groovin'...

sometimes, randomly, forces come together to make a moment truly memorable. i don't know if he realizes how special it was, but for me, we have -lately- few moments of true togetherness, where i'm not buggin' him, or he's not buggin' me, where we are just chill, enjoying one another's company. to be honest, those moments come more easily and often when we travel, when we can be surprised, and curious, and discover things together. when we are far from the grind of daily life. at home, it's trickier, but sometimes those moments can still slip in.

we've been singing the song for days...

p.s.
after my foray down the rabbit-hole of the world wide web, i was able to find no information on where to buy it, but i've put an inquiry into kexp. the song was a mash-up of beastie boys: looking down the barrel of a gun, and arcade fire: wake up. it was credited as: arcade boys: waking up looking down the barrel. if you play them side by side on youtube, you can almost hear it.

things that don't drive me crazy.

i. love. wikipedia.
it is instant access to countless encyclopedias.
i was the child who was told to go "look it up in the dictionary" when i didn't know a word, and then would sit and read the whole page because i was curious. i try to encourage that curiosity in francis, who, thankfully, loves to read and discover. although he is growing up in a culture where trips to the library are getting fewer and far between, i'm finding all this new technology and instant access to information isn't decreasing the appetite for knowledge, but INCREASING it. when i was a kid, i was limited to my school, or my city's library. now we have at our fingertips cultures crossing cultures, and information that seems never-ending! we look up stuff on a daily basis. --did you know...? --did you know...?? we watch a movie, say: the secret of kells. then we go look up "the book of kells" because i can't really remember the details. and then we're like: "hmm... what's an illuminated manuscript?" and hopscotch over there. and then we're like: "what's Vulgate? and Vetis Latina? what's Insular Style?" and then before you know it, we've hopscotched across continents on the world wide web... another hour or so goes by with our brains just absorbing, busy, learning.
this is something i can't get enough of.
our children are lucky...

basketball diaries

francis has been in sports most of his life, from soccer and tennis when he was little, many years of baseball and quite a few winters of city-league basketball. we have finally entered that especially charged time in childhood: being on your school's sport team. this is our (his) first. i have signed multitudes of parent release forms, medical forms, i-won't-sue-you forms... but i have NEVER seen a form quite like this one before. it really takes the cake. parents worry enough as it is, this one just spells it all out for you, so you can really worry much more effectively and specifically. francis has always been a bit of a cautious child, and also a literal one. i thought it best we paraphrase it for him,(and keep the worrying to us) or else he might change his mind about playing any sport again!

after a page of rules, the participant is informed of the following (copied exactly, emphasis theirs):

" I am aware that basketball is a high-risk sport and that practicing or competing in basketball will be a dangerous and unpredictable activity involving MANY RISKS OF INJURY. I understand that the dangers and risk of practicing and competing in basketball include, but are not limited to, death, serious neck and spinal injuries which may result in complete or partial paralysis, brain damage, blindness, serious injury to virtually all internal organs, serious injury to virtually all bones, joints, ligaments, muscles, tendons and other aspects of my body, general health and well-being. I understand that the dangers and risk of practicing or competing in basketball may result not only in serious injury, but in serious impairment of my future abilities to earn a living, to engage in other business, social and recreational activities and generally to enjoy life."

??!!

about a boy

i love this picture, because, on a typical gloomy day in october, a ray of sunshine pierced thru the clouds, illuminating flowers outside our windows that should not still be blooming.

2 big events happened in october, if you don't count the usual trials of life that involve parenting a 7th grader daily big events --school, math homework, jazz trumpet lessons, fall baseball (what? very similar to regular baseball, except instead of being sometimes wet and cold it is always wet and cold...) youth group, sleepovers, endless discussions of video-game-time-allotment, chores.

many of you have already heard about this as it was talked up quite a bit on facebook,-- francis' opportunity to read his poem "ode to birds" as opening act for SAL event for poet Robert Pinsky at the Benaroya Hall. so i won't go into length here, except to say that i think this is something he will remember his whole life. the oddity and specialness of it. to have grown-ups, other than your parents, or your parents friends, come up to you and congratulate you on something you created. at the artist reception before the event, we mentioned to francis that we should go introduce ourselves to Robert Pinsky, and while we were still talking to someone else, looked up to see that he had already marched on over to him, and was engaging him in conversation. for quite some time. when we walked over, we introduced ourselves as the parents, and mr. pinsky threw his arm around francis' shoulder conspiritorally, and loudly whispered, with a wink at us, "parents just don't get us, do they?" and francis heartily agreed: "no, they do not!" and we laughed because it is true. of course we don't. but it only further illuminated the fact that francis is growing up, and we are quickly becoming "the parents". and try as hard as we might to be good stewards of this role, we, much more than we would like, (as francis likes to say:) epic fail.

