With a side of jet lag and a bit more whiskey, whimsy, and cookies than mommy anticipated indulging in "last night" (every night for the next week or so)
Gateway passed: Thanksgiving! Per tradition, our little family unit merged with the greater Wright/Gelfand unit in San Francisco to fete family, friends, food and... crumble. There was pie too, but crumble was the crowning jewel on that particular night. Close enough.
What can I say. The food was good. The company was fantastic. The Chaya beast was WILD but way easier than the year before when she was easier than the year before when she was... Four is not easier on the grand scale. Four is sassy staking of independence and even bigger more complicated emotions 90% of the time. But for travelling: four is amazing. Four is "able to follow and understand instructions." Four is "not NEEDING that nap we just shredded through." Four is "mostly no longer needing specialty everything packed in a giant suitcase to add to the chaos of air travel." Four is "carry on"
Four is "tantrums and mischief instead of nonstop agony and bellyaching" Four is "sleeps in a normal bed all by herself, but definitely won't be napping this trip." Chaya continues to exhibit some sophisticated executive functioning understanding in removing herself (and a parent or two) from the hubbub when she's getting overstimulated, which is an added bonus.
Four is "actually really chill about the three hour delay on the way home, even though she's sick and there's a baby on the actual plane crying just enough to wake her up when she nods off."
Four is also, endearingly, "happy enough to be home that she willingly demands her bedtime ritual a half hour early upon finally returning home."
But also enjoying being away.
We've spent a goodly bit of the vacation in Golden Gate Park
Chaya and Gramma Lisa made cookies. Chaya gets cookies. She can mix and pour like a pro, but she knows the real trick is when you go to lay them on the sheet... just take that serving spoon and start shoveling into your mouth. Efficiency!!
Four is also "totally ok to leave home with Grandpa Tom for the afternoon/evening while the adult folks gallivant off to Cirque du Soleil"
It was, basically, mad lit. Like literally well lit and also incredible.
All in all a cool trip. A long Odyssey on the way home involving some pigs and a few typhoons and a cyclops or two. And now we're home. And it's Advent and there's waiting.
Always waiting...
... like on test results and proposed treatments. This is me after all.
My affliction-of-the-month seems to be still annoying me. So far the biggest respite has been "not using the original prescription for the thing I don't have." But some positive treatment would be nice too. The current medical theory is... wait for it... wait for it...
... you'll never guess...
... wait a sec longer....
... ok the script's already on Ebay, fine...
And the current theory is:
wonk hormones!
Ahhh a classic. I like keeping some consistent motifs going through my entire adult life so that's appealing.
Wonk hormones or... cancer (buzzzzzzkill, much?), but it's always "or cancer" isn't it? Well, you have the flu or cancer. You probably have a cold sore... or cancer. Looks like a bear ate your leg, or maybe it's cancer. Given how many people in my life have had cancer and how multifaceted its symptoms can be, I can see why it's always or-cancer, but still.
Anyways the doctors were all like "no no it's a crazy loooooooooooong shot, but just in case... can we remove a part of your delicate area and then poke it a lot more for a few weeks before telling you anything?" So that was fun last week (it actually had its high points because awesome people in my life, but that specific moment in itself... not gonna hit the regular leisure activity rotation).
I've had, of course, the usual paranoia frets turned logistical fantasies about how we'd manage chemo visits and and various things like that with Chaya and Andrew's work and whatnot. Thinking if I have to lose my hair, I'm gonna have it braided into little voodoo dolls of me for far away friends to hug when they wanna send their support. And - just in case - how I'm going to change the rules of metaphysics and theology to make sure haunt my atheist friends who are not getting off the hook that easily. In reality, I'm banking on the hormone thing even though I have yet to see positive results from that line of attack, and remembering with every freaky odd little "symptom" I am suddenly more attentive of that actually no I've had that wonky of a body for longer than Chaya's been alive.
Glad for the distractions of holiday, family/friends, general creation.
Creation!
Of late I've had a bit of a "so what" creative movement recently. In a freeing way.
So what as in So what that I don't have an audience for what my creative writing. I sometimes miss the Google Plus days of long comments and creative feedback and exchanging energies. The interplay of sharing our creations. I miss being the secretary of a large group who gave me free rein to basically Infinite Jest meeting minutes and having that captive audience. I miss having my legal writing make impacts on people's lies. And I'd like to find a way to use my talents of course. I'd like to connect.
But in terms of whether it's ok to carve out writing time to write what isn't necessarily going to be read and definitely isn't going to be published? In terms of whether there has to be some reception or publication to justify the act of writing itself...
Who cares? It's a hobby not a vocation. If Andrew doesn't make it to Nationals, does it mean he should quit biking? Seems like no. SO why not demand a Sunday morning to hone a short story my mom will read?
I'm glad people enjoy hearing about Chaya, but that doesn't mean it's all I have to work on. And while I've outlined the dicier aspects of creative writing (how we borrow the stories of others and our impressions of them in ways that border on ethical consideration, mainly), well... it's satisfying like nothing else. It's creation. Harnessing words and feelings and images. So, bad poetry, stories that inevitably don't end, fragments. On they will come and lurk here and there between the kid photos!
Same but even more so with drawing. We draw a lot in our household, of course - and I've learned to fast-sketch on command. I'm in complete awe of Chaya's determined artistry and what she draws just gives me chills. She's so expressive. So determined. So fully enraptured. It's inspiring beyond belief.
Through my childhood and young adulthood, I've always been a doodler. And when I was younger I really enjoyed sketching clothing designs I would never learn the skills to design. I also know that I lack the 3D spacial skills to create accurate perspective and the attention to detail to execute anything faithfully. Without the ability to execute faitherfully or to intentionally and creatively diverge from those rules.
Unlike with many of my hobbies (writing, singing, dancing) I know I'll never be particularly satisfied with anything I do in that medium. Unsatisfied in a different way than the dissatisfaction garnered from areas in which I know I have talent. So I've doodled whimsically and avoided any hint of intention or craft. Of late I've thought, again, who cares? Watching Chaya sketch over and over again, erase and draw more. It brings me appreciation for the process over the results. And that does have meaning for me.
I've been saving room in my journal for a sketch a day and practicing little challenges like hands. And it does bring me pleasure, perhaps all the more for it being purely for pleasure and never for craft.
The process! There's magic in the process of drawing. Something about drawing a person's face, in particular. The intimacy of tracing your eyes down every line and contour of a face. Reveling in how the forehead slope into the plateau of the eye. The hook of the nose and the tilt of the lip. The breadth of the jaw. The tilt of the chin. The lushness of the eyebrow or lash. The idiosyncratic wrinkles of a face that capture a million moments of expression and habit and movement..
Looking at a face from a writer's perspective is different. Immediately dissolving these basic geometrical patterns into metaphor and pebble word monuments. It's slooshier. More poetical. More granular and rational. To describe what you see when looking at a face to draw it would risk technical monotony. But the breeziness of simply absorbing angles and textures and colors and shadows has a deeply intimate connecting feel.
I'd been hesitant to draw my loved ones a bit because the execution is so sloppy and condensed and so misses what I feel and see, though Chaya makes me draw her a ton. But that moment of tracing with the eye becomes an ocular caress. It's so deeply sensual, it almost feels scandalous.
And so I carry on! Doing my thing(s), fun and otherwise. Fretting from time to time. Grateful always.
With creativity, with holidays, with Advent, with medical mysteries unfolding into oblivion... with it all comes rest and play and wonderful times with wonderful friends and family and
and of course
Pie. Or crumble. Or both! Why not both??
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