Subtle Music

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Saturday friends come to dinner. I make a fish curry; Elizabeth a pound cake with grilled fresh pineapple and a brown sugar rum sauce, the pineapple a perfect complement to the spicy fish. I wear a jeweled “bindi” on my forehead and jeweled sandals on my feet. I listen to Indian music as I cook.

Sunday Leslie comes to walk my yard with me and discuss gardening plans. We talk of bamboo. At times invasive, we are nonetheless beguiled by the subtle music of canes rubbing and tapping in the breeze.

This evening as I come home from work, I stop in mid-stride just steps from the car. The sound of cicadas fills the air, like the roaring of lions at sunset. I am struck that it was not until I heard them again that I realize they had been silent.

At my front steps, I look over into my neighbor’s yard. A palm towers over his house; the fronds rustle in the wind.

Spring Comes Early in the South

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It warmed up nearly 30 degrees overnight. This meant that the morning was foggy. When I went out to get the paper, the street light, a replica of the old-fashioned gas lights, glowed softly behind the neighbor’s tropical plant. Three palm-like trunks silhouetted against a yellow mist, their leaves dangling like swords.

This morning was a “special breakfast.” Croissants, son the elder’s favorite, and sweet, milky coffee, special to son the younger.

On the drive to school, the trees and bushes in the distant park glistened silver in the light of the rising sun.

Home again, I stopped at the front gate, listening to the sound of the earth awakening.

Think Pink

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Today I bought some freshly baked palmiers, a heart shaped cookie of many buttery layers, a crisp confection that never fails to remind me of Paris. I whip heavy cream into soft peaks, adding powdered sugar and strawberries. This rosy mousse I ladle into white ceramic dishes, the ones I use for creme brule and souflees. I place a cookie, tip down, into each dish, each dessert the color of a child’s blush. I give my heart to each one. Valentine’s Day comes early to my house.

Yesterday when I showed up to teach dance class, a sea of pink leotards and dance skirts washed around me. I kissed little heads and rubbed little bellies. I have two sons, I tell people, and 250 little girls.

Animal Crackers

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The cold wave continues and I find it hard to change out of my fleece jammies. They are in fact my dance pants but since they have little white lambs on them, it is clear someone thinks they are jammies.

I make a coloring page with a bear in a tutu and type on it “We’re crackers for Ms Claire’s dance class!” I take the coloring pages and some animal crackers to all my classes. The children spy them the moment they walk into class and their eyes grow bright. We wag our tails like dogs, arch our backs like cats, and float our arms like swans. At class end, they fall over themselves like puppies, eager for their gifts.

Two days later it is the weekly “donut day” at our house. I get out my Christmas gift from the boys: a china cup and small china plate. They are pink with an sophisticated black cat on the side and, near the handle, two small black paw prints. Reading the morning paper, I drink my hot tea and eat my chocolate glazed donut with rainbow sprinkles.

Upstairs, the children tumble and jump. Outside, the wind blows and trees bend.

Cold, this wet morning

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This morning I woke to the sound of rain. An irregular but continuous stream of water hits my back deck. At my feet, the black cat stretches, jumps lightly down to the floor, and makes his way into the kitchen.

I make my way too, to the other side of the bed, where I throw one leg over husband’s belly. My other leg travels down along side his until it slides into place like a puzzle piece. My feet cradle his. My arm rests on his chest, where it rises and falls with his steady breathing.

Now, the rain sounds different. Now, I hear small drops falling on the broad elephant ear leaf just outside the window. The sound is taut, like a drum. In the distance, a train whistle. Husband stirs and turns to slide his arm under my head. “My favorite sound,” he murmurs. And in the dark whispers to me the remnants of his dream.

Outside the rain slows, then stops. I rise to make tea.

New Year

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My Christmas tree this year was especially beautiful. The blinking lights I bought the year I did Christmas for my mother, the year she was diagnosed with cancer. There are ten or twelve settings, including “running,” blinking and a slow fade. There are three spools of a dark burgundy and gold ribbon. Two spools wind around the tree. The other spool is shared between the garland over the front door and the garland over the arch between living and dining rooms.

I also used some of this ribbon to make a new bow for my front door wreath. I buy a fresh cedar and pine wreath every year, adding my bow and the bell that used to hang on my grandmother’s back door every Christmas season. Her door “stuck” a little so that the rough push needed to open it always sent the bell crazy, chiming the announcement of every arrival. Now it is my front door, and the push needed to close it, that sets the bell to dancing.

Over the years, of course, I have collected ornaments. There are the cinnamon dough stars that the boys and I made many years ago, still smelling faintly of spice. There are the gold and clear plastic suns, announcing the return of the Sun. There are the orange slices I dried for one of the first Christmas trees after my return to the States. There are the golden glitter beads I bought in Europe.