we are feeling now more than ever the 3rd man out, in our little family of three. if greg and francis go off doing the many variety of sports that occupy their time, i feel left out. and when greg and i are occupied in talking to eachother, francis is left out. or if we're both talking to him, he feels ganged up on. there is no other sibling to get his back, or distract us from him. he has no one to share in his feelings that mom and dad are being a pain in the butt. it's getting harder and harder to drag stories of school out of him. "fine." "nothing happened." "nothing interesting." etc. etc. "can i go now?"

which is why this poem so surprised us.

it was a little window into his world, and when it was out in the open, he wasn't embarrassed to share it with us. he was embarrassed by the attention and the praise, because to him it was no big deal. he even told us he didn't think it was a very good poem, that he didn't get the chance to read it in class like all the other kids, because he "hadn't followed the assignment." it was "supposed" to be an ode to cloves. (?? really? seriously?) and if you didn't know that francis is a literalist and a perfectionist, well...i shudder to think how he would have internalized this, because we never knew about the poetry lesson in his class until we got the notice in the mail saying that his was chosen.

so you see, his failed poem won the prize.

he could have silently carried that "epic fail" with him for years. he possibly may have never attempted to write again. i am so thankful that this opportunity happened. it taught him lessons that he may not even realize right now, but has hopefully planted seeds. speak the truth. trust your gut. and that it's ok to question authority because authority is not always right. adults are not always right. that sometimes, many times, he's gonna have to stick to his guns... and this needs to be reinforced by people other than us. because we are: just the parents.




so Robert Pinsky buddying up to him, treating him like a peer, and congratulating him meant 10x any praise from us could ever have done. mr. pinsky even went so far as to give a shout out from stage "--how about that Francis Nyssen and that fabulous poem?" and the audience just ate him up. after-wards we watched as a very calm and collected francis was approached by very passionate patrons of the arts, just singing his praises and wanting his autograph. that self-esteem boost alone, i hope, will carry him through some tough times at school. he doesn't make friends easily, and doesn't have many.

he may never write another poem, but he got to see first-hand how our talent and creativity moves people in a positive way, and i hope that is something that he will want to be a part of, in any form. he may not understand that about me yet. my words of praise may get drowned out by my "no, you can't have a sleepover"s, and "no, you can't play more videogames"...and all my daily annoyances.

i have small, fleeting moments of encouragement.
he will go from not wanting to have anything to do with me, bored by my questions, or even by my mere presence, to inexplicably, quietly, holding my hand.

and that is a ray of sunshine on a gloomy day.

let's go to the movies (see the movies!) let's go see the stars...

when i was growing up, we used to have Friday Night Movie Night. i was little; this was the era before vhs. i have tried to explain to francis, but we have media-saturated youth, tech-savvy kids: he does not really understand. the simplicity. the painstaking effort. it truly seems like we're telling him the stories our parents used to tell us, about walking to school, in the snow, uphill, both ways. how, exactly, did one have movie night before dvd's, (before vhs even) without actually going to the movies?

enter the film projector.

remember those? francis does not even know what this is, but in my youth this was the device that let the living-room become the cinema, (and, among other things, allowed us to see a whole 'nother side of my dad, the side which was usually reserved for fix-it-time in the garage, where we were not allowed to go when he was "working". hahaha) this was the age of super8, and the movies we watched were movies of us. the white sheet would be hung, the popcorn made, the lights dimmed, and we would all sit around and laugh at each other. we could do this for hours. my dad was the family photographer, movie-maker, engineer. laughter, then a jam, then silence. (dang nabbit!) then lights, splice, ok -we're rolling... and back for more.

sometimes, for a real treat, my dad would come home with movie shorts that he rented from his work. these were segments of a movie, about 10 minutes long. not a trailer, but a popular scene. i'm not really sure how available this was to the general public; he worked for Kodak at the time, so we all felt like this was really special. and it was.

the evening's entertainment might include:
the just a spoonful of sugar scene from mary poppins.
the soccer game sequence from bedknobs and broomsticks.
the archery contest and the rumble in the marketplace sequences from disney's robin hood. (Long Live King Richard!)
penny's escape, from the rescuers.

we watched these so many times, had them memorized. eventually, the super8 lost momentum, but we didn't lose movie night. vhs was introduced, we started compiling movies taped from the tv. we had a whole closet-full of choices. we grew up on the tv versions of a lot of good movies. also, movies that we would not normally have been able to watch. i am entering that dilemma now with francis, which is why it is on my mind. he is at the age (12) where he's ready for action movies, and sadly, many of them just have too much language. even the older movies. he has been begging to see the Terminator movies, and so greg and i re-watched them with him in mind. the first terminator? no way. the 2nd one? well, it's not too bad, except for all the f-bombs dropped. so, again, no way. i finally remembered to search for it on the tv, and we finally recorded a tv version for him. we had a movie night and he loved it! we've been big on the Family Night Movie Night, too, trying to keep it special. now it's making me wish i had a closet-full of movies for him to choose from, but even vhs doesn't work now. do i start burning movies onto dvd? (next up: ghostbusters!)

