Hearts of my heart

I am not an artist.

I remind myself of this about this time of year when my heart overrides my talent. I love my wife, Cecile, dearly. But on Valentine’s Day I try to say that in something besides words.

Despite the lexicon of romance authors, you can’t “make love.” You live love, you give love and you bask in love. And you make the objects and activities that demonstrate that you do.

I am not an artist. But I am a maker.

When Cecile and I were young marrieds on a tight budget, I felt bad that I couldn’t give her the diamonds and exotic trips I saw in the TV ads. But one January day I noticed a large tree limb that had fallen near our duplex.

On a whim, I took a handsaw to the limb and cut off a hunk. I looked at it for several days trying to decide if I could make it into something close to a Valentine.

Remember, I am not an artist. In elementary school, my specialty was gooey clay. After pounding, twisting and poking it as long as the teacher would let me, it still looked like a lumpy blob. But when I took it home to Mom, she would give me a big hug for making her another ashtray. Ashtrays were the dominant décor of living rooms back in the unhealthy days. And any lump with a dimple qualified.

The piece of tree limb had no more chance of becoming art than did my lump of clay. But I was as determined as ever to try, first with a whittling knife (my God, oak is hard!) and eventually with a saw and a drill-mounted sander. The result was almost the shape of a heart, so I used my knife to write “To my Love” on it. Maybe “scrawl” is more accurate. My knife-writing is worse than my third-grade pencilmanship.

But Cecile loved it as much as I loved giving it to her. She kept it on her desk for years.

Periodically through the years, that same urge to give Cecile something from my hands welled up. I never had a plan when it happened, but I was inspired by stumbling upon a tool or something to shape. The basic design decision was already made for me – a heart. I am, after all, not an artist.

My craziest idea came from a softball-sized chunk of pink granite that I found in Oklahoma. How hard could it be to sculpt it? All those Greeks did it without power tools.

I now have a deep and abiding respect for sculptors. After dulling every chisel I could find, I attacked it with a carbide blade on my Skill saw. The stone heart started to take shape about the same time the electrical heart of my saw chewed itself to pieces on granite dust.

But with a variety of grinders, it also became recognizable. And again Cecile gave it a place of honor.

Through the years, I’ve made several wooden hearts, mounted a heart-shape stone and polished more pieces of tree limb into gifts.

I’m not an artist, but making a heart lifts my own heart. As I writer, I live with the tyranny of words. All day and much of the night, my ears, mind and fingertips are flooded with words.

But in the shop, it’s just me and a heart that is trying to get out of a piece of wood or other material. I don’t play the radio. I usually wear earplugs. And I don’t talk, even to myself.

Working on some new way to make that heart lets me think about the woman who owns my own heart. I grind, carve and mold in silent contemplation of the blessing I have.

This year I suddenly had the urge to try metal work. I put a small chocolate candy into a tin can half full of wet plaster of Paris. After I finally dug the chocolate out, I melted lead fishing weights in another can and poured the silvery liquid into the mold. Ta-da, a heart! Not much more elegant than that original tree limb, but a heart for Cecile never the less.

I only burned my hand three or four times. Then splashed myself with stain as I prepared a wooden mount for my fishing-weight-cum-Valentine. And when it was done, I noticed the mount was as pocked and unsophisticated as the lead heart.

Oh well. I am not an artist.

But I make. And I love. Happy Valentine's Day.

Clyde                            

Huey Lewis and Whistle Pops

It’s raining buckets here in Portland. We lucked out with several unseasonably warm and dry weeks in January and now, as the weather gods are wont to do, we are being made to pay for it with that particular kinds of bone chilling rain that seems to define winter in the Northwest. And so, of course, I’ve been dreaming of summer.

It’s the rain’s fault, really. Although not in the way you might think. You see, normally, I ride my bike as much as possible. To work, to school, to the store. But after getting a thorough soaking yesterday on my way from work to the bus stop to pick up one of the kids, I decided all further transportation this rainy week would take place in the car. And in the middle of driving through this morning's onslaught, Huey Lewis and the News came tumbling out of the radio speakers and despite having to squint out the window to see, even with the wipers going full blast, it was summer.

A summer evening, to be exact.

I don’t have a lot of memories that are linked so firmly to music. Probably because I am the world's worst music identifier. The standing joke in our house is that any time I’m asked “Who sings this?” I answer “Hall and Oats.” Because, hey, it might be Hall and Oats. And if it’s not (well, even if it is) I don’t know.  But Huey, Huey Lewis I know.

