I say "part one of many" because it's only November! It is Sunday, the fourth day of the long holiday weekend, and we are indoors, unable to go anywhere due to freezing rain. Indoors, as in 512 square feet of living space in three rooms for two adults and three kids. It's gray and dark outside. Insanity is setting in.
I have already played my mandolin, and I might get it or another instrument out before too long. I'm going through all of my old music, the stuff I worked on when I was taking lessons at the Homestead Pickin' Parlor in Minneapolis years ago. I remember a lot of it, and I was getting into some good blues licks. However, it seems that the more I practice, the more I realize how far I have to go before I'm at the playing level I would like to be. I know I need to just get over that and have fun with the music.
Calvin got out the Baby Taylor ( a small size guitar, good for kids or traveling) last night and although he doesn't play any chords yet, he has an amazing sense of rhythm, especially for the blues. I'll teach him some notes some time soon but for now I think it's important that he has some fun with the rhythm.
I took the time to sew a patch on my favorite flannel shirt today. The shirt is over ten years old, and fraying at the edges of the sleeves, but I'm not ready to give it up! This was the shirt I wore for the cool nights at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, the shirt I could wear all through my pregnancies because it's huge, the shirt I wore on the way to the hospital to give birth to all of my babies. It's dark green and blue, kind of a muted plaid, and soft. Nothing could ever replace it. Now it has a light blue denim patch on one elbow; that's the best I could find for a patch, but it will do.
We're cooking a turkey for dinner, a real turkey, not the turkey loaf we had for Thanksgiving dinner. And after that there will be turkey noodle soup, turkey enchiladas, maybe some turkey wild rice soup.
The bird feeder is hopping with the usual chickadees, nuthatches, goldfinches, pine siskins, purple finches, and an occasional downy or hairy woodpecker. There is one male downy woodpecker that is a creature of habit; he sits at the same corner of the feeder every time, and instead of eating the new suet cake on the other side of the feeder he pecks at the old piece of suet left over from last year.
I guess I'm just rambling here on this gray day. Off to find another instrument to play!
7 comments:
Very nice sentiments, Eleutheros! Is that an original?
Yeah, somehow I don't want to give up this closeness. My younger son, who will be 4 this week, still sleeps right next to me. Anyway, it's nice to hear from someone who's been there. There is hope!
Hillbilly genius. Pure and simple.
In our new house plans, two of the childrens' bedrooms are lofts, but not walled off to the open space of the middle of the house. For heating reasons, mainly, but also why do we need walled off, soundproof, sequestered spaces?
Your words give me hope, Eleutheros. Thank you for sharing some of the details of your life here! You remind me of what is important.
Of course just this morning I was close to strangling the youngest...how do you deal with that reality? ;)
What an interesting post and conversation about personal space, home, family. Amazing stuff, and it's all so foreign from my experience.
I grew up as, relatively, an only child, in a home of nearly 3000 sq ft. There was never any bumping of elbows. I live a MUCH more modest lifestyle now than the one I was raised in, but I still have a personal space need that is drastically different than the one you all describe.
Thank you for shedding some light on the benefits of close quarters. You've definitely got me thinking. :)
personal space...personal space...I am in the process of teaching the children about not interrupting me when I'm in the middle of playing a song, or not getting right in my face to tell me something! It's gotta be something that can be learned, right?
Spanking, in my experience, has not been effective. Offspring #3 will recover from a swat on the butt to resume the same behavior. What worked, at least this morning, was me telling The Hermit to deal with it, and The Hermit taking Offspring #3 onto his lap for a cuddle/cooldown time. We can't let these personality clashes fester too much. :)
Your post reminded me of something I had not thought about in years. When I was growing up (until I was 8 years old), my family lived in a small two-bedroom apartment. There were six of us! The four kids shared one room, two beds with two to a bed. I slept with my sister, and my brothers slept together. We had single beds. We rubbed elbows, for sure. We were in each other's faces from sun up to sun down. Then, we moved to a three-bedroom house in the suburbs. But our closeness and deep affinity for each other never left. Now we all live thousands of miles apart, and manage to talk so often it's like we live next door. I think growing up in that small space is an essential part of our love for each other.
That's not to say we all don't need our personal space. We do, and then some! Personal space, personal time are an integral part of staying whole and healthy.
Another Buffet song comes to mind, "Boat Drinks". It's all about Cabin Fever.
Hey Deb. I read yr post and loved it. So I thought "ok leave a note to say so" Then I stumble into these comments which seem just as wonderful.
I am loving how you weave the family and music together. I have a music background playing folk and folk rock, some gospel from my pre-budhist days. And I love bluegrass though I hear so much less of it these days. Orange Blossum Special, Rockytop, Ain't That News...
back in the day (1970s) I used to go to a 3 day festival called The Clearwater Sloop Festival that helped fund the sloop that took ecometrics of the hudson to help force the government to clean it up. The festival had the whole coffee house circuit from bluegrass to Arlo Guthrie to Leone Redbone singing "Beale Street Mama". The latter song became the family sing along tune. James Taylor's Carolina In My Mind was the main lullaby for all of my kids.
Soak up all these moments. They drift away when they get older. Even when you are still a close famiy.
Wallow in it.
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