A few years back I went lavish and bought boxes of ornaments in coffee, mocha, and burnt orange. And last year began a new tradition: an ornament gifting which has netted us four new ornaments in the past two years: cowboy boots, a cactus, an elephant, and a suitcase. The golden browns and deep greens complement the tree and the images pique our imaginations.

In the New Year, we pulled up the arbor that has held up our climbing rose bush these past twelve years. For the first time, March will not bring small white roses to our side yard. Soon, we will have a “moon gate” and new plants. But for now, there is a patch of dark soil and a clear view of the iris.

Soon, too, there will be a new bike rack and four bikes ready for use. But for now the bikes live on the back deck or in our living room. We bike the neighborhood, checking out old warehouses and new construction. Our cheeks grow rosy as even in Houston, the air holds a chill. We bike to Starbucks, and then home, where waits for us the Sunday New York Times, and in the evening, another episode of Black Adder.

“Sir,” son the younger tells me the next morning, “I have a cunning plan….”

Sunday Morning Rituals

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Last night I slept upstairs, son the younger on the trundle bed. Under the roof, we could hear the rain better.

I had on my favorite pj’s: pink flannel with coffee cups splashed all over. When I woke, the dog was at my feet and the cat had her head on son the younger’s leg. It had stormed during the night; as it got light the downpour lessened.

I got up and put on my favorite robe: pink terrycloth scattered with poodles, Eiffel Towers, and “je t’aime” in black embroidery thread.

I made my traditional Sunday morning run to the neighborhood donut shop, where the radio is always tuned to a local blues show. Last week, when I got back into my car, I found myself listening to the same program and the host mentioned the donut shop owner by name. This morning as I wait for my regular order, I watch the parade. It is quiet today. None of the church-goers have arrived yet. Instead, there are two young men in tatoos, t shirts and khakis.

At home, I eat my coconut donut and watch the ending to “Flower Drum Song.” Later today I will watch Bing Crosby in “The Bells of Saint Mary.”

Outside, there are circles of fresh dirt around each of the two lilac bushes planted yesterday. The ditches are full of water and the trees still drip, but patches of blue are appearing in the sky.

Autumn Evening

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My mother’s flower vase stands on my dining table. Burgundy velvet drapes are an elegant backdrop to a yellow chrysanthemum wearing an underskirt of mocha. Orange tiger lilies stand apart from Bells of Ireland, their furry, maroon pistils sway at the slightest footstep.

Son the older and I have just finished watching a black and white, 1953 French comedy. Monsieur Hulot, the main character, is a bumbler whose mishaps create in us an odd tenderness.

Outside, the fall moon is a sliver, leaves skitter down the street, and a light rain patters on the trees.

Three newly planted gardenia bushes close in the only side of the front yard without flowers or foliage.

Sometimes it is our limits which define our purpose.

When Rosemary Leaves Turn Silver

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This morning we held a snuggle-in, the family and I. At first it was just son the younger, husband, and I. Then we sent husband to fetch son the older. Husband returned to report that our bedroom was distinctly warmer than the rest of the house. The rest of the house being some eighty years older.

And we were cozy, nestled under the duvet. Son the younger sang a nonsensical song of his own invention while son the older warmed my back and husband held my hand. And so we stayed for many minutes, imagining a life without school, without work.

The morning was cool when I dropped son the younger at school. I watched him walk away, already showing a little more ankle under pants only a few months old. The air had warmed by the time I brought home groceries and as I scuffed my way through dried leaves I made a sudden change of plans.

I needed no more than a t shirt to keep me warm as I painted the front yard fence. A breeze brought the rustle of crisp leaves. Even shortly after noon, the shadows fall differently than during summer. The odors too are different. The smell of decay, of retreating sap.

I could not paint the corner of the yard where the rosemary grows until I had taken pictures of it. The dull brown of the wood suits the woody stems, the dark green of this fragrant bush. Viewed through my camera lens, the purple flowers and the long fingers of aromatic herb create a mystical grove.

A bit of bird down catches on a rosemary stem, feathery edges glint in the sun. And for some moments, there was only this: the smell of rosemary, light softening petals into fairy gowns, and wind in the trees.

Piecing It Together

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This weekend I went to the International Quilt Festival. My grandmother and great-grandmother both quilted. My sister and I have both quilted. My mother did not quilt but she did collect fabric. When I spent most of my time wandering through the vendor area, then, I came by the impulse honestly.

The selections ranged from African-themed batik to antique kimonos. There was hand-dyed silk and hand-made buttons. There were rich brocades and trim in riotous color. There was nubby hand-woven woolens and fabric so sheer it could only exist for the pleasure of looking at it.

There was a large doll exhibit, a daily journal quilt exhibit. Quilts that used machine stitching to create portraits, quilts that borrowed elements from the Amish quilting tradition.

There were quilt artists who consciously gave themselves assignments: a series of tiny quilts, each in a particular color. There were quilt artists who sewed out of personal tragedy.

When I tore myself away, I carried home a bag of patterns, some hand-dyed felt, and a small sense of what might be possible for me.