I feel things too deeply.

by Cate on December 18, 2012 · 8 comments

in Uncategorized

There is so much sadness in the world that sometimes I feel swallowed by it.

How can I live my daily life—putting on the kettle for tea, scrounging in my wallet for change to pay my library fines, helping my daughter put on her socks—when twenty small children were gunned down in their classrooms shortly before Christmas?

What happened in Newtown is devastating, and I can hardly think of it without weeping. But it’s only a few grains of sand on a beach of incredibly sad occurrences.

I’m reading A Train in Winter right now, about female resisters in occupied France. And while it’s fascinating, it makes my heart hurt. One woman was arrested at home, with her 6-month-old baby boy sleeping in the next room. As they led her away, she realized no one knew to retrieve him.

My own little boy, who will be ten months old in just a few days, is sick with a mild fever. All day he has slept: in my lap, in my arms, on my back. His body is warm and flushed, his eyelashes like soft feathers. My daughter’s fever dissipated in the small hours of the morning, but she is still sleepy, and she curls up against my body all the same. She reaches out and holds her brother’s hand in hers.

There are times when I can hardly go on knowing what I know of the world. That people can be cruel and violent and bitter and hateful. That these things can and do happen, more than once, over and over, and that they probably will in one form or another, forever. I find myself wishing I’d never fallen in love, never had children; I fantasize about living alone in the wilderness.

I feel things too deeply, sometimes.

But in the end, these small fleeting moments of happiness—my daughter holding my son’s hand, the glow of a lighted room on a winter evening, the way my husband’s lips feel on the back of my neck when I’m washing dishes—are what I choose to believe in. The rest is there, of course, and it haunts me. But I cannot dwell on the sad things. I would drown in them.

{ 8 comments }

Colored by Cate

by Cate on November 26, 2012 · 7 comments

in Babywearing,Budget,Miscellaneous

When I was in elementary school, I wanted to be an artist. Nevermind that even my stick figures are wonky, or that it took me years to grasp drawing voluptuous hearts. I wanted to be an artist, so an artist I would be. I clung to that dream even though I’ve drawn only one objectively good picture in my entire life, of a little bench that lived under the dogwood in our front yard. I remember sitting on the sloping grass and perfecting the iron scrollwork. One year my mother gave me a set of oil pastels in a hinged wooden case, with a pad of quality paper, and I loved them beyond reason. But as the years passed, I steered my energy toward writing and cringed whenever a class assignment involved “decorating” anything.

Despite my failure at creating shapes on paper, I’ve always had an eye for color and detail. In high school, my bedroom was soft pink with glossy black trim, and I decorated it with dark wood furniture and black and white toile. When I stand in front of the paint displays at Home Depot, my eyes get big and glassy and I start frantically grabbing at paint swatches to drool over and use as bookmarks.

I’m also a textile geek, even though I don’t weave, quilt, or do anything other than stitch up wounded stuffed animals and make the occasional rag rug. When I started wearing my children in woven wraps, I got very obsessed very fast. Over 50 different wraps have passed through my house at this point, and the Woven Wraps Database autocompletes when I type “www” into my browser. I’ve had many a wrap that I loved everything about except for the color. I’m particular about colors. I want just the right shade. I considered dyeing those wraps, but I was afraid I’d create a splotchy, ugly mess, and I sold them instead.

But last July, I was searching for a wrap in the perfect shade of green and I couldn’t find it anywhere. My perfect wrap literally didn’t exist. I hemmed and hawed and I finally bought an inexpensive one with the thought that I wouldn’t lose much money if my first attempt at dyeing was a disaster. I ordered my supplies and nervously filled a large plastic bin with hot water, salt, and dye. The water was emerald green and I felt like a witch stirring her cauldron. I waited. I added soda ash. I stirred. I waited. I stirred. I waited. I rinsed.

And it looked incredible. A double-faced teal and silver wrap became forest green and shimmery just-a-touch-darker-than-lime. I was rather impressed with myself.

I dyed a few more. I began experimenting with dyes and dye blanks just for fun. I fell in love.

And I went out on a limb and started a dye business.

My first few weeks as a dye artist (my, that feels silly) passed with only some casual inquiries. I was beginning to think that if I wanted to build my portfolio, I’d need to buy a couple wraps, dye them, and re-sell them. As I was pondering this plan of action, I suddenly booked five jobs within a week. This afternoon I packed up and mailed the first two wraps, and I couldn’t be more pleased with my new venture. Something I love and can do from home for a little extra cash? Yes, please!

{ 7 comments }

Less is More

by Cate on November 9, 2012 · 3 comments

in Family,Home,Simplicity

I am sitting in my living room with James asleep on my back. Simone is playing on the rug with her Duplos, building a “bunny cage.” The coffee table plays host to a hardbound book of fairy tales, a hot cup of sweet milky tea, and a knitted gnome. The front windows are adorned with paper chain garlands, in fall colors. Outside, our maple tree blazes orange and red above the rustic wooden birdhouse Simone built with her grandfather.

