A Day (Or Two) in the Life

In my insistence on trying to write things in chronological order (meaning that my birth story should come before any events that occurred after June 28) I am managing instead to write absolutely nothing. Perfectionism strikes again... thank you, Chronos, now please may I write?

Yesterday I attended robot school (where one learns to build robots, of course). Looking around the room, the instructor indicated the materials to be used in the construction of the robot: a switch like this (pointing to the switch on the infant swing in the classroom), flower feet like this (indicating the picture on the computer screen of a cluster of daffodils). After receiving these minimal instructions, bequeathed with an air of formality, I was to begin. I considered the universal nature of this training and wondered whether I could learn to apply this knowledge to other areas of my life in sore need of attention: could I drop my preconceived ideas long enough to see my surroundings with fresh eyes, to take inspiration-- artistic or otherwise-- from random objects in my line of vision? It was like McGyver meets shamanism.

Today I begin with chef school, and a lesson in improvisation as applied to baking banana cookies. Again I am confronted with universal lessons: go with the flow, trust your instincts, pay attention, use what's at hand. Is there a hidden camera somewhere? I am uncomfortable with these lessons. My instructor pushes my most sensitive buttons, ignores even my simple requests, tramples my boundaries. Why do I tolerate this? Martyred at the feet of my guru, slavishly pursuing some enlightenment ideal? This is supposed to be about making cookies!

In fact, it isn't at all about cookies, and the camera is imbedded in my instructor's memory. Only twenty or thirty years from now will I see whether I learned anything useful. In case you haven't figured it out by now, my instructor is my son, Galen, who is four years old. Also yesterday (Haha, Chronos! I defy you today! Tomorrow you kick my ass! Ha!) I spoke on the phone with my dear teacher and friend Francesca De Grandis. We were discussing how I've been managing Galen's reactions to his new sister. She made the comment, "What do I know about parenting?" (Even though she is a mother herself.) Later I thought, I don't know anything about it either, I'm just learning what to do from my kids. And so I realized in a very solid way that it is fact, not opinion, that our children are our teachers, and not the other way around. No one, no matter how much they read or study, knows how to parent before doing it. And even after doing it once, no one knows exactly how to do it the next time, because all children are different, and because we change in the process. It sounds ridiculously trite, but I can assert from experience that it is also perfectly, and often painfully, true. I think it is a Buddhist saying that you can never step into the same river twice...

The cookies, by the way, turned out rather nicely, a cross somewhere between a scone and a cookie, perhaps a bit like the British concept of biscuits (although I wouldn't know, having never been to England):



Try them sometime, if you dare-- the ingredients are as follows: two bananas, white sugar, whole spelt flour, 2% milk, baking powder, baking soda, vanilla, and brown sugar, all organic where possible. There are no measurements, no ratios, and no instructions, other than baking at 375. Observe, and enjoy!

Oh, and it helps to have your guru with you.