The other day our school district sent out a mass email requesting parents accompany children to and from their bus stops.  A mountain lion had been found hanging around some home sites in the Middle Rattlesnake, a little too close to school routes for anyone's comfort.  "Your appreciation in this matter is appreciated," the email concluded.

We live in the Upper Rattlesnake, just a half mile past this spot where the lion was scooping house pets and other small delectables.  We live in this area precisely because it is adjacent to wild areas.  There's a network of trails and creek access right from our door - and we run, sled, bike, and walk through these areas regularly.

Now the deer and the coyotes and the bear and the mountain lions, and scores of other, smaller species, inhabit these areas too --as they should.  Every fall the bear come lumbering down from higher elevations and rummage in the trash, leaving their lumpy calling cards on the sidewalk.  And when that season comes, we rush to shut our garage doors so we won't be the neighbor who spends the morning picking up peach pits and paper towels and assorted trash fragments off the grass.

And in the late spring, when the fawns drop, we try not to notice them hiding in the shade of the mugo pine in our front yard, and try not to let the kids too near them when, knobbly-kneed, they get up and make a break for the lavender.  Other than the fawns, though, for the most part we've all together stopped noticing the deer, forever tromping in monotonous troops past the window, or shrugging their slim shoulders as we walk within a few feet of them.

But mountain lions - now that's another story.  In past years, some of our neighbors have spotted them in the brush at the end of our field - the general area where my boys have a fort.  When I send the kids out with sleds, I say "stay together, don't go too far afield."  And in the spring when all the brush at the base of the mountain buds out into leaflets, the boys call it the "greenwood" and go pathfinding through it, following animal tracks and deer lanes.  This is our world and I choose for them to be in it.

Mostly, I don't worry about their chance meeting with a mountain lion.  I count on them staying together and being noisy, as they unfailingly are.  But last week's email from the school reminded me again that we live in a state flush with wildlife and while we celebrate this mostly, we have to also think about making sure the small mammals that are our children get to and from the bus intact.  In Montana, I am regularly reminded that we are one species among many.  The grass I mow, the land that legally falls into our property, the trails my kids follow through the greenwood, these belong to countless beings.  And this continual reminder of that humbling reality - that we are among multitudes - is one of the reasons life in Montana always remains so compelling.

Yesterday I was cleaning out my closet, folding pants, hanging shirts, culling things for donation to the Good Will when I came across a slip of torn yellow paper onto which I long ago copied a quote from Dostoevsky's The Brother's Karamazov.    If you've read the book, you might remember that Alyosha records things his spiritual teacher, Father Zossima, recounts near the end of his life.  This quote comes from those last musings:

"But what are years, what are months!" he would exclaim.  "Why count the days, when even one day is enough for a man to know all happiness.  My dears, why do we quarrel, boast before each other, remember each other's offenses?  Let us go to the garden, let us walk and play and love and praise each other and bless our life."  

I have been carting this torn slip of paper around with me for years now, through several moves even.  It has been pinned to a bulletin board, tucked in a book, nestled on a shelf in my closet and when I come upon it all of a sudden, I feel my life lift up, I've caught the moment my life is blessed.

The other day I was sitting at a coffee shop, tapping out some paragraphs on a story, when my phone lit up with a text from my brother.  He happened to be rereading the part of the Brother's Karamazov from which my quote comes. "I think it's the dearest most enlightened thing I've ever read," the text said.  I typed back as best I remembered my missing quote (not knowing it was hibernating beneath a pair of corduroys on my shelf).  "It's so anecdotally truthful" he wrote.  "That book is perfect." I wrote, "wisdom literature."

What I love about this moment with my brother -- though thousands of miles apart and using texts, of all things -- is that we were indeed acting as Zossima counsels. Through our few minutes of sharing these precious thoughts we were entering the garden, walking together, playing, praising, blessing our lives.

The gate to that garden is everywhere -- in this case a few texts swung it open and we found ourselves glad, embracing each other, loving this life.  I don't live in that place as much as I could wish... which of us do?  But what's strange is how easily that gate swings open when given a little nudge.  It doesn't take grand visions, but is so often made of humble things -- a walk, a romp in the snow with my kids, a single conversation with a friend -- and all of a sudden my life is ennobled, my stock of reality is broadened, deepened, replenished, and I understand, if only momentarily, the ways in which one day is indeed enough.