I would have been about eight or nine, right about the age Evelyn is now. Old enough to come out on the boat with dad while mom stayed home with a toddling Garrett. Old enough to sit on the deck of our cabin cruiser, my skin prickling with that too much sunshine feeling that my children will probably never feel since now-a-days, parents have to be sunscreen Nazis (with good reason), and watch the wake from our boat turn from foamy waves into soft ripples as they splay out behind us on our way across the lake.

There are all sorts of associated memories that pop up in my mind when I remember those evenings. The sugar sweet strawberries and cream taste of a Whistle Pop suckers from the marina gas station. The thrill of fishing the cherry out of the Shirley Temple I would get if we made it across the lake to that bar, the one with what seemed like a zillion steps leading from the dock to the dining room. The smell of the water after a hot day, not fishy or stinky, but planty, and green. A great blue heron standing in the tall grasses along the shore, watching us, watching him. The scratchy feeling of an old beach towel, the game of watching for the "Sea Pig" to cross our path. All tied up with Huey Lewis crooning in the background.

I can’t remember what the boat looked like. I don’t recall what was inside the cabin or what color the hull was. But I remember how much I loved being there. Adding layers over my swimsuit as the sun set and the wind picked up on the water. Seeing the lights of town twinkling in the distance on our way home, starting out like a shimmery mirage and then growing larger and brighter and more familiar the closer we got. I remember Huey Lewis singing “Happy to be stuck with you” on the beat-up black radio and thinking, “Yep, me too.”

                                                                                                -Gillian

I can’t get no satisfaction. But I can hum it.

When you hit about 60, you get a free pass to be annoying. Annoying kids are just pests, but annoying old men are just, well, old men.

By now I’ve perfected all 50 Shades of Gray Irritations, but there is one I have employed for as long as I remember.

I hum.

I’ve suffered countless elbow jabs and shooshing fingers over the years, but it has only become worse. Now I also sing.

Neither would be bad if I did them well or even knew the words to the songs I share. But quality is not the object of my vocalization. I’m just sharing what my mental radio is playing.

Portrait of a hum

A few years ago, one of my students launched a blog called “The Song in My Head.” Several times a week, she would become conscious of a song playing in her head and then research the lyrics, popularity and background. It was one of the most interesting student blogs I’ve read.

I never had the time nor inclination to delve into the details of the songs in my head. For one, they change too quickly. For another, I can’t remember them five minutes after I stop humming.

The thought of singing in a choir or, God forbid, performing on a stage terrifies me. But give me a shower stall, an empty hallway or a workshop that requires ear-protectors and I am the star of Clyde’s Pretty Good Record Co.

And any other time, I’m probably humming.

Most of the songs are from the musically amazing period of my youth – the 1960s. I think that all of the nuclear tests back then created not monsters, but the best songwriters in history.  The Eagles, Simon and Garfunkel, the Beatles, all of MoTown. Every few years something that I hummed in high school comes back as a hit song. It is Baby Boomers' reparation for having to put up with Richard Nixon.

Some songs come up in my repertoire frequently. “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone,” sounds great while walking through the University basement after hours. “My Girl” pops up when I think of my wife (it’s also her ringtone). “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter” can stick with me for weeks. And sounds unintelligible when hummed.

But I drift to classical, try a little country and sink into the blues. “The Voice” TV show may be my ultimate undoing. After every episode, I find myself mumbling through a catchy new tune.

The hell of it is, I know this will get worse. My ears are already cratering from all the loud music I listened to as a teen (Baby Boomer’s penance for electing George Bush). That means I’m well on my way to one of those really annoying old men: Deaf as a post but sitting in the corner humming at increasingly high volume.

Ah, but at least I’ve got great songs to hum.  

-- Clyde           

Dog smiles

Saffron greeted me with the usual wag and that inimitable smile when she came through the door for a visit this week.

A wagging tail from the dog you love is entirely logical. But how can a dog with no lips smile?

Come on, girls, smile for the camera

Saffron is my son’s 15-year-old whippet. She is without a doubt Garrett’s dog, but she and I have had a love affair since she was a tiny white ball in my lap. When Garrett graduated from college and left for the greater world, he insisted that we get another dog “so Dad won’t be lonely.”

