I thought the same thing about our poor Jack this afternoon. He was also growing a lovely mold inside, so he got tossed. I wish I’d have taken a picture. Our had a flat face that caved in on itself. Very sad.
“Exploration,” says John Stilgoe, author of Outside Lies Magic, “is a liberal art, because it is an art that liberates, that frees, that opens away from narrowness. And it is fun.”
Yes: it is so, so much fun, and that is why I write these posts all chattery with excitement over this or that connection the kids made today. (Or that I made myself!) I know I get carried away, but that’s the point, isn’t it, that way leading on to way has carried me away?
And yet—and yet—I think we are at once ‘carried away’ and made more fully present in the now, more rooted, by these relationships between ideas about things past and future. The joy of connection makes me want to celebrate this moment, this brief encounter with wild-haired child and broad-trunked tree, bus going by, sign on church wall, Scottish warlord creeping over the tower wall and startling the English soldier’s wife who has just put her babe in arms to sleep by crooning that the Black Douglas won’t get him. Child, laughing, shouting “Dinna ye be sae sure aboot that!” across the courtyard outside the library. How can I not celebrate this freedom?
Every day is complicated, messy, and full of friction. And every day has glorious or cozy moments worth celebrating. I seldom bother to chronicle the friction and the mess because writing time is fleeting and precious—and childhood even more so. I’d rather capture the small joys that I might forget—or take for granted—if I don’t take time to set them down in words.
(Excerpt from this post about Real Life, quoted here because I don't want anyone to be under the impression that things are always perfect around here! Heaven knows we are anything but. Perfect, frictionless, orderly? Nope. Happy? Most of the time!)
Be like the bird
Who, pausing in flight
On limb too slight,
Feels it give way beneath her,
Yet sings,
Knowing she has wings.
lol!
Posted on November 7th, 2009 at 3:56 pmYou play with fire and you’re gonna get burned (and moldy)!
Posted on November 7th, 2009 at 4:28 pmI thought the same thing about our poor Jack this afternoon. He was also growing a lovely mold inside, so he got tossed. I wish I’d have taken a picture. Our had a flat face that caved in on itself. Very sad.
Posted on November 7th, 2009 at 5:13 pmAwesome carving job! We scraped our 2 poor Jacks off the front porch this morning – 10 days outside in Houston really does a Jack in!
Posted on November 7th, 2009 at 6:13 pmat least yours doesn’t have the puddle of slime coming out of it… blech. and the mold inside. that was only wednesday.
Posted on November 7th, 2009 at 8:36 pmOurs became squirrel food almost instantly – they looked like jack o’lanterns that had been in battle.
Love the bottom photo, very “granny clampett” .
Posted on November 8th, 2009 at 5:40 amOne year it was unseasonably warm and by Halloween the entire pumpkin was crawling with maggots! Now THAT was the scariest Halloween pumpkin ever!
Posted on November 9th, 2009 at 7:59 pmMaggots! How ghoulishly appropriate! :::shudder:::
Posted on November 9th, 2009 at 8:48 pm