Category: Family

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Family Nature

Taking a walk on toddler time

Nothing has taught me as much about slowing down and experiencing the moment like accompanying my toddler on a walk around the block. (And I thought living through the early days of the pandemic was an exercise in presence!)

My knee-jerk reaction is to keep her moving — to make our walk the verb that it’s supposed to be. But Maeve wants to stop and pick up rocks. She wants to point out balls in neighbors’ yards and to touch the tulips. She’s delighted when she can spend several minutes with the cats down the block. She knows when we get to a certain hedge, we’ll probably play a quick game of hide-and-seek.

So I’ve learned to slow down and to let her lead, even when she doesn’t take us anywhere but to a particular flowering rosemary bush to watch the bees do their work for several long minutes.

As Jenny Odell says in Saving Time, “Letting go of one overwhelming rhythm, you invite the presence of others. Perhaps more important, you remember that the arrangement is yours to make.”

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Art Family

Terrible, but not very terrible

I spend less time writing for myself these days and more time chasing a busy baby away from my books and the compost bin and the internet router. I know this stage in our lives is fleeting, though, so I’m doing my best to stay present to it and to remember these wise words:

“Babies eat books. But they spit out wads of them that can be taped back together; and they are only babies for a couple of years, while writers live for decades; and it is terrible, but not very terrible.”

Ursula K. Le Guin, Dancing at the Edge of the World
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Family

Simply more pleasant

Bernd and Hilla Becher in 1979 via The New York Times

I loved a recent issue of Mason Currey’s Subtle Manuevers newsletter introducing the artist couple Bernd and Hilla Becher. The German photographers spent decades making photos of industrial architecture across America and other countries. When asked what is different about their photography because they make it together, Hilla replied:

“Traveling together is simply more pleasant. … When you are traveling together you can exchange ideas and it feels less bleak when you are in some god-forsaken place—like when we spent weeks traveling through the American Midwest. The nights in shabby hotels are more comfortable when you are with somebody.”

It made me reflect on how much more enjoyable it has been to endure the early months of parenthood because I have Ryan by my side. My version of Hilla’s explanation might go something like this: “When you are raising a child together you can exchange ideas and it feels less bleak when you are in some god-forsaken developmental phase—like when we spent weeks comforting a teething baby.”

As Bernd says, everything is easier to handle as we help each other.

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Family

Remembering Grandpa Walt

My grandpa died on June 18 at age 94, and my family asked me to write the eulogy for his funeral. It feels impossible to sum up all of a person’s character quirks and interests and contradictions in a five-minute speech, because it is impossible, but my attempt gave me both a boost of energy and comfort.

To remember a person, and to share their essence with those who loved and were loved by them, you have to dig into the details and the big character traits. When I think of who my grandpa was and how he lived, I think of how he shared with others what he loved. I wrote about some of these things in the eulogy:

Walt loved having green beans on the table at dinner, especially if they were beans he had grown — and you can imagine he never let his kids forget that. He loved skiing, dancing at parties, spending time at his beach house in Neskowin, watching The Lawrence Welk Show, and drinking a cold Budweiser. He loved his classic cars and the 1937 Harley-Davidson motorcycle that he bought as a young man and later restored with his brother Ralph. After he retired (although he would rarely admit that he’d actually stopped farming), he liked to walk with Kathy or drive the Gator around the home farm, watch Judge Judy in his recliner, and have “just a sliver” of dessert at family birthday parties.

My grandpa gave his the family the gift of letting us see him loving what he loved, and sharing those things with others is the best way I could remember him.