fastidious musings for anonymous

We have been listening to Mingus, Monk and Milt Jackson through the summer. August likes to recite her own spontaneous poetry over the music. I linger in the moment. Later, I wonder if jazz will be forever connected with the months just before kindergarten. Our brand new neighbor plays the saxophone in the evenings. The sound gently passes through the walls. It sounds very good and a bit serendipitous. 

Heard mariachis at the library, the lonely trumpet echoing down the hallway before they started put me somewhere I can't quite describe. Perhaps its in the future. The museum we love feels like home, the library like church and the church like a museum. Deep in thought and feeling, I am using all my senses, and it's all love.

Stories

August will ask me to tell her stories from when I was a little girl or before she was born. Some she loves hearing over and over, like how my hamster, Kiwi, stole the belt from my robe and hid it in her nest until I cleaned out the cage and found it. She loves hearing her own birth story and can almost tell it exactly the way I do. There are some memories from my own childhood that I tell her from the point of view I had as a child. These are precious childhood memories I feel fortunate to still have.

When I was a little girl they served coffee cream in tiny glass carafes at restaurants. I took one home with me and just loved how it fit in my hand and all the inspirations that came from it on the drive home. I put some tiny rocks into it, poured them out, they weren't quite tiny enough. I found teenie rocks and filled it halfway. Once I did, I held it close to my eye and could imagine a seashore in another land. I filled it with water and poured it out, filled it with water again, poured it out again and continued until I had the perfect little scene. When I put my eye up to it I saw a rocky shore leading to a magical beach, the doorway to a magical ocean. I placed it near my bed, and that night, I fell asleep with my lamp on, looking into this tiny world of water where mermaids and whales and sorts of creatures lived.

This went on for a few days and nights, I cannot remember how many. I noticed a waxy film on the water and had to pour it out and replaced it at the perfect level. I used a stick to move the rocks the way I wanted, and again, I placed it by my bed and drifted off looking at the sea. One night a little insect appeared to be swimming in this make believe ocean then would climb onto the rock and rest before entering the water again. I was fascinated and it quickly became a swimming faerie. I enjoyed this creature and how it's presence made the whole scene more real. To me it was a faerie bathing in the enchanted waters and resting in the sunlight. It didn't leave for some time and had visited because my little water world was so inviting.

That is how it all seemed to me as a child. I am sure that this little creamer filled with water was near my bed for all of four days or maybe a week but it felt like forever. The webspinner that found it's way in was probably trapped an entire evening but it felt so much longer and perhaps, sitting under a lamp, more than one webspinner frequently found its way into it  every evening. I'll never know the reality of it all, I am happy to still remember it the way I saw it as a child. I hope August will have such memories long after childhood ends.

Trip to China

Commentary

I am a huge Wes Anderson fan. Every movie he makes gives me that same feeling I got after I watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off the first time. I watched the film with my best friends at the mall movie theater. I was 17, and while I enjoyed the teen romances depicted in Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles, it was the plot of Ferris Bueller skipping school to have real fun, that really made more sense to me. I wanted to live in a city, catch a parade in the middle of the week, go to a museum, go to a fancy restaurant for lunch...such things were not available to me. Living in a small Texas town, my one and only day of playing hooky involved my best friend calling her mother to come pick her up because she was feeling ill. I got by the security guard by creating a fake office note and getting to go home with them. We watched Dirty Dancing, ate hot dogs and drank these sugary drinks called Koalas.

The use of music, timing of the shots, framing of the scenes, symmetry and even the character types in Wes Anderson's films can be found in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. You can see see the scenes that could have been influential.  I am often left wondering what his thoughts on the movie are. 

Better than fireworks!

Today she sang the entire Star Spangled Banner. It's very close to being correct. We had our first swim of the summer and ate hot dogs with good friends. On the way home we stopped for snow cones and when I asked what flavor she ordered egg nog. It's the 4th of July! We stopped by the toy store because we were too wired to go home. Then we sat in front of the television and quickly fell into a late afternoon nap.

It's not been the usual summer, not our usual days. Our summer was hijacked, as was our spring... some years are like that. But through it all, we have managed to keep our morning and evening rituals. But some plans...just have to set some things aside, practice patience, surrender to the fact that there just isn't the time to do all the things we'd like to do.

After the nap we enjoyed sparklers and morning glories. We praised the moon, shining directly above our porch, for being so beautiful while not being full. I remember moving in three summers ago and finding the moon hanging just as it was tonight and feeling grateful for the location of our new abode. We also admired the stars tonight, and heard the thundering booms coming from the show downtown. She said, "I'm scared, let's go inside." I said, "It's okay, just the fireworks show downtown, remember?" She said,"Yes, but it's scary tonight in the dark." I felt better that we skipped the show.

We got into bed and she pulled out the book entitled, Pete the Cat: Too Cool for School. The highlight of this 4th of July was August reading the entire book all by herself! It was completely unexpected, in fact, I have been feeling guilty and just sad that we haven't had our long days together to fill with art, music, fun and learning like we once did. I was unhappy that we weren't really tackling reading like I had planned. However, this weekend we focused on some words and concentrated on sounds and reviewed a few things. She worked hard tonight. I told her I was so proud of her and we could finish the book tomorrow but she was determined to finish it and she did.

This milestone melts my heart. I watched her sound out the words, reminding me of when she learned to talk. Her eyes when she became amazed with her new ability reminded me of when she learned to walk. It took her a while to get to sleep, she was so excited and charged. I'm overwhelmed with emotions and inspired. She's now able to read.

"Play that one again..."

August loves David Bowie, she can sing Quicksand. "Freddy Mercury has the most beautiful voice, like an opera singer", is something she has said more than once. She had an entire office in stitches when she asked the owner of the loan company who he liked more, The Beatles or The Rolling Stones and when he said he liked both she said,"Well, I love the 'Shangalas' and Ronettes more because they are girls."

Recently she's discovered Nico and said,"I like this happysad music she sings, Mommy." It is happysad music, and it's also incredibly cute when a four, {recently turned}five year old tries hard to imitate Nico, attempting precocious lower octaves with such a serious expression.

The Monkees, Badfinger (The Beatles, as she calls them) Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, The Carpenters... It's Nancy Sinatra and The Captain and Tennille who she has been really idolizing these days. She belts out Love Will Keep Us Together more like Ethel Merman but she's trying hard to capture that sugary confidence and enthusiasm of Tennille. It's singing all day long around here. She sings Georgy Girl and The Sounds of Silence along with old RC commercial jingles as if they were brand new. I don't have the heart to tell her we are listening to somewhat ancient tunes. They aren't to her.

I pulled out an old Gal's Panic CD and played her their cover of the Carpenters' We've Only Just Begun and she loved it! She then asked if it was The Aquabats. I told her they were not but I could hear how they could easily be. I love how she is able to compare and find similarities between songs she hears. Last year she was always telling me things like how Heroes sounds very much like Teenage Wildlife to her.

She's proclaimed the following songs to be about us: Theme song to Laverne and Shirley {very empowering played loudly first thing in the morning} and Two of Us by The Beatles because we were heading home when it came on over the radio. She made me replay Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds over and over on a ten mile drive across town the other day. I do enjoy talking about music with this child and enjoy sharing my records with her but listening to the radio as we drive around town is one of my favorite things to do. She's fallen in love with jazz that way.