Enter Greta, our almost-8-year-old other whippet. She, too, was once a tiny (brown) ball in my lap. Now she uses her doe-like Garbo eyes and completely un-Saffron smile to get me to share my chair with a much-less tiny her.

I’m a journalist, so my world revolves around communication. I’m pretty good at communicating with humans, but talent I admire most is communicating with other species. Dogs have their own grammar, their own vocabulary and their own favorite expressions.

Once in a while, I do pretty good job talking dog. Usually, however, Saffron or Greta just stand there wagging and grinning – and I’m sure saying “Come on, biped friend, you can say it.”

In the other direction, however, there is no communication problem. I know instantly when either dog wants a Milk-bone, thinks I need a cuddle or wants to go out to pee. (Definition of “speed”: Whippet going out to pee and back at minus degrees.)

Which brings me back to that smile. I can see it, I can appreciate it, but I can’t explain it. I’ve tried over and over to take a smiling-dog photo, but my whippets put on their classic-beauty face whenever I pull out a camera.

Our Garbo-esque Greta

I’m not even sure that a dog smile is a physical quality. It is more of an apparition. Like the ghost of a long-departed friend. You want to believe in it so much that quite willing to see what isn’t there.

Saffron and Greta smile at me with blunt-force subtlety. It’s just a sparkle in the eye, a cock of the head and a tongue peeking through a half-opened mouth. But oh, do I know they are happy with me. And I reciprocate with my bowed human lips and those telltale lines under my eyes. Then I break into a petting frenzy, make silly sounds (“whose a good girl?) and trot off for another Milk-bone.

Dogs may have used their keen senses to hunt for primitive man or their fangs to protect him from hungry predators. But we long ago invented telescopic sights and strong fences that do the job without consuming a sackful of kibble.

No, it is neither nose nor fang that earns dogs a special place. It’s the smile. We can’t really define it, but we certainly know why our hounds have it.

Dogs make us happy. 

- Clyde

Their Maggie

I read somewhere, once, that you never get over your first dog. And I think that's probably true. If you are fortunate enough to start out with a wonderful pup, no other dog will ever compare. Likewise, if you begin with a horrible or difficult beast, well, you probably won't ever go back to owning dogs. Lucky me, I began with the former. A springer spaniel only a few months younger than I was, Maggie and I grew up together. She was, technically, my dad's dog, but in the way that nothing that's yours is ever really yours once you become a parent, Maggie was mine. She patiently let me dress her up and treated my cat as her puppy. She cheered from the sidelines when I invented the little known sport of closet sledding (which involves a sleeping bag, a very long closet with hardwood floors and a good running start), rested her chin on my knee when I sobbed out my childhood miseries and didn't tell a soul when I almost burned down the house hanging Strawberry Shortcake's red dress over the bare lightbulb in my closet to make my own "darkroom". She slept on the foot of my bed almost every night of her life, even when she was so old she had to be gingerly lifted up onto the mattress each bedtime. I can still feel the emptiness in the pit of my stomach that I felt the day I came home from school to fine her gone. 

After Maggie came a series of disastrous dogs. Chessie, who was cute for about 6 weeks and then turned out to be a slightly sadistic, poofy creature who had absolutely no interest in our family. Chip, a dog so neurotic that I'm sure the trail he wore between the gates in our backyard will be found by future archeologists and mistaken for a defensive ditch built by some ancient culture. And the two labs Will and I acquired in our first years together, Morgan and Hennessy. They weren't exactly disastrous. Although that time Morgan ate one out of each pair of shoes I owned was pretty bag. But they were never Maggie. Not even close.

And so years of doglessness passed. Until one day, six years ago, when I got a bee in my bonnet to get another dog. The right dog this time. A dog just like Maggie. Literally. Another springer. A female, liver colored springer spaniel to be exact. Why mess with a good thing?

Nigella, who almost instantly became "Jelly" when a two year old Evelyn misunderstood the name we had given the dog and declared "My Jelly!" at their first meeting, is the dog that got me over Maggie. She is very like the original, in looks and temperament, although different enough to hold her own, equal place in my heart. Like Maggie, she thinks our cats are her puppies. Like Maggie, she is patient and kind and always ready to sit with you, in good times and bad. Being dressed up in a tutu or covered with stickers or used as a pillow is fine by her. She would rather be wearing a headband and socks curled up next to you than be alone without the embarrassing garb of a dog much loved by children. When she is not at my feet, she often sleeps at the end of Evelyn's bed, which was Briton's before her and mine before that, long ago. Same bed, (almost) same dog.  She is their Maggie. She is the dog my children will never get over. And thank goodness for that.

