the ELLA echo

my thankfuls

my friend andy behrens recently said on his facebook feed:  “I am thankful for humility, and this reflection I share with everyone, and I want it displayed next to my picture where you can all read it.”  (as you can plainly see, andy is a sage).

sometimes that's how it feels when i try to write about my blessings--like i'm doing it so everybody can witness my thankfulness.  for that reason, i don't generally post my "thankfuls".  i don't know how to do it gracefully.

about 20 years ago i started writing letters to friends and loved ones to tell them why i was thankful for their presence in my life.  i started with my family, and from there expanded to include colleagues, teachers, etc.  in this way, i could offer each person my true, heartfelt sentiments of gratitude and appreciation, without fanfare and with no expectations.

my letter writing campaign continues to this day, but this year i have decided to share some of my thanks "in public", where the lessons i learned from various people i've known can be recognized for their contribution to a better me.

i thank my father for teaching me that i am smart.  when i was younger than ella, he trusted that i could understand big ideas and big realities, and he taught them to me the way he has always done things--by example, and with the pithiest, most concise explanation possible.  this is partly due to his limited command of the english language but it is also a function of who he is--a man of few words, deep thoughts, and practical wisdom.

i thank my mother for teaching me to never ruin someone else's fun on purpose.  she has taught me over and over, by her gracious example and occasionally by her firm but loving words that when someone has expressed a fondness for romance novels or polka music or sequined holiday sweaters, making wisecracks about it just drives a wedge between us and makes me look like an ass.  sometimes the wedge is ok with me :) but looking like an ass never is.

i thank my sister "tallulah" for teaching me that loyalty doesn't mean dishonesty, and that to tell someone the truth might hurt them today but tomorrow it will ultimately set them free.

i thank my sister bina for teaching me that to recognize and celebrate the accomplishments of others does not in any way diminish my own, and that in fact there is great joy and satisfaction in being the one who gets to cheer.

i thank my brother andrew for teaching me to work hard at whatever comes along, and to not be too proud to start over when necessary. 

and finally, i thank my sister lala, for helping me learn that i can walk thru anger, grief, and loss, into a deeper empathy for another's pain, and that in the end, i still choose love and forgiveness.

with best wishes and many thanks to all my readers,

rowena___.

figure 8 is double four

each year is a circle that turns round upon itself.

 

when i became a mother

i had no idea

how close together

birthdays were going to be.

 

yesterday:

 

today:

 

place it on its side and it's a symbol meaning infinity....

hair of the dancer that bit you

it’s ballet recital time of year!  if your child’s hair is really short, it is a challenge to get it into the classical “ballerina bun”.  here is how i do it with ella’s hair.

you need:  elastic band, bobby pins (and hairpins if you have them), a hair net to match the child’s hair color, and a pair of knee high nylons that are close to the child’s hair color (for this tutorial i used knee highs that are lighter than ella’s hair so they will show up in the pictures).

 

NOTE:  bobby pins are the thicker ones that have one straight side and one bendy side.

they are used to hold a design firmly in place.  when putting them around the base of the bun, insert them with the straight side next to the head so it lies smooth under the bun and doesn’t hurt—when using them to hold loose pieces of hair in place, insert them with the straight side away from the head, so they look smooth and flat (they won’t hurt here because there is no pressure on them).  insert them at an angle to the hair that is flatted to the head, so they have something to grab.

hairpins are the ones that are thin and shaped like a long U.  (for some reason we haven’t been able to find any hairpins recently—apparently nashville has become a hairpin-free zone—so this is a stock picture from a beauty supply website).

 

they are used to hold sections of loose hair in a given design.  they are useless for securing the design to the head so if you have to buy only one type of pin, get bobby pins.

 

now down to business:  use the elastic band to put the child’s hair into a ponytail in the target bun location—check with the dance school about this!—some schools like the low, traditional bun, some like a higher, contemporary bun.  if some of the child’s hair is not long enough to go into the ponytail, just leave it loose for now.  ella’s hair has grown out quite a bit since it was cut earlier this year—at first the whole front wouldn’t even go into the ponytail.

 

then wrap the knee high nylons around the elastic band and tuck the loose ends in.   the knee highs give bulk to the bun and give you something to build on.  you can use more than two knee highs if the child’s hair is very thin.

 

take small sections of hair and pull them over the knee highs, pin them if you wish or just tuck them under if they will hold (this is where hairpins are more useful than bobby pins—hairpins will grab a whole section of hair to keep in place while you finish the bun and they can go right thru the knee highs to grab wispies). 

 

this part doesn’t have to be pretty but do make sure you have the hair evenly distributed around the knee highs so the final result will be round and symmetrical.