The snow is back.  After our dry January, winter has reasserted itself with daily dispatches of snow and wind.  There are neat little aisles where the neighbors have gone through with snowblowers and then there's our driveway and sidewalk which are more of a patchwork shovel affair.  As I stack the snow up with my big yellow metal-edged shovel, Birtie comes along with her little green plastic shovel and scrapes mounds back into the walkway.  Then she flops in a pile and snow tumbles down around her.  We do this little back and forth of piling and unpiling for awhile, until I judge that things are cleared enough that my neighbors will not risk life and limb crossing my sidewalk to retrieve their mail.  But no matter what sort of path Birtie and I agree to leave, the wind comes along shortly and drifts it all again --- my shoveled (and toddler-deshoveled) walk as much as my neighbors' snowblown one.  Thank goodness, wind disheveles equally.

Our neighborhood sits smack up against land that rises and rises until it becomes Mount Jumbo.  At our end of things, this quickly changing topography makes for some fantastic sledding.  The pack of neighborhood boys have a whole lexicon to the sledding runs they've made: the Luge, Snow Face, Epic Death.  I send my boys out in snowpants and mittens and scarves and hats and try to protect them from the elements so they can hurtle themselves down crazy careening pitches with their pals, two to a sled.  That's the fun in being in a kid, right? - oblivious to the cold and the danger until all of a sudden it's dark and time for hot cocoa and you realize you can't feel your fingers anyway.

In addition to sledding, we've been popping down to our neighborhood rink to skate.  Several years ago, I took six weeks of basic figure skating (which was a hoot and Tim has the recital video to prove it).  And last year I ditched my figure skates for hockey skates.  Like many things in life (learning another language, playing an instrument, etc...) skating is something I wish I had mastered in my youth.  I have a lot farther to fall now than I did when I was eight and there's a lot more of me to hit that ice.  But, despite these caveats, skating is a family favorite these days and if I have an odd, open hour to myself, I often go practice my turns - forward crossover, backward crossover, forward crossover, backward crossover.  Around and around I go and when it's time to leave, I say to myself, "just one more round."  And when that round is done, I go again. 

There's something absolutely delightful about practicing.  In adult life, I so rarely feel myself improve at anything.  It's more the case that I've hit basic proficiency with many things and keep to these familiar routines.  But skating is different.  I can work a turn until I've done it faster and tighter.  I can make progress on trusting my outside edges more.  That's the kind of obvious learning that isn't the regular stuff of adulthood and its the thrill that will keep me out there, like my boys sledding down Snow Face, until long after the sun is down and I finally realize I can't feel my fingers.  Now if only there was someone at home readying me a steaming cup of cocoa, that would be a reason to unlace my skates.        

 

Go to the ant, you sluggard, consider her ways and be wise. 

So exhorts the ancient wisdom of Proverbs.  In recent days, we have taken this wisdom to heart, though we did not, in fact, go to the ants; they came to us - via First Class mail, no less.  While receiving ants through the post is probably not what the originator of this ancient advice had in mind, still the effect is the same.  Since our small colony of Western Harvester ants (scientific name: Pogonomyrmex) came to us and have been deeded prime real estate on our kitchen counter, we all can't help but go to them -again and again and again.

The ant farm was Corin's idea - the thing he picked out from the toy store with some Christmas money.  I believe I tried to steer him to some other options ("Wouldn't you like this nice 'grow your own crystal garden?'" "Hey, this kaleidoscope is fantastic."), but he held firm.  As he does.  So, he bought the kit which came with the structure and the sand and instructions for ordering your ants.  The ants, we were told, would be shipped when it was warm enough for them to arrive safely.  And arrive they did, this past Friday, with the sunshine. 

While it seems like being shipped via US mail would be enough danger for any species, the first instructions directed the ants spend 15 minutes in the fridge ("not the freezer") to improve docility.  This quarter hour being duly served, the detachment of our family charged with getting the ants into their new home (i.e. Corin and Tim) stopped reading the instructions.  Though it turns out that the directions detail a rather easy way to get the ants from their tube into the habitat, the Iudicellos went for the less known pouring-them-from-the-tube-and-directing-them-with-a-twisty-tie method.  As this method was a bit more time consuming, their docility wore off before all were populated to the habitat.  Thus, we had Pogonomyrmex running on the counter, scurrying on the stools and diving for the floor.  But at last, our ant-wranglers managed to shepherd them all into their cozy new home and secure the lid.  And so began our surprising new hobby of watching these gals go to work.

