a closet, for books

so that dreaming could have a room of its own.



^ this deer visits *every* day
Also, it eats a LOT.
^ It's a bearplane. I came up with that on the fly.


play ball

The boys do things on a daily basis that heighten my awareness of life's precariousness. Cross the street a block ahead of me on bikes, for example, following traffic signals and looking both ways but still: sharing the street with motorized vehicles.
Jumping from the high dive, eating grapes, playing catcher.

I can see it though, the way the game makes them come alive, a wad of big league chew and that heart-thumping hope of bat to ball.

I vaccilate between overwhelming gratitude that they are here and mine and busy, and mundane irritance over the pile of fingernails on the couch side table.
I vow to put up with stinky cleats and sunflower seed shells stuck in the washing machine as long as they are here and they are mine and I get to watch them play.


chestnut v chatroom

Several years ago the 10,000-entry Oxford children’s dictionary dropped around fifty words related to nature — words like buttercup, fern, willow, and starling — in favor of terms like broadband, voicemail, analogue and cut-and-paste.

This afternoon the boys waded through a shallow stream bed lined by towering shale cliffs. They climbed over round rock concretions and into intermittent waterfalls, passing white oaks and warblers, trillium and turtles and two water snakes.

When a word goes into the dictionary, another often has to come out. Editors make decisions about inclusion based on criteria such as frequency of usage and familiarity to children at particular ages, common misspellings and curricular requirements. Print lexicography may be a zero-sum game. Space is limited.

Still, it feels sad -- acorn, adder, bluebell, bramble, conker, kingfisher, otter, raven, wren — gone!

When a word comes out of the dictionary, maybe it is our job to go into the world and reclaim it?
Naming things felt like a special way of paying attention this afternoon, spelling some lost letters back into a Sunday. A world bereft of words for birds cannot therefore be bereft of regard for them.


even more-er

Can you call the rain store? We don't need any more.

Dad, is work out yet? When will work be out like school? 

on the back patio, to me: Why are you wearing barefoot?

at the pool: But where do the lifeguards sleep?
also at the pool: My breath was gone, but I got it back.

at dinner: My tongue is a slide for my food! 

I’m going to grow up and you’re going to grow down. 

Can I use your hair for a zip line? 

after a haircut: Do I have stylish hair now?
later the same day, after a nap: Oh no, now my haircut is ruined.

playing cards: I have seven cards. My favorite is the jacker.

preemptively happy about going home after pizza: It’s going to be a great drive back. We’re going to be so full and happy.

waggling his forefinger discouragingly: Ah, ah, ah.
and then: Tucker taught me that. 

blueberries for breakfast: I want more, please. Even more-er.



I don't remember all the math I've been taught, and I'm pretty sure I'm still learning.
But I think the inverse of something missing may be an overwhelming gratitude for having something else.


reel time

We spent Father's day weekend with dads and grandpas, four generations of Betzes together in West Virginia. Cows and cousins and perfect weather, way too much food and plenty of fish and not quite enough naps. But so much good fortune in gathering.


still reading

Sometimes the boys do things that make me urgently want to deserve my life.
Like reading books together.

Tucker's in a summer bookclub with rising fifth grade classmates, meeting via video conference online and in real life at coffee shops. He's also devouring wilderness survival handbooks, preparing for sleep away camp.

I remember when reading 20 books to earn a personal pan pizza was the best thing ever.
With no public library nearby, my mother used to drive up river and across the bridge just to let us borrow books - it was a half day adventure, we needed time and gas in the tank. She was deliberate though, and we rarely missed a week.

Hank registered for the local summer reading program, and Tols is helping him reach his goals. They've already collected coupons for free donuts.

We currently have 78 books checked out from the Grandview library. We walk by it several times a week, and rarely resist the pull.

Sometimes I send the boys outside to play, to exert some of the indoor wrestling energy that tends to drive me crazy. I imagine them throwing balls and riding bikes and instead I find them curled up in the hammock, lounging in the back of the truck, seated at the patio table, somewhere still and reading.

But I'm not complaining.