 

take the hairnet and wrap it around the bun—it will be too big—just twist it and wrap it over and over until you run out of net—the way you applied the elastic to make the ponytail.

 

put in as many more bobby pins around the base of the bun as needed to make it secure—have the child shake her head to double check.  if there were any loose pieces of hair that didn’t make it into the ponytail, pin them flat to the head now.  crisscrossing bobby pins will make them hold better.  step back and admire your handiwork.

 

spray the bun and head liberally with the ozone-depleting hair product of your choice and you’re done! 

 

*for my very first dance recital i was a mouse in a grey tutu.  14 years later, when i was a professional dancer, i requested and was granted the privilege of performing the role of the mouse king in “the nutcracker”—why did i do it?—because by then i had danced every female role in that ballet and the mouse king was the only male role that was within reach.  :D  everyone who has ever danced on stage, even for fun, has at least one story to tell—what’s yours?

long time, no blog

you're about to see why.

after my last post, this is what went on here:

ella built a covered wagon and went out on the trail, taking her trusty dollies and one adventurous cat (notice she also hand-crafted a candle holder for looming in the dark).

 

then she built a wide-body car with custom woody panels and set out on the road for a cross-country tour. 

 

then the whole family set out in our non-wide-body, non-woody car for georgia:

 

illinois:

 

and twice to virginia to visit family.  the first time we woke up to a surprise:

 

which was immortalized in paint by a neighbor and friend:

 

and on the next trip we got to celebrate a very special milestone for people we love:

 

and betwixt and between it all, we have gardened:

 

*catch me up—what have you been up to since i’ve been gone?

thinking of aly

my friend aly died about 12 hours ago, from colon cancer.  she was just 26 years old.  aly was a local theatrical stitcher who sometimes worked for me when i was still designing costumes.  she was dear and sweet and kind and gentle and sassy and smart and talented and loving and every good thing you could say about a person.

aly had a young spirit but an old soul, and i liked her from the start.  she developed the grannie habit of always having a piece of candy ready to give to ella whenever we visited.  the last time we saw aly, she gave ella two pieces, because she thought it would be a while before we'd see each other again.

tonight i can't sleep, with memories like that filling my head.  i look at my own sleeping child, in her footie pajamas and sweet brown curls, i think of how she has spent the past two days in a kelly green wig and her cinderella dress, feeling like the most beautiful being on earth--knowing that aly's mother has memories like that too, of a little girl dressed like a princess, of a grown woman dressed in a wedding gown, and that her very last dress-up memory will be the one of her child dressed for burial.

and i think of aly's husband, terry, who is already a widower at an age when most people are buying their first home and dreaming of their first child.  i think of how he and aly did it all--for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part--they lived the whole marriage vow in less than three years.

and i think of terry's and aly's parents, who have watched their children go thru these indescribably hard, grown up things, and knowing they have been thinking the very same thing i think when i look at ella--"they're just babies"--how utterly helpless it must feel to watch your child go thru these things and be able to do nothing to stop it or fix it or make it easier.

i think of how utterly lost i would be without rudi, knowing full well that one day, one of us will have to live without the other and simply refusing to think of what that even means, because at least for now i have the luxury to do so.

i think of course of my own motherhood, of how i have laid my hand on ella's chest every single night of her life, to feel her heartbeat and the rise and fall of her breath--to reassure myself that she is still here and that everything is ok--thinking each time that one day i won't have the privilege of doing this anymore, that one day she will leave and have a life of her own away from my motherly attentions, and pushing out of my thoughts the knowledge that there are other, unthinkable reasons why this insane little ritual might be taken from me.

there's no point to this post, really, except that i thought maybe downloading the voices in my head would make it possible to sleep tonight.  so i'll say the obvious thing, because i'm a mother and that's what we do:  hug your children. hug your spouse.  and be kind to yourself because you're someone's baby too.

good-night, aly.  thank you for being my friend.

the difference

my last blog post hit a nerve with some readers (as i expected it would). some understood me to say that children should be allowed to get away with whatever they choose.  some thought i meant that children should not be held to any standards of decency or civil behavior.

but read it again.  nowhere do i suggest that children--or anybody--be allowed to be rude or disrespectful, or that they be permitted to endanger themselves or others.  what i did say, explicitly, is that i believe my child should be allowed and encouraged to think for herself, to learn to exercise her own good judgment--that i do not believe it is good for her, or good for society, for her to take what she is told at face value or to accept as gospel the word of someone who has not made their case.

so—what do i expect in place of obedience?

cooperation.

