Sketch Exercises

"Look," Myra says, "it's actually kind of easy." Seated in penmanship form she circles her pencil in whorls that perfectly match the width of wide-ruled lines. "I can't wait to show Grammie," she says.

"It's nice," I say. Askew at her elbow lies a key of all the different sketch exercises Grammie assigned to the big kids. She pauses, finds her place in the key and starts the next shape.

"I bet Zeke is doing this now," she says.

"Oh," I say.

"Now," she says, "I'm gonna have to start doing ACTUAL school work, don't ya think?" She looks up, all eyes and eyebrows.

"Suuuure," I say.

"Yup," she says and continues down the exercise list, determination, more like an accessory than a burden.

"Where are the other kids?" Myra says. Sunday afternoon, slack and leisure, the house tidy, quiet, and full of sun, we settle into quiet corners. Craig and I hold down opposite ends of the leather couch.

"Napping," Craig says, "so they can go with me tonight."

"Oh," Myra says. She darts off, a dead run down the hallway. We hear a thump on her bed. All the kids want to volunteer in Daddy's class. Even Joe begs each Sunday.

I note how as we've limited their exposure to marketing and some of the trends their peer pine after they find different things to desire, different goals to strain for. Trimming out tv seems like a gift more than a burden.

Craig falls asleep on the couch, and I while the afternoon away in quiet.





Gratitude:

5971. Libby gives birth to a perfect baby, sweet niece, Wylie Sparrow.

5972. I make two raspberry pies. Enough of the drips on the bottom of the oven begin to smoke that we have to fill the house with fans and open the windows. The result, though a little burned, is delicious.

5973. Jack and I figure out how to make sourdough pizza crust. Whole wheat too! Everyone agrees, it's a real find.

5974. Heavy whipping cream, bread-n-butter pickles, balsamic glaze, dried mangos, a few kitchen essentials restocked.

5975. Fresh almond ice cream.

5976. We harvest the first garden cucumber. I give it to Jack, but he gives me lots of samples.

5977. I get the curriculum library almost organized while the big kids help Craig at work.

5978. Joe skins his knee climbing trees out back. It forms the thickest scab I've ever seen. By some miracle most of it falls off on it's own. "Now, I'm gonna find my scab," he says. "It would be FUN if I found it."

5979. I finally figure the ins and outs of dying baby items safely. We collect the supplies and begin the process, a stack of muslin blankets ready to transform.

5980. "I cleaned my room," Joe says. "I'm gonna go see," I say. "You gonna look under the beds?" he says. "Yeah," I say, "ya wanna go finish?" He nods.

5981. Myra and Joe run something over to Cerissa. Betsy mopes around, cries, and finally settles on my lap. "Are you looking for Myra and Joe?" I say. YES, she nods emphatically.

5982. Tomorrow Jane turns 12, such a lovely age. We prepare for the unfolding of a young woman over scape of this next season.

5983. We fall each night into bed completely submissive to the refreshing lull of July. Summer tarries on.

Backpacking

"Jack's gonna get home," Myra says, "and he's gonna be like That's not a plane." She holds up a blunt-nose paper airplane, my design.

"Oh," I say.

"And," she says, "I'm gonna be like, YEAH, it is. Mom said it is, so IT IS." She leans her head forward, eyebrows arched. "And look it even really flies!" Purple running shorts, red curls like a bouquet of exclamation points, she flings the plane in a corkscrew nosedive.

Mom said it is, so it is. Creation. For a season, I speak things into being. Splendid.

***


Evening comes. We all squish next to each other on the long gold couch. Prayer circles and envelops us. We linger, the dregs of the day settle around us.

"I can't wait until we go backpacking," Myra says, "so we can make peanut butter cookies and stuff like that."

"Yeah?" I say.

"Um-hm," she says. "And play babies. We definitely have to play babies."

"Sounds good," I say.

The boys go backpacking. The girls stay home. We play babies and chop delicious salads. We quilt and paint watercolors. We read and linger over chocolate. We mold our attitudes to honor each other and God. Deep affection grows inside of us.

Gratitude:

5520. Backpacking transforms the boys into men and the girls into ladies.

5521. We linger at the all church barbecue, something of a fair or festival, and soak in the camaraderie.

Summertide

"In some ways otters obey the ten commandments better than people do," Jane says.

I glance up from the black couch. Mid-morning, running shorts, a striped shirt, she tilts her head perpendicular to a smile. I quaff a swash of water, sweat from my morning run still dripping down my temples.

"How so?" I say.

"They only marry once."

"Oh, yeah." Our eyes meet in gentle creases of smile. She ambles to the piano, picks up her morning practice. I drink down the rest of my water.

Chores and tasks of practice ensue. A whole week weaves itself by.

"Mom," Lucy says, "I want a Saxxon Math book."

"Yeah?" I say, once again there on the black couch fresh from my run. "Why is that?"

"'Cause," she says, "I like math, and I want a SAXXON Math book for the school year."

"I'll think about it," I say.

She considers the offer, then sidles on to catch bugs and check on burgeoning tomatoes.

I sip my quart jar of brisk water, read over fall curriculum spilled over my lap.

Finally Sunday rises and there we are almost ready for church. I slip out back to trim my fingernails. Joe, Myra, and eventually Lu trail behind me, back door open, forgotten.

"That's SOUP," Myra says. I trim the ring finger of my left hand. "DON'T step in the soup."

I trim my pinkie, glance up. Myra crouched in Sunday dress, gently stirs a bucket of runoff with a old green flyswatter. Flecks of grass swill around it. Joe, suited up in skivvies, crouches next to her. They carry the seriousness of a board meeting.

"Ok," I say, "come on, let's finish getting ready." Instead of puncturing the moment, it tugs, more like a ribbon arcing through air. They trail behind me, something pulling us all forward. The next moment, there it is, in perfect time. It encircles us like the tail end of that ribbon.

Gratitude:

5527. Joe falls out of bed. I tuck him in. "Hug me he demands," in slurred sleep speech. I clasp him around the shoulders. "Hug Jack too," he shouts as I stand to leave.

5528. I pat Jack's head. "Love you," I say. He's diagonal on the bed ,a handwritten story slid in multiple sheets across the bed. I spy the title: How To Grow Watermelon.

5529. Jane and I wash and hard boil five dozen fresh eggs.

5530. Rosie brings me flowers for my birthday. They smell like honey.

5531. Cerissa invites us over to play.

5532. Logan turns nine.

5533. Zeke turns four.

5534. Jack turns eight.

5535. We celebrate in parties. Joy.

5536. Oh, and I have a birthday too, best yet. Craig and I go on a date. Jane bakes us breadsticks. Pizza and a movie, breadsticks for dinner, bliss.

5537. Mom and Aunt Janey return safely from the heritage trip of a lifetime. They take Grampa to the town of his birth. Miracles of remembrance ensue.

5538. Craig and Jack buy me a bottle of my favorite sparkling water.

5539. Jane, Lu, and I revamp the sewing area. Stack upon neat stack, we bloom with anticipation.

5540. Craig and Jack anchor the dishwasher.

5541. Craig makes a second batch of those breadsticks. We dip them in Alfredo.

5542. We round the last corner of July and find the school year fresh in our face, felicity, the next bend in the road.

Poly

"Him can even still walk," Myra says. She holds a squirmy-legged roly-poly up like a diamond.

"Oh." I nod. She settles him into an old play dough container. She carries him downstairs where the rest of us go to watercolor.

I set up on the old cedar chest. Jane, Jack, and Lu assemble fortresses around the library, cups of water and paint perpendicular to their paper. Myra shores ups on the corner of my trunk.

"Oh, careful," I say. "Don't bump me." The roly-poly lumbers across the trunk. She corals it between her hands. I wet the paper, swirl color across the pallet, test it on the paper towel. She lets the poly crawl up her arm like a parrot.

"Bop-bop-bop," she murmurs.

I dab green in the center of a violet blossom. It purls emerald loops up the edge of a petal. Myra and poly skew the watercolor block as I lift the brush.

"Hey, you're gonna have to go somewhere else," I say. She rocks the poly in her hand.

"This one is the baby," she says. "See?" She scratches another one out of a crevice between watercolor block and the cedar chest. She shows me both, one in each palm, her eyes resplendent blue.

Then it's Saturday, Craig away at camp, the rest of us doling out the soft pace of summer over a Saturday.

"Mommy, I love swatting flies," Jack says. He follows me around with the sing-song gate of an eight-year-old boy. "Mommy, when Daddy gets home, I'm probably gonna be out in the garden catching bugs," he says.

I sock clean dishes in the cupboard, chop grapes and olives for a salad, and there he is at my elbow. "I'm gonna go get the flyswatter when I'm done with the dishes," he says, "and go and swat flies outside 'cause it's really pleasurable 'cause it's like a GAME."

"Yeah, I guess so," I say.

"I like watching spiders and painting and looking at the garden." He trails through frogs and snails and puppy dog tails. We clean up the kitchen. He trip-trops out the back.

"Momma, this isn't luggage," Jane narrates from the living room. She flops a picnic basket open. "It's luggage and three babies," she says. She lifts one out, up to the sky, that same motion of Myra and her poly.

"Oh," I say tracing the arc of her arms.

"And these, are rafts," she says, "that we float on down the current." She sweeps her arm past two patchwork quilts spread across the floor, the room a wide river, the ottoman on one bank.

I nod, scoop the last few bites of salad into my mouth. I chew them to tiny bits, let the moment run long and wide as that river.

"Mom, this is a really fun game," Jane says.

"I used to love playing games like that," I say.

"Can I see the game," Lu hollers from the bathroom.

"We're playing the baby game," Jane says.

The baby game. Summer lingers, the children with it. We let the long strokes of current wash over us.

Gratitude:

5499. Ben and Me - A New And Astonishing Life Of Benjamin Franklin, As Written By His Good Mouse AMOS. A new book.

5500. Play All Day With Ladybug Girl, Myra says she's Ladybug Girl.

5501. Vitamin B12.

5502. Craig takes the kids to the YMCA. We come home and roast sweet potato fries and eat brownies.

5503. Jane, Jack, Lu, and I sketch in the morning, watercolor in the afternoon.

5504. "When ever I think about the sweet potato sauce that Dad bought," Lu says, "I just salivate."

5505. Myra tries her hand at watercolor, Jane at her side. "I guess I can see that it's not gonna be any easier with her that it was with mine," Jane says, and dabs an orange puddle.

5506. Jane turns ten. We have a date, pizza on paper plates, a picnic table in the shade. We laugh at the wide world of ten and how everything changes between ten and twenty. All the while, our eyes hold each other, rivulets of affections between us.

5507. Craig's parents stop by with three+ gallons of raspberries. The children eat them by the handfuls. I memorize a recipe for jam. "How long did this take you?" I say. "Oh, I did it this morning," Craig's mom says. I smile into the wide mile of generosity.

5508. Headaches plague me along with the wildfire smoke drifting through town. A.W. Towzer's words ring in my ears: Problems patiently endured will work for our spiritual perfecting. They harm us only when we resist them or endure them unwillingly.

5509. So it is, endurance wins the day.