My daughter was hiding somewhere upstairs. (She'd accidentally hurt her brother.) Blake nursed his wounds in a chair he'd drawn right up to the wall, his ear near a speaker, to better hear the Radiolab podcast about evolution and altruism. My husband came downstairs to tell me something, got interested in the podcast and stretched out on the couch, listening too. The sounds on that show command one's attention, you know? Outside it was dark – it's always dark – but our fire crackled as Jad and Robert told a sad, sad story about George Price. I turned my back on the dinner dishes. I sat on the floor near my son so that I could hear, too.
Sasha crept downstairs like the fog, on little cat feet. She watched me let the hem out of her pajamas. "I want to try," she said, and then finished the job for me. My husband fell asleep.
When the podcast ended Blake got up and chose another. "This one is my favorite," he said, grinning, pleased. Sasha finished unhemming as Jad & Robert contemplated time. She wandered upstairs to bed. Blake's eyelids drooped. He curled into a blanket and slept.
I had to present at another meeting last week, this one called by me.
Ordinarily someone in the office hosts a meeting that I attend; I don't host them myself because I sit at a table 100 miles away from where they sit: I can't reserve a meeting room or carry a projector and laptop to the meeting room or evict any laggards; I have to rely on someone invited to my meeting to do those things for me. Attending this particular meeting were people I have never met face-to-face, which made the reserving-projecting-laptopping-evicting rather tricker to organize.
It would have been easier for me if the people in the office stayed at their desks and logged into the meeting just like I do, by phone and WebEx, but they never want to do that. They want to sit together, in a circle around a table.
I've been following Sue and Bea and Mary as they do Project 365: posting a photo a day for a year. It's been interesting to see their photos, since I knew them as writers first; also, I think I sort of a little bit maybe have begun to see the world in terms other than narrative.
This morning for example the sun finally shone and I ran around the house looking at the shadows and the way sunlight changes the colors of the walls and ceilings and anything else it touches.
Snowman in a globe in a bowl on the windowsill in the sunlight.
*
After driving the kids to school I couldn't bear to lock myself indoors with the computer; instead I walked (slip-slid) down to the First Street Rapids and along the river trail, whispering glory glory glory. Sunshine! Blue sky!
*
In my driveway I'd heard a man's voice talking, maybe two men, which was odd because, you know, very few people walk the icy hillside at 9am; and I couldn't see anyone. I kept thinking I'd meet the man/men around a corner but I didn't, and in fact the voice/s got louder the further down the hill I walked. Finally I realized I was hearing the announcer at the Cyclocross National Championships more than two miles away.
*
I walked to the bend where the swans hang out and then turned back to find a wispy wintery cloudbank creeping slowly, slowly toward the sun. I reached my house with the rain.
While completing her spelling homework Sasha sang a little song to herself, the refrain of which was "silent e is a ninja."
It was a catchy little tune but mystifying. In what way is "silent e" like a ninja? What is a ninja, anyhow?
"Sasha," I asked, "what's a ninja?"
She looked at me. "I don't know."
So – curiosity distracting me from the dirty dinner dishes, as it often does – I got out my trusty iPod and googled definition:ninja. You probably already know this, but I did not: a ninja was a 14th century martial arts expert hired for espionage or assassination. They were noted for their stealthy movements and skill at camouflage.
Right. But in what way is "silent e" like a stealthy assassin? What a ridiculous phrase to teach a child, I thought. I prefer the phrase the school taught my son: "the e makes the vowel say its name."
I googled silent e is a ninja.
And lo.
"Sasha," I asked – interrupting, again, both her song and her homework; no wonder it takes her awhile to finish – "Sasha, did you learn that song at school?"
It will sometimes snow here before the official start of winter, but the way the white sky has just set itself down on the dirt these last two weeks: that's unusual.