the difference is just this:  obedience says, "do what i say".  cooperation says, "work with me on this".

obedience is a top-down relationship.  the person having the most power forces the other to bend to his/her will, regardless of purpose or reason.  by contrast, cooperation is a relationship of partners.  each relies on the other for support and contribution to a shared need or goal. 

regular readers of this blog know that ella is a cooperative child.  this is partly her nature (and i plan to write about the challenges of this characteristic soon)--but i believe, based on my experiences with other children, that it is also a function of how they are approached.  when an adult says to a child, "please do this, because XYZ,", the child learns that his help is needed, and he learns why. a habit of explaining things to children sets them up to expect reasons that make sense, that put things into context.

when one day the child is confronted with the person who says, "i'm in charge, do it my way," without providing any reason for this assumption of power, the child will have been equipped by his previous experience to expect some evidence that what he is being asked to do is reasonable or has value.

in other words--the child learns to think for himself.

adults are sometimes threatened by children who question their authority.  in my experience these adults are the ones likely to exert the most effort towards obedience.  while i don't judge their reasons for this, i do wonder if this is the best method for achieving the goal.

i don't want an obedient child

you heard me right. 

i don't want a child who will do what she's told.

i don't want a child who does not question authority.

i don't want a child who follows the rules.

no.  i want a child who examines data, takes chances, challenges assumptions. 

i want a child who, when told that things are a certain way, asks "why", and then sets out to find the answer.

i want a child who, when the stranger, or the boyfriend, or the gang leader, or the preacher, or the politician, says, "follow me", asks "where are you going? what are you going to do there?  why should i go too?". 

i want a child who, when confronted with disorder, ambiguity, obscurity, absurdity, or confusion, will stand upright and ask, "how can we fix this/make it better/make it right?"

obedient children don't do that.

but children who are allowed to nag society for the truth--to get in the face of authority, power, privilege, ambivalence, the status quo, and demand solutions--those children change the world.

being in two places at the same time

see that new button in the sidebar?  the one that looks like this:

nashville parent magazine invited me to blog for them and i happily accepted! once a week (more or less), i'll be posting exclusive content in their parent blog section that will compliment what i post here on my own blog. 

it would thrill me if you'd hop over to nashville parent from time to time and leave a comment or share my posts.  i'll let you know each week when i've posted over there so you won't have to guess.  this week's post is already up, it's about some things you can do on snow days when the kids are out of school and you have run out of craft projects.  :)

sneak peak for next week:   why my advice is of no use to other parents. 

 

*i always on the lookout for suggestions for new posts, for this blog or for nashville parent!  what would you like to read more about?

resolving

do you make resolutions at the beginning of each new year? 

for a while i quit making resolutions, because i discovered that making them was just a sure way to set myself up for disappointment and failure.

but this year i found a post at simple homeschool about choosing one word to guide your year.  and suddenly the skies opened up and the angels sang and i found something that i just knew would work for me.

in a flash, i knew exactly which words would be right for me this year:

PRESENCE

GOODWILL

SERVICE

that's it, that's all i need to meet the goals i have in mind for 2011.  however, unlike the author of the simple homeschool post, these are my words, which i will apply only to my own life and my own actions.  i don't intend for these to be the words that represent my family, because let's face it, the only person i have any real control over is myself, and only partly at that.

my intention/resolution is simple:  in every situation, in every interaction with others, i will start at the top of my word list and do what it tells me.  be PRESENT, offer my GOODWILL, and find a way to SERVE that person's needs.

ella made a resolution too:  to do a puzzle with me every day.  :)

 

*how do you approach the new year? 

whether it's cold or whether it's hot, we shall have weather, whether or not

every year, around the end of august, ella starts to formulate ideas about what she’ll be for halloween.  she doesn’t share these ideas with me until they are complete, so i’m not fully sure what the process is for deliberation or decision.  this year, she announced without hesitation that she would be mother nature.

she made a sketch (the things beside each arm are her legends for measuring scale):

 

the green is for the earth, and the blue is for the sea.  there are flowers on the land, and fish in the water, and there is a rainbow above it all.  there is a waterfall on the back, but mother nature’s face is disguised because she moves in secret.

she shopped for all the materials—green fleece for the top, flowers from the dollar tree, glitter from our art room, and a skirt from her dress up box.

i cut and sewed the top, we worked together on the embellishments, and when it was done, we had:  MOTHER NATURE.

 

she found out after coming up with this idea that her best friend is going to be an autumn fairy.  they get to trick-or-treat together this year, so watch out nashville!  the seasons are on the move!

 

*for details on how i created the costume, visit rostitchery, where i describe how i made each component of the look.