it's too hard to keep up, but one thing is certain: we do not have enough times where we sit around as a family, watch the movies of ourselves, and have a good laugh. we used to do that a lot when francis was little. this past christmas, greg converted a whole slew of francis' childhood from vhs to dvd. it took days and was the backdrop for most of our christmas break. so we got a good dose of little francis-isms then. fun memories! but i've been recording tons of stuff, so has greg, and it just sits on our computer. gathering dust. hard to find. what to do with it??

so: i've finally bit the bullet, grabbed a brief moment of inspiration, and created my very own vimeo site. (i've added it to my blog.) i've uploaded my first dose of family memories. these are, so far, only my cellphone videos from this summer, but it's a start. most people, unless they were there, won't really find them funny, or even care to watch. it's a public site, i don't care who watches it, but really, it's for us. (and you, if you were there!) i'm hoping to stay on task adding to it, and maybe even re-introduce the "home movie night." we may have traded in the large white sheet for a small white screen, but the memories shown are just as real and produce the same laughs. i'm hoping for more...

morning has broken...

i had a goal this morning: to get out of the house and go downtown. but then, it started raining cats and dogs. drizzle i can handle. downpours not so much. my rain-boots are broken and they are on my list of "needs". my attempts at fixing them (even my dad tried when he was here!) have been no-good. they are just cute but old rubber rain-boots with orange shoelaces and i can't find anything i like to replace them, so i keep wearing broken ones. ones that let the rain in...

everything seems to be breaking at the same time.

our monitor is broken. it sends greg and i into road-rage every morning trying to boot it up. it's pre-historic. (not the monitor. the feeling. the waiting is so... un-modern.) it flickers off and goes black for about 15 minutes. you just have to turn it off and on until it sticks. i've adapted to trying to complete my business on the computer in 2 second-flicking-intervals. we're holding off on buying a new one because greg has to find a good one for his photography needs. not just any old monitor will do. and so our eyes glaze over with the pressing of the button; i feel like we're in the hatch on LOST. it's now a chore that we sometimes delegate to francis: "go boot up the monitor" and he sits there for ages, pressing the button on and off...

our video-camera is broken. gotta hold in the battery pack while filming.
the kitchen timer is broken. count to sixty in your head.
my face-powder compact is broken. store it in a baggie; it's a mess.
the green couch is unraveling.
the bed is killing our backs.

there are too many needs mixed in with too many wants.
but: these are just things.
there are other things more important...

last night, we were at the seattle art museum for the book launch party of
-YOU WILL NOT COME BACK UNCHANGED-
a book of poetry and prose from seattle area students K-12, thru the writers in the schools program. francis had one of his poems selected for this book, and he was to read it at the event. we were so proud i actually teared up when i first found out. he adamantly did NOT want to read his poem, but we pretty much forced him to. once he got there, though, he started to get nervous/excited. and when the other kids started reading their poems (he was #45 on the list, quite a long wait) he started to get more excited than nervous. he did great and didn't mess up, which was his worry. he even adlibbed a bit, adding a bit about a hummingbird that wasn't even in the text. !? i was pretty impressed with the poems these kids had written; i don't remember being taught poetry at such a young age. and afterwords, they had a book signing, and all the "authors" sat at a long table and signed books for their "fans". francis took this job very seriously and i about melted. he was totally in his element. i went down the line with our copy of the book and got all the signatures for francis to look back on. i remembered faces to go with each poem.

and then:

at the end:

francis said:
so, what do you think? should i just go tell that girl i think she's cute?

greg said:
why not? seize the moment. life is short.

so we watched him march up to the cute-poetry-reading-girl who sat next to him and say "by the way, i think you're cute", nod, and walk away.

he talked about her all night...
--------------------------------

ODE TO BIRDS: (by francis nyssen)

Birds, birds
are the most
colorful animals
green
brown
yellow
red
blue
turquoise
purple
neon blue--
I could go on.
The king of nests
has a fancy for huge
very decorated nests.
It's turquoise
and neon blue. It
sends you in a trance.
A yellow canary goes
black against the sun
on a sunny
day.
A rattle of leaves and sounds tell
you
the toucan hops
from branch to
branch, chirping.
It's beak shining, making
us see a blur of color.
A crow searches
endlessly for its
old feathers
of white.
The mimicker of
sounds mimics
the sound of its falling
forest. The king
of voice shines
its colorful feathers.
Red, blue
yellow, green,
it has a stubby
beak. It makes
you see a sea of
colors. Making
you smell fruit.
Cloves send a scent to me
making me think of birds.
A fresh
drink of chai
reminds me of when
I'm sitting in
the bird dome at
the zoo.
At night I can imagine
a vulture looks despairingly
jealous of all the color.
Starlings are
considered
good luck when
they live in your house.
A bird's color is what
the vulture
wants so badly.
Cardinal's red
makes it
look like a
streaking flame
of light across
the sky,
making fire
burn in your
eyes.