After a short period of recovering from shock, go to work they did.  First they had to manage their casualties.  There were two dead ants, and these they carried around and buried --buried, with the tiny floret of broccoli Corin had given them as food.  Then they seemed not to have liked where they buried their friends and they set about unmounding each grain of sand, exhuming the bodies, and moving them to some place different, where they buried them again.  With the broccoli.  A few ants started tunnels.  A few more ants again moved the dead.  And on and on it went. 

The thing is, we keep watching.  In the morning, we wake the kids with, "come see what your ants did through the night."  And through the day when I'm making a cup of tea or pausing between activities, I find myself resting my elbows on the counter, my chin in my hands, and watching these little beings about their work - their fascinating and ceaseless work. 

So here's what I'm thinking about that prescription for wisdom that is said to be the byproduct of considering the ants.  It's obvious, of course, that they are industrious ("workful" as one of my kids called it).  But the thing I have found most compelling, is not that they are so busy, but that whatever we have done to their habitat (accidentally tipped it over, put a piece of food right over the access to their tunnel, given them a piece of tubing to explore then removed it the next day) they adjust to the "new" on seamlessly.  In fact their whole situation of finding themselves in a sand filled crack between two 5"x8"x1/4" panels of plastic, seems like it would be a "new" to which it would be hard to adjust, at least warranting the ant equivalent of a pity party. Instead these harvester ants just set about their work - in earnest.  And, hey, if someone wants to move the dead over here, then everyone pitches in and moves the dead.  And the broccoli. Even if they had just moved these things earlier in the day or the hour.  Our lives can have that same repetitive feel (didn't I just clean off the counter after the breakfast barrage and now it's filled up again under the guise of lunch?  Didn't I just wash those pants of Seth's/socks of Birtie's/shirts of Corin's two days ago and now here they all are in the laundry again?).  The ants get on with their business, models of detachment from particular outcomes, completely invested in the ever-evolving process.  And they do it moment by moment, grain by grain.  And, hey, there's wisdom in that.   
 

It has been bluebird days here!  The sun is out and warming our little corner of the earth beyond its January wont.  All things feel springy, melty, Marchy.  As spring is still months away and as this is Montana, the winter gods will assuredly still have their way.  But knowing there is more winter yet to come has made the enjoyment of these days all the more rich.  On Saturday, Tim and I took the kids on a hike.  Corin brought his walking stick, carved with a mountain goat's head, to hike with (or chop remaining ice with as opportunity presented). Seth wore sneakers that were inches deep in mud by the end.  He remains staunch in his refusal in all weather, inclement or not, to wear boots as they hinder his running.  And run he did, up trail and down, racing Tim or Birtie or the wind if no other competitor was willing.  Birtie fell twice in the mud and was wet front to back by the time we finished our walk.  Somehow she made it out of the house in leggings with stars all over them, the Rwandan-print fabric dress she wore as a flower girl in her Aunt Kara's wedding, and a purple fleece with large flowers everywhere.  Needless to say, the mud helped harmonize the whole.

We walked in a treeless area to maximize our sun exposure and enjoyed every bit of it.  It is amazing what real, deep, generous sunshine will do for a mood.  Of course, we've all experienced that lift before, but it seems like a new discovery, a wonderful surprise every winter.  Those bluebird days just go right to the core, throw the windows open, and give your spirit an airing.   

On our walk we found a little copse of shrubs under which green was already peeping.  Bending beneath the branches, we got inside their little surround and I suddenly felt enfolded by scores of good stories: all the ones where characters have found secret worlds - from Narnia to the Secret Garden. Stories are the best company to keep and it pleased me to have all these wonderful characters slanting through the branches like the long rays of the afternoon sun.  

Tomorrow, whether or not the sun continues its glorious reign, we are back to routine after this three-day weekend.   Tumbling sleepy kids out of bed, packing lunches, herding kiddos who can seem to lose their way (or their will or their backpack or their gym shoes) between the front door and the car, are the first tasks of a day which continues apace.  But in the midst of all of it there will be the fact of our walk on Saturday, our copse of shrubs, our bluebird skies and our freshly aired spirits to carry us through.  That little green peeping up was just the beginning...

 

Do you see the waxwings gathered at the top of my neighbor's poplars?  They look like seed heads on long grass stems, a harvest of birds in midwinter.  This feathered band keeps visiting these same trees and it pleases me to look out my kitchen window and see their flash mob in the top branches.  The waxwings' high pitched twitter is constant and sometimes they rise in little clouds before settling again and sometimes they rise in little clouds and take off for points unknown, and either way they are lovely to watch.  And I do watch them, happier for the sight, better for the sight.

Yesterday, I finished reading "Great Expectations".  Strange that I had never picked it up before, it is such a pleasure.  While the plot is well-enough and several of the characters outstanding, it is Dickens virtuosic use of language that makes the book a thoroughgoing delight.  Again and again I felt completely taken by Dickens' word choice - perfect, light, funny, never striking a wrong note.  His was prodigious skill indeed and in this late novel, though his ample talent is present in every paragraph, it is rarely heavy-handed.  All day long however my heart felt vaguely encumbered as I went through my round of errands and toddler-rearing and fourth-grade spelling words and second-grade math problems until I realized I was just sad that Pip had gone out of my life: no more Pip coming to me out of the marshes on Joe's back, or watching Estella skip on crumbling casks, or smuggling his convict downriver, no more of his masterfully-narrated life embrightening mine.  Thus the pleasure and the pain of a good book.  Darn it all.

 

Tonight I began a class in the Psalms at my church.  They are ancient and abiding poetry, abiding I suppose because they showcase our best and our worst, our joy and our anguish, our belief and our unbelief, our continual warring harrowing our hopes for real peace.  This is uncensored stuff and in the midst of the cedars skipping and lambs lying down and harps being hung up and enemies being arrayed and hearts being cleaned and souls lifted up and tables being spread and stories of old being renewed, there are ancient questions that are as real today as they were when the Psalms were being compiled.  That's the good thing about being human: the true questions, the first questions of our hearts are always fresh and worthy and never tired.  Tonight, we ended the class with beginning to learn some plain chant, and though I am a poor singer in a room of novice chanters, it was quite moving.  And as luck (or Providence) would have it, we chanted Psalm 27 which has some of my favorite words in the whole Psalter:

One thing I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after; to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.

Who doesn't want that?

And now, I have to go to bed, because in the space of a few hours my alarm will blare at me and I will be off to the gym to sweat it out to Top 40 songs while my plyometrics instructor keeps me jumping like a flea.  So, there is life's zany complexity: chanting psalms at 8pm and doing Burpees to Ke$ha ten hours later and all the while sadly missing a fictional character and hoping the waxwings will come around again.  Selah.   

     

    

New Year's Resolutions

I love January's energy for taking stock and recalibrating.  Little things that I have been meaning to incorporate into life I suddenly have all sorts of energy for undertaking, like this little fallow field I have reserved on blogspot, like drinking more water, like swabbing out the toilet with something approximating regularity.  There is something nice about stopping and examining life, thinking about what practices I want to cultivate and which habits have taken more energy than their value merits.      

Under the thrall of January's reformatory zeitgeist, I found myself calling out to my household at large this evening, "It's Monday night."  Seth, crawling by me under a blanket, poked his head out long enough for a one word query. "So?" 

"All the kids must floss Monday, Wednesday, Friday."  I proclaimed, as if this law had suddenly come down on stone tablets from a visit atop Mount Sinai and not from our dental hygienist's polite suggestion last month. 

It is just this sort of thing that I like about January though, all the little niggling details and all the expansive big dreams come trotting out together and every one gets jotted down on the same draft checklist: Take Fermented Cod Liver Oil rubs elbows with Write More!; Wipe Down the Sink makes a one-time bedfellow with Set Time Aside for Prayer.  But on the list they all go, unfiltered or organized, just like life, I suppose: the mundane and the holy all mixed up together.

So my children are off to floss (at least three times a week) and I am digging into my own goals, big and little, and setting my intentions that this year with the fermented cod liver oil, clean sink and progress on my novels there is also more imagination, more love, more joy, more blog.  Cheers to that!