These are the things and moments I want to hold onto.

Since I was a little girl I have kept a journal. (Jason loves to tease me about the page from one I kept when I was seven, which says simply “I LOVE CATS!!!!!!!!” amidst a flurry of kitten stickers). I use them as free therapy and as a record of my days and life. I write down sweet things my children say, what the weather’s like, that I cooked a particularly delicious stew, wise words from my Nana’s letters.

I don’t write down that we went to Target and bought a whosit and a whatsit and three items from the dollar bin. I don’t write down that I spent a couple hours getting into political arguments on Facebook.

Because those things aren’t what I cherish about my life.

I don’t sugarcoat. If I’m feeling tested by my children or angry with my husband (or myself), I’ll write it down, and examine how to move past it. But generally, the material things and wasted time simply aren’t worthy of remembrance. They’re not what pops into my mind when I remove the cap of my pen.

The sleeping baby, the playing child, the dappled autumn light on the hardwood floor, the dozing cats, the fairy tales, the tea, the cornflower blue sky, the quiet…those are the things I feel urged to record. Not the stuff.

{ 3 comments }

In the woods, on the sidewalks, and living our ideal life

by Cate on October 29, 2012 · 7 comments

in Family,Home

“And I dreamed your dream for you, and now your dream is real.”

-Dire Straits

My husband’s parents live in the country.

Their property is ringed with forest, limestone cliffs peeking through the foliage. On our last visit, Jason and I walked a craggy path through the trees. Our son napped on my back, and on the shore of the lake our daughter flew a rainbow kite with her grandmother. The woods held that precisely autumnal smell of decay, and all was quiet. My husband and I kissed among the flame-colored leaves.

Yesterday we took an afternoon jaunt to our old neighborhood. The wind was brisk and the sky was a pale shade of pewter. We stopped into the coffeeshop for a treat, ordered hot chocolate with whipped cream for our 3-year-old. She dropped her cup outside on the sidewalk, its contents spilling onto the concrete. I could have cried for her and the ruin of such a happy thing. Instead, we returned to the coffeeshop for another cup and Jason carried it while Simone danced along the sidewalks, flopping down into the fallen leaves like a cat. I found myself wishing that solving our children’s hardships could always be as easy as buying another cup of hot chocolate, and holding it out of harm’s way.

Jason and I chatted, and pointed out the rotund wandering felines, and peered surreptitiously at a pre-foreclosure we’d spotted online. We’d always wanted our children to grow up there, to play on the wide sidewalks. Home.

For a couple years now we have been holding out for something better. Instead of living our ideal life now, wherever we are, we’ve been waiting for our ideal circumstances. We preferred walking in our old neighborhood, so we don’t do it much here. We preferred browsing our old library, so we don’t do it much here. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

We are finally admitting that we are ready for changes, that the location of our home is more important to our happiness than we thought. And so we are moving toward moving, looking at real estate listings, calculating our savings.

But for the time being I am going to bring my children to the library, and walk to the park, and bake cranberry nut bread in our not-quite-bright-enough kitchen.

{ 7 comments }

Self-educated.

by Cate on October 9, 2012 · 20 comments

in Miscellaneous

As many of you know, I dropped out of college in my second semester.

I was raised to believe that I would go to college and get my diploma, no questions asked. That’s just what you did. And I loved college. I loved my classes and the long sidewalks and the shaded lawns and that smell of pencil shavings and linoleum. Even after Alex started following me home, his footprints gaining on mine in the snow, I loved school. It didn’t even occur to me that I could leave. In the evenings I huddled in bed wearing one of Jason’s shirts, a cup of herbal tea cooling on the table, my books open in front of me. Taking notes.

Eventually, Jason convinced me to drop my classes, my safety was more important than school and all that. And he was right, of course. I proceeded to email my professors with requests for further reading lists and sped through 13, 17, 20 books a month. I read and thought and read some more. A few years later, my old classmates graduated. I congratulated them and wanted to cry. I was convinced that I was stupid, truly beyond saving, because I didn’t and might never have that piece of paper. I looked at my husband and felt that I didn’t deserve him because he went to Washington University and I couldn’t even finish my freshman year at a state college.

When it comes to Alex, I’m nothing if not fond of revisionist history. I’m extraordinarily good at pretending he never existed. In my mind, I didn’t drop out of college because it gave my rapist access to me. I dropped out of college because…what? A big blank. Oh, because I’m so stupid! That’s it. Of course. How could I forget?

 

Time has passed.

I have had two children and read a few hundred books and taught myself to can. I’ve gone to therapy and learned the most efficient method of painting a room and written a good chunk of a novel. I am not stupid.

Every autumn I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. One of my favorite scenes is when Francie, who has not even been to high school, looks at her college application and writes “self-educated” in the blanks where schools should be.

I’ll take it.

 

{ 20 comments }

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →