Seeing Spring, Again.

Today I was a rodeo horse, a catapult, a trampoline, a lifeguard, a cook, a librarian, and a merry maid. 

Spring is here. It is impossible to look out the window or drive down the road or heaven forbid embrace the pollen and actually sit on the deck without feeling hopeful and maybe even smiling a little. It is time to open the windows and encourage the kids to discover things; it is time to allow dirt under nails and in hair, to look the other way when they run with sticks and water daddy's flowers with a 2 liter squirt gun.

This time of year always brings me back to the art of seeing. This is a topic that has been exhausted by writers and artists since the beginning of time. For me, I first really became aware of seeing when I read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard in college. She devotes an entire essay to the art of seeing—and if you didn't know I am a big Annie Dillard fan, now you do.

I have noticed that my ability to see things changes with my surroundings, my circumstances, and the way the wind is blowing on any given day. When I was studying writing, I was constantly on the lookout for writing material. I needed fresh ideas to fulfill assignments and I saw everything through the lens of a writer. In grad school I found myself suddenly in paradise—taking only art classes: painting, drawing, printmaking. My focus shifted to the endless possibilities of art projects all around me in nature, people, everything. I remember being very aware of colors. I was constantly looking at shadows as much as light; I was on the lookout for light sources and I would squint my eyes to frame in every potential masterpiece.

I was thinking about those days recently and realizing how little time I have to be aware of shadows and light sources, but I'm very aware of the dirt on my baseboards and the old rice grains crusted to the tile on my kitchen floor. Mommy eyes have temporarily replaced these lenses, and it is a wonderful thing. However, I wonder if I incorporated a little more artist into my vision, would we all benefit?

We all know how kids see the world. Their vision is pretty selfish, but at the same time completely uninhibited and spontaneous. They begin the day hopeful and excited to see what adventures they can discover, not drowning themselves in coffee and bothered by having to come up with yet another meal that will please three picky little mouths.

It is easy to be hopeful in the Spring. When the purple irises and the white daffodils are blooming I know that it has happened again; we made it through winter after all and the green and blue is back in full force. The faithful return of blooms helps me combine mommy eyes with artist eyes; it is easier to give suggestions on how to build a better tree fort and push higher in swings and ignore the sand that is tracked in from the sand box.

Tonight as I was brushing my teeth I glanced in the mirror. I saw my sun burnt shoulders and my pink nose. But as I looked more closely I saw lines and dots scattered across the pink—pale white skin dots, a map across my arms and face. I laughed because they are the familiar markings of a mother who has applied sunscreen to multiple kids. A fingerprint on my cheek, a stray streak down the length of my arm. Is this the way it goes? Hopefully I can keep the vision of fresh Spring blooms, crisp and sweet, and let my eyes be more worshipful and loving and perhaps a little less exhaustingly practical.

"But there is another kind of seeing that involves letting go. When I see this way I sway transfixed and emptied. The difference between the two ways of seeing is the difference between walking with and without a camera. When I walk with a camera, I walk from shot to shot, reading the light on a calibrated meter. When I walk without a camera, my own shutter opens, and the moment's light prints on my own silver gut. When I see this second way I am above all an unscrupulous observer."

~Annie Dillard's essay on Seeing from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Fuzzy Memories and Chinchilla Earmuffs

Today I took the road less traveled and got a speeding ticket. I was driving along Frontage road near the highway; in the middle of a sleepy daydream I was jolted awake by the bleeping siren and neon blue lights of a shiny Dodge Charger and a Ray-Ban-wearing patrolman. I was not in a hurry and I was not driving fast, but I was not paying attention and I was suddenly searching for registration and proof of insurance instead of enjoying a quiet car and a cloudless blue sky. My moment went from insignificant to fateful in a matter of seconds.

I have a horrible memory. Even with the siren and the lights and the accelerated heart rate I experienced today, I will quickly forget the details of what happened if I don't have it in writing (or in court records). Now that my kids are getting older, I have been thinking about what their first memories will be and wondering how much they will retain inside their tiny personal vaults forever. What things will make first impressions in their little minds and what moments will they choose to tuck away in boxes deep in their small souls? They are constantly watching and absorbing; it is exciting and terrifying.

I am in awe of people with brilliant memories. To be a great writer, I think you must either have the discipline to journal constantly or the ability to retain and recall events from the past as though they happened yesterday. I love the writing of Annie Dillard and am amazed and jealous of her ability to retell a childhood story down to the the tiniest details. If you haven't read “An American Childhood,” I recommend it. It is one of the few books I have read more than once; Annie Dillard is the queen of recalling detail and my all-time essay heroin.

All writers and artists are somewhat dependant on memories to prompt new projects and creative ideas. I have always wished I could recall childhood stories like many of my friends, siblings and even my grandparents. My grandma's 70 year old memories are more vivid and clear than many events that happened to me last week. She has a gift for verbally telling a tale, and the art of repeating stories hundreds of times has burned vivid details deeply into her mind. At any rate, my memory is poor and I sometimes rely on my older brother Chad's spongy wizard brain to fill in the blanks of childhood for me.

I was skyping with Chad a few weeks ago and we both agreed there is one memory that will always be our ace in the hole, our trump, our pièce de résistance. It's funny because the details of our experience are murky and scarce for both of us. I'm honestly not sure if there is a story jumbled in the mess of it at all, and I decided to leave it vague—like our memories, rather than ask Mom and Dad to fill in the blanks.

My fondest memory isn't the story of the French foreign exchange student who lived with us but didn't shower for two weeks, although I did discover that my sense of smell truly does heighten and enhance my memories. It isn't the story of having my front tooth knocked out on Christmas Eve in high school or the time my friends and I were detained in police cars after we were caught toilet papering.

Our most precious memories revolve around one little animal with velvety dense fur, beady little eyes and a long poofy tail. In our family there will always be one word that causes our ears to perk up. A word that might sound foreign to some, but is familiar to us. A word that scurries in gently like a fuzzy whisper or the sound of tiny paws running across fresh wood chip shavings. Chinchilla.

If “every man's memory is his private literature” as Aldous Huxley believed, then our chinchilla chapter is full of rising action and conflict. It all started when I was 14 and my entrepreneurial dad was flipping through the LaRue journal. There was an ad for chinchilla farming and I honestly don't know how it all began, but while other kids our age were lazily sleeping in or playing nintendo, Chad and I found ourselves knee deep in filthy wood chips with a barn full of fuzzy chinchillas.

I won't waste time explaining what a beautiful chinchilla “ground squirrel” is. I will leave that to Chinchilla planet.  I will only say that chinchillas are rodents in every sense of the word with the exception of their lush velvety fur. And unfortunately we did not give them little names and keep them for pets in our barn and hold them and teach them circus tricks. Against our teenage wills, we fed and watered and became part of the chinchilla breeder world. Disgruntled, we switched out the wood shavings on Saturday mornings and mumbled things under our breath. Bellyaching, we dumped dirty chips over a ravine on our property and kept track of new chinchilla babies. Sulky and vexed, we complained about the smell and were embarrassed to have 100 things caged in our barn that made us completely different from everyone else we knew.

In the end, which was shortly after the beginning, when it turned out not to be the best time to enter the fur industry, I can't even recall how long we raised chinchillas in our barn.  In fact, I don't know what happened to our chinchilla farm at all, and it's probably better that way.  When I asked Chad where the chinchillas went he said he had always imagined dad in the garage making chinchilla earmuffs. Out of curiosity I googled chinchilla earmuffs and found this: Natural Chinchilla earmuffs for $139. 

For us, the chinchilla story has turned into folklore. It is our ballad and I'm not sure I want to know all the details of why we had them and where they went. The chinchillas brought Chad and I together in a mess of caged ground squirrels and wood chips, shovels and wheelbarrows, brooms and the absence of a Saturday morning in bed. A sound or word will still trigger memories from our bizarre barn business, and the funny thing is, what was once a time of annoyance, disgust, and teenage uprising is now one of our fondest memories and biggest laughs.

There are days when I worry that my kids will experience something traumatic or I will mess up and they will be scarred for life, and I am comforted by the now soft memory of chinchillas. Not only are kids ultra resilient, but if my entrepreneurial spirit takes them on a few crazy rides here and there, it might give them good story fodder down the road. I am also learning that a poor memory is sometimes a blessing; if there is only room for a few memories in the treasury, I can choose the constructive and learn from the lousy.

My kids are losing teeth, learning to pump on a swing set, and growing out of their clothes faster than I can tie a pair of shoes. I'm hopeful that they will be reflective, and I'm anxious to see what childhood memories they will safely preserve. For me, once the chinchilla chapter ended, my memories soon grew fuzzy and funny and perhaps slightly elaborated until eventually it was just nice to have a uniquely eccentric story. New chapters have quickly come, I'm sure there will be a few more sirens and tickets before it's all said and done, and the infinite memories break down into compost in a wood chip ravine.