Tiller is kind of crazy about writing lately. Tiller says that these are “Beginning Chapter Books.” Cinnamon the Talented Dog is book one in an as-yet-unnamed trilogy about the adventures of two dogs. We decided to record her reading each chapter so that her grandparents could see her work.
Archive for the ‘Video’ Category
Cinnamon the Talented Dog, Chapter I
Wednesday, November 7th, 2012Baby Nostalgia
Friday, February 17th, 2012Another way that I know I am old? Nostalgia for the good old days. You know, back when I had babies. I was sick yesterday and got into the old videos. Any parent knows that this is a downward spiral. Videos of my babies when they were babies are just like crack. Sweet, sweet crack. That makes me cry.
This one killed me:
And this one . . . ah, the good ole days.
Now Todd and I do the dancing and they roll their eyes at us. . . .
Mr. Mouth
Monday, December 14th, 2009Because Lisa couldn’t remember the Mr. Mouth game pictured in my last post – Something to jog her memory.
For Roswell, and for Spanky. RIP.
Friday, September 11th, 2009A friend of mine is being buried today. I could not make the funeral and I am sad about that. I know that there are others who couldn’t make it either, but that we are all there in thought and, some of us, in prayer.
Charles (we all called him “Spanky”) was not a close friend, but he was a friend, nonetheless. He was a boy who was in my classes. He was a boy who was at parties, who gave great hugs, had a big heart, and was quick to laugh. Charles’ laugh was so distinctive that I can still hear it in my head, clear as a bell. After twenty years, I can still hear his laugh like it was yesterday.
Last Saturday, Charles shot his father, and then he shot himself. The grief one feels over a friend killing themselves is overwhelming. The grief of knowing that someone you cared about took a life, much less the life of someone so close to them. . . that grief is almost unbearable. It makes you want to sleep to escape the thought of it. It makes you want to climb right out of your own skin to stop feeling it. You don’t want to imagine the grief of a mother, a sister suffering the pain of such a loss. And yet you cannot get away from it. It permeates everything.
You try not to think about it, but you can’t stop. It keeps you up at night, wondering how it turned out this way. You think, here I am, with my loving husband, my wonderful children, and my happy home. Here I am twenty years later (a blink of an eye, really) and where did Charles go? What happened to him in the last twenty years?
I cannot reconcile the boy I knew with the picture in my head of the man he became.
I have thought of it hourly for the last five days. I have wondered how it was him that ended up with an addiction. There were so many of us, and so many of us did more than we should have, and what made him the victim of addiction? It could have been any of us. “There but for the Grace of God go I” is on a loop in my head this week. I have thought about God, and heaven, and forgiveness. I have thought about whether there is an afterlife, and if it is punitive, or if it is a place where we all will find forgiveness, solace, and peace. I came up with no answers, save one: We are all so intertwined.
When I think of the community I came from, one that is grieving from top to bottom, one that was touched in so many ways by this one family, I know this: We are all intertwined. The things we do have an impact. Sometimes that impact is not seen until we lose a piece of ourselves. And then it breaks down and we are so very aware of the gaping holes in our lives. This one boy with the unique laugh was a friend to so many of us. He was a son, a brother, a cousin. And his loss and the loss of his father are felt so very strongly by one community today. The one thing I know is that we are all stronger for having known one another and that each and every one of us can never forget that we hold those that love us in the palms of our hands.
This is for the town that I have scorned. The town that has changed so much over the years and which I was so glad to have left. But that town is not just growth and development and a homogeneous population. It is the town where I grew up. It is a community, no matter how far flung we all our now; Deep down, we are still those kids that walked to school through an old cemetery to sit in run-down classrooms together. We are church groups, and football teams, and kids who sneaked into neighborhood pools together. We fought at the water tower. We are a bunch of kids in the McDonald’s parking lot on a Friday night, waiting to see where the party would be that night.
This is for Roswell, a community that lost two of her own this week, and who is the lesser for the loss, but the greater for having known each other.
Another friend sent me the lyrics to this song. I have heard from distraught friends all week long. It has hurt my heart, but reminded me that I came from somewhere, that we all came from the same place. That when one of us hurts, we all hurt.
Adapted from the Will Oldham song.
And the original:
Come Sail Away
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009In case you were wondering why I have forsaken writing for video, Todd got an awesome Vado video camera for Father’s Day. I have taken it over. I LOVE it. Hence all the video of late.
This song, though, has deeper meaning for me now. I heard it in the car when I went to meet my Dad on the day that my Grandfather died. Somehow, it seems like Tiller picking it up as a recent favorite is The Universe telling me to write what I should have written a month ago.
Yes, Universe. I am going to write it.
I Want to be an Elephant
Friday, August 21st, 2009Tiller: [Crying and arching her back on the couch.]
Me: “Baby, what is it?”
Tiller: “I want to be an elephant!!!!” [More crying.]
Me: [Under my breath.] “Good luck with that.”
Me: [Aloud] “Why do you want to be an elephant?”
Tiller: “I want to be able to pick stuff up and pour it on my head!”
Melancholy, Twisted, Beautiful
Friday, June 19th, 2009Just finished writing an obituary for my dying grandfather. It made me feel weepy and it made it seem real that he won’t be with us much longer. Felt the same heaviness when i dropped off a porch swing that he made with his own two hands at a friend’s house last night. It did make me laugh in a bittersweet way that she will be painting it bright pink. Listening to Frightened Rabbit’s “Old Old Fashioned” and reading a story about kids during WWII driving out to a new bridge in Alabama, parking on it, and pulling out an old crank record player and dancing in the moonlight.
Feeling melancholy and weepy, in a life is twisted and beautiful kind of way.
Decemberists Overkill
Monday, June 15th, 2009So, a friend of a friend went to The Decemberists show that I raved about a week or so ago. She drove to Atlanta from Columbia to see them, then went and saw them the next night in Raleigh. Her pictures are much better and she even got a little video.
I also found some video of some of my favorite parts of the show:
A little of “The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid”:
“The Rake’s Song:”
“The Queen’s Rebuke/Crossing:”
Cover of Heart’s “Crazy on You.”
And I know I said it in that post, but i will say it again: Becky fucking kicked some serious ass that night.
And one for good measure:
Bandit Queen, the song I wished they had played in Atlanta. They played it a week ago in Pennsylvania. Fuckers.