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We were at the little round table that is now where we sit and eat. It’s along the north side of the house, which faces out on to the garden.
We were eating toast and drinking tea, and Orlando said, “Mama, it’s like your tea has smoke coming out of it, but it’s not smoke. Your tea isn’t on fire. …But it’s hot…”
I sat a moment, watching the steam making a thin snake toward the sky, “Yeah. I see that.”
He scrunched up his face a moment, “Why is it doing that?”
Although this isn’t always what he wants, I said it anyway, “Hm. Why do you think it might be doing that?”
He was in his chair, but pressed his head in as his legs straightened beneath him so everything about him was leaning forward while being anchored, “Because of evaporation?”
Well, there you go. I said, “Yep, it’s evaporating.”
He said, “I wasn’t sure if that was it, but it came into my mind and I felt like saying it, so I did.”
We sat for a moment, and then I said, “Remember when we were talking about fire and how there is a chemical reaction to make it, how the elements of certain materials combine?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, this is kind of like that, but a bit different.” {We’ve already done some kitchen chemistry since then.}
And then Orlando said, as he watched a black crow poking about the garden, “I wonder if crows have a word for us in their language. Like what they call humans.”
I smiled. “Yeah, I wonder if they do. Maybe it’s caw-caw.”
The double entendre was intended for my own amusement, but we both laughed.
And then Orlando again, “I mean if aliens came to our planet they would think we were the aliens. We would be aliens to them!”
The roots of empathy
We watched the crow for a while. And then Orlando asked, “Do the plants talk to each other? … Though it’s winter so maybe they’re not talking to each other because they’re asleep.”
{He also recently asked about how fish communicate and we’ve written down some observations from the fish tank and hypotheses and I’ve googled it and now, apparently, we’re on to plants.}
Mica asked, “What is the crow doing?”
I said, “I’m not sure, but to me it looks like it is looking for food.”
“Yeah,” Mica sighed, “to bring back to its nestlings.”
And who knows what happened after that, but it went on, and on; the chaos that includes these quiet moments. These moments when things are born, when things are.
Those moments when we’re really together, making a circle at the table.
photo by tsmyther
The other day, it was just me and Mica. (Orlando was at his ski class with Rom.) Mica and I had spent the morning together, with me being near and following his lead, interacting as needed and then fading in the background when not.
It can be very hard for me not to idealize this one-kid thing — how easy my days would be! I folded laundry. I cleaned the bathroom. I played baby dragons. I watched Mica making cakes and juice out of the big Magnatiles, using the coffee-table as an impromptu oven.
Sigh.
But that wasn’t what I was going to write about. I was going to write about how when we finally got outside — to go check the mail at the Common House — we stepped out into the now-gone drizzle and saw two women, one with a little dog, walking up the path toward our house.
I said a quiet “Hi,” as Mica turned toward the Common House, “It’s Stone and Maddy!”
Kenny, their dad, was up there too, playing on the path, and Mica was heading toward them when the first woman caught my eye and said, “Could we ask you a little bit about living here?”
“Sure,” I said, my gaze following Mica. He was safe amongst the neighbors, so I began talking to the women.
I told them, “We’re the newest members!” and they asked, “Are there any openings?” And I told them, sadly, “No.”
I mentioned that Vic, who’s retired and often around, gives the tours and that I could see if he was home. They were sheepish — they knew it would have been better to have made an appointment, but one of them was just visiting for a couple of days, etc. etc. — but just then Sheila, Vic’s wife, walked by.
I asked her if Vic was home and she said, “….Yes.”
I explained the situation and she went off to see while the women apologized, they didn’t want to intrude, etc. etc.
Turns out Vic was up for giving a tour, so I left them in his capable hands, and headed up the path to see Mica zooming around on trikes and bikes with Maddy and Stone.
Liz — the woman who helped us so much when we were buying the place, who loves to talk, who has two cute doggie-kids — was there, too, enjoying the “sun break.” (Seattle-speak meaning that it wasn’t raining at the moment, and that the sun could almost, honestly, actually be seen in the sky.)
Monica — one of the founding members and the instigator of singing us a welcome song — appeared, followed by a half-dozen AmeriCorps volunteers, to whom she was giving a tour. (She’s a teacher and has AmeriCorps volunteers at her school and offered to show them more about cohousing.)
Mica waited for them to move off the path, and then zoomed down the hill again. By this time, Maddy, Stone, and Kenny had gone off to have lunch.
Liz and I talked while Mica rode, then she popped off to see Jan, and then Marlene walked by and mentioned that she was off to have to lunch with the former owner of our house, who was back visiting from out of state.
Then the two women, who had been on the tour with Vic, came by and thanked me again. Their tour was over, and they were positively beaming.
The one with the little dog said, “Now we know why you were so persistent about living here!”
She gazed off in amazement, and laughed, “We’re going to do the same thing! The energy is so good here.”
Then it was just me and Mica… he was done riding, and we went to the play area, and he climbed and I walked a few yards to get towels from home to wipe off the slide, and he slid, and he dug, and he swung on the swing, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and I watched the greens and browns, taking in the richness of home.
The Goodies…
Ooooh, lots of deep and beauty this month.
:: Mama Anger, Mama Healing, Self and Daughter: She is my homeopathy.
:: The light that comes through us.
:: Some of what happens when “grace shows up quick enough to smother my egomaniacal urge to demand things go my way.”.
:: “They present ‘behavior problems’ — they ‘act out’, they scream, they wander, they are ‘combative’. They need to be ‘managed’. They are a ‘burden’.” She’s not describing children. She’s describing the power of the words we choose.
:: A poem to show what happens when you lean against this life.
:: She’s learning how to be a conduit for emotion to flow in and out of.
:: He’s hanging tough, and it turns out to be beautiful.
Top referring sites…
The Magic Onions
Where the magic of childhood and the wonder of nature collide to make each moment a precious gift.
Sensible Living
inspired by a more natural, non-coercive way of parenting and living
6512 and Growing
Rachel is an incredible writer, living at 6512 feet above sea level, raising her two kids, some chickens, and a big garden
Infinitely Learning
exploring the extraordinary relationship between personal & planetary well-being
And more from Holistic Mama, The Loving Path, Sewn Natural, and Plot 55.
Thank you!
photo by Rangga Chandra