-Gillian

In School

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We call it “throwing a wrench in” around here. It doesn’t happen often, although often enough that we have a dedicated expression when it does. A game changer. A sudden shift in the plan. Sometimes even an about-face. It throws us into chaos for a while, and then it all settles down into a new normal. I have to remind myself of that, that soon it will be normal. Not the same normal as before, but normal. Right now, well, right now I have only just remembered that it is Thursday,  because where did the week go?

Next week I start a new job. In the midst of a full load of grad school classes, children at two different schools on two different schedules, an ever growing list of afterschool activities that require the kind of ferrying I swore I wouldn’t ever take part in and a part time graduate teaching practicum gig, I am taking over a much neglected library at  a K-8 school. It’s crazy. Utterly crazy. And yet, I can't wait to start.

Our family balance has always been centered on the fact that I am here. Here for sick days and vacation days, late starts, field trips, midday concerts, afterschool conferences. It was a decision we made long ago, and one that has worked well for the 12 plus years that we have been parents.  And while it was always the plan for me to go back to work, that was supposed to be later. After school, after the trial run of this practicum, when we had all (myself included, myself especially!) had time to adjust to the idea of mom being more than just mom.

But fate has a way of throwing that wrench in. And this chance was too perfect to pass up. A library. My library. My own library.  So it’s back to school I go. Twice over. As a student and as a librarian. I have an excellent cheering section. They all seem to think I can do this crazy thing. This full time plus half time plus another half time plus all the other things that need to get done in a day thing.  They will pick up slack, I will let things go, someone will forget and event or an activity or a paper that’s due (it will most likely be me) life will be crazy. And then, after a little while, it will be our new normal. Until the next wrench comes along, of course. 

                                                                                                                       ~Gillian

Back to school again. And again. And again.

By now, I should be used to the first day of school. I have, after all, had 60 of them.

There are few events in life that so mix anticipation with trepidation as the first day of school. In elementary school, I hoped to see friends who summer parted from me, but then I worried that the multiplication tables had changed over the break.

In high school, I was relieved that I wouldn’t be dodging Mom and Dad’s long list of summer chores, but I knew that I was too geek and not enough cool to sit with “the” crowd at lunch.

The rotten trick of college is that you have at least two first days each year. And the more letters you stack behind your name, the more of those first days you face.

As an undergraduate, I sweated that I would somehow so screw up that the draft board would send me an invitation to Mekong Tech. On the other hand, parties were never so memorable as when I was just under the drinking age.

The draft was gone by the time I was a junior. All I had to worry about is whether I would learn enough to actually get a job. But I had a beautiful coed on my arm and could look forward to decades of marital bliss. (That’s one dream that came true).

A sane person would have stopped there – as I did for 17 years. Graduate school has a way of sneaking up to you, though. Doubly so if you put a decade between master’s and doctoral programs.

The first day of term in grad school is a blur. Sometimes you have so many research projects you don’t notice the end of one semester and the beginning of another. You know you are on break, however, when you are franticly scrambling for whatever someone will pay you to make a dent in that tuition bill.

Of course, it’s a crapshoot whether the classes you signed up for will be anything like the titles in the catalog. I signed up for a “cultural studies” seminar to learn about minority audiences. I took a seat next to the guy in a Mao hat to learn how traditional media folk were ruining the world. Traditional Mao-hatless folk like me.

Now I’m a professor who not only faces two first days each year, but dons a cap and gown for two graduations each year. I like the graduation – its harvest time in higher ed. And after each graduation I swear I’m going to update my syllabi right away and have a complete set of PowerPoints ready long before I would see the next wave of students.

Yea, right. I’m a journalist. Skirting the finality of a deadline is in my DNA. The Journalism School is amazingly full of busy professors the weekend before class starts.

But just like in elementary school and my many other first days of school, the stresses of starting over now are more than balanced by the joys that come with them. I love that I’m on the other side of the pressure cooker. While I’m scrambling to prepare assignments, I get to watch the wide-eyed new undergraduates, the mentally-already-graduated seniors and the overwhelmed grad students find their places. And I get to offer advice, assurance and consolation. Because I know:

Been there, done that -- 60 times.                                 -- Clyde