day after day

...it has looked like this. i have to confess, it's gotten me down. i haven't accomplished much. not nearly what i've wanted to. it's june and i'm still wearing my winter puffy coat to francis's baseball games. occasionally we've had a sunny day, and all of seattle pours into the out-of-doors, and then gets sunburned. but it's raining today, rained yesterday, rained most of last week, most of last month, and the month before that... get the idea? it doesn't inspire much motivation in me, and my days go by with my "things to do" not getting checked off the list; my post-it notes that have overtaken the kitchen are not getting taken down. they are deciding to live there, right there on the wall. school gets out for francis in 7 days and he and i cannot wait. but i'm telling ya, seattle: you have 7 days to shape up, because i DO NOT want summer vacation starting looking like this! so please, do a girl a favor? i'm popping vitamin D everyday, but i could really use some the natural way...

once upon a time...

there was a girl who...
just kidding, maybe you've noticed i've been gone awhile? i've just completed the 3 week intensive screenwriting class at the film school in seattle, a course that ran from 9-9pm, mon-fri, and most of the day on saturdays. my boys got a good long dose of no mom around, lots of video game time, and a consistent diet of cereal and macaroni and cheese apparently! ha ha! and i was in overdrive. i got three weeks of information input overload, a heavy dose of perspiration and inspiration, a notebook full of notes, friendships forged, lessons learned, emotions raked over the coals, oh yes, it was a bucket of laughs! (and tears.) now i'm sitting here, back in my usual quiet, trying to ignore the laundry and the dishes, and wondering how to implement all that i have learned. i'm gonna be sitting here for awhile, i'm thinking. we have been poked, prodded, implored: taught not to wait for inspiration to strike (which has always been my preferred method of composing) but to be dutiful in our writing habits: write everyday. practice practice practice. of course, easy advice can be handed out any day of the week, but after enduring 3 weeks of this onslaught to all the senses (i hear habits are formed in 2) one would hope we get the message. that artists don't become artists by picking up paint and splashing it onto the canvas. (alas, also my preferred method... what is this saying about me?) -that before you can break the rules and go all abstract, first you must learn the rules. there is a method to the madness. and there are is a TON of stuff to know about writing a screenplay, none of which involves just sitting at the computer with an idea and typing. ah, crap. "ideas are a dime a dozen, but execution is everything." it comes down to HOW to create and tell a good story, how to create interesting complex characters. process process process. hard discipline. acting is rehearsing. writing is re-writing.

now i have lots of little voices in my head.
let's see if i can get anything out on paper...

starting over

apparently, i took a break.

when i look back, it shows i averaged about 3 blogs a month in 2007 and 2008. but in 2009, i only blogged 3 times. total. ugh.

i've made no resolution for 2010.
january is always a time of reflection for me anyways, without the stress of resolutions that i may not keep (that will only serve to bum me out later). but, i would like to get back into writing more, so with that, i will say: i'll try.

a lot happened in 2009 that i have not written about: francis' terrible end of 5th grade and his seeming never-ending bout with being bullied, his first camp experience in summer (which he loved), greg's and my little get-away trip to miami (unbeknownst to us at the time: the start of hurricane season), the start of middle-school for francis, greg being sent to beijing, china twice for work, the second time in november with us joining him, me flying home in october to be with my parents for my dad's (successful!) heart surgery, flying home for christmas in december, the first time in 3 years all the siblings and spouses and grandkids, and great-grandma were all together under the same roof! it was grand. and there was snow...

so yes, it's been a busy year.

and now i'm back home in seattle; it's been gray for days, and i'm looking ahead to this year. sadly, eagerly awaiting the end of 6th grade. francis isn't having the best of time making friends in his new school. he is often overwhelmed by his schoolwork. many boys his age are strutting, trash-talking, girl-watching, cussing fools, and thankfully, he's not quite there yet. which makes the fitting in tough. he does like band though, and practices his trumpet with gusto. i've already started off the year with some accomplishment: i ordered (finally) some prints on snapfish from our miami trip. starting off small. now all i have to do is china and our europe trip. hopefully before francis graduates. now there's a goal...

just listening to ella fitzgerald on pandora radio. had far-away friends over for coffee this morning. having nearby friends over for pizza and wine tonight...
really, i just try to get thru one day at a time. i know i grumble about the gray, but if i can laugh or smile at least once in the day, i'm doing pretty fine...