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Resilience

Move over, Vera Wang and Michael Kors. The new IT guy in fashion is Reslience. His work can be found in magazines and websites everywhere.  Just look for his logo: a wagging finger. Resilience’s marketing team plays on proven techniques for volume sales: convincing consumers that they’re not enough. Buy Resilience, so it goes, and your life will be way harder, and therefore, better. More importantly, your children’s lives will harder/better. In fact, if you don’t buy tons of Resilience, your kids will be doomed to failure, misery, and vans down by the river.

Resilience designs are brilliant because they take something that’s free and convince you to pay for it. Namely, Life. The advertisements command: sit on your hands unilaterally! Disregard your instincts and ignore your knowledge of yourself and your loved ones! The subliminal messages are that a) it’s actually possible to protect someone from Life’s ups and downs and b) you’ve been exercising such maniacal control and you’re bad, bad, bad!

Before Resilience burst onto the scene with his current line, he worked for design icon Verses. His penchant for polarization led to the classic, black and white phenomenon Working Mothers Vs. Stay-at-Home-Moms. He collaborated with Dr. Sears and Richard Ferber on the sleep schism, Baby-wearing Vs. Cry-It-Out. Also the enduring Bottle Vs. Breast campaign. Every parent alive carries something from his baggage line, Guilt.  Resilience: wear it and wear yourself out!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Design, General.

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By the Coconut Girl – July 16, 2012

Garage Files

 

Sorting through old work documents is a lot like looking at vintage yearbooks. After years in the mothballs, there they are right in front of you: images of your old BFF project that was a soaring success and turned your client into a confidante. The job that started out well but ended awkwardly. And all the characters in between: the projects that consumed your mental faculties for a time, finished up, and graduated from your memory.

A person can accumulate a lot of professional remnants over the course of twenty-six years. That’s what I’m finding as I pare down the physical holdings of my architecture firm in the digital world of construction drawings. When I landed my first architecture job in 1986, every desk in the office was crammed with T-squares, Maylines, pencils, pens, triangles, and ship’s curves. Flat files of blueprints filled entire rooms. Library shelves bulged with product catalogs and code books. I still have a lot of these things. Or at least I did until a few days ago. Now many of my hand-drafting tools, catalogs, and project files wait in holding bins labeled “yard sale,” “charity,” and “shred.”

Moves and babies inspire clutter clearing. These imminent, seismic life-changes make it obvious that the superfluous must go. What’s surprising to me is that the slow burn of the status-quo can also spur big purges. “If you feel stuck,” professional organizers argue, “look to your physical surroundings. Let go of the old and make room for the new.” Every time I’ve followed this line of logic, it’s proved fruitful.  Over the years, I’ve clutter-cleared drawers, closets, rooms, and apartments. Even droves of grab-bags. But never a whole building. Until now.

I’m tackling our garage. It won’t be a side kick to the knee, or a reverse punch to the ribs. I’ll deliver a full-on, whistle-worthy pin to the mat. Expect cries of uncle. When I’m done at the end of July, the garage won’t be organized. It will be empty. The upstairs office. The downstairs reliquary of outgrown toys. I’ll keep the few, most precious treasures. The Sleep Sack and the music box, the figure drawing, and the manuscript. The rest I’ll photograph and bless goodbye.

“Remember this?” My husband Joe holds up a dusty postcard of a Czech castle. He’s sitting cross-legged on the office carpet among piles of emptied file folders and negative sleeves. I’ve recruited him for the project because the garage holds his archive, too. From 2004-2008 we shared the work space upstairs. Six giant Rubbermaid bins contain his professional archive. More hold mementos from his world travels alone, and with me. “Yeah, the countryside around the castle was beautiful, remember the sunflowers we saw from the train?” For a moment we’re back there, in the couchette, dropping the window down to see the fields without the filter of clouded glass. He tosses the card into the “brown paper” recycling bag, and we disembark at our home station. On the platform, two bright-faced children await us. They’re plunked down in red bean bag chairs. “Eewww! A mummy!” the boy says, pointing. “And a zombie!” the girl adds. They scrutinize the video we’ve set up for them to watch while we sort through the piles. We look over, and back, and lurch forward.

 

Posted in Bits of Beauty, General.

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By the Coconut Girl – July 10, 2012

FS: Monster Truck

For Sale: Monster Truck

Military-toy hybrid. Scales orange juice glasses, and catches in sink drains. Reverse GPS system for losing under sofas. Equipped with Automatic Daydream Technology when rolled along rug. Handles in mud or shampoo. Single owner commuted mostly from floor, up leg, to pocket. Occasional roll on neck. Conforms to standard blue/white sock-garage dimensions.

On second thought, not for sale.

 

Posted in Bits of Beauty.

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By the Coconut Girl – June 18, 2012

How to Stay Cool in the Un-Air Conditioned South

 

1. Pull the front hem of your nightgown up to your neck. Tuck the hem over the collar and yank it through to make a halter.

2. Lie on your bed crossways and prop your legs against the cool, smooth plaster.

3. Run the faucet over your wrists.

4. Press your cheek against the metal base of your bedside lamp.

5.  Lie on the floor next to the box fan. Talk into the blades.

6. Scoonch up to the window by your pillow. When you see a lightening bug in the distance, line your fingers up with the flash and flick the screen.

7. Find a damp curl at the nape of your neck and use it to bundle a ponytail.

8. Lying on your back, raise your hips and legs up towards the ceiling. Keep your knees straight, toes pointed, and chin pressed into your chest. Scissor-kick to make a breeze.

9. Kneel at the window that faces the road. Watch moths burn up in the streetlight.

10. Tug the top sheet taut to your chin. Grab fistfuls of fabric and whip the sheet high to make a balloon over your body. Release the sheet and let it descend. Repeat.

 

Posted in General.

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By the Coconut Girl – June 7, 2012

The Bag



It came home this morning: a precious package in a Hefty bag. The contents of my son’s school cubby huddled inside: the back-up clothes, the collection of work he earnestly produced each day between our walks with him through the playground gate. Amidst his writing I found his slippers. When I last saw them in September they were bright and upright, tissue-wrapped in a crisp box. Today they’re comfortable and worn, open to the exact diameter of his ankles. My son may have walked a hundred miles in his classroom, slowly enough to keep water in a glass, and carefully enough to step around a child reading on a rug.  So he was taught, and so he learned.

There is no place to be at this moment but in the garden, in the shade, startled by the flap of catbird wings and calmed by the bob of coral bells. The house holds the bag. But out here the world can absorb the goodbye to my children’s preschool, and the close of their youngest years. Over the hedge, the city bus returns all day at thirty-five minutes past the hour. At my feet, a hosta prepares to bloom. A woman down the street scolds the children in her care. Even she is a comfort today. Her calls of “No!” raise my head. I see the blue sky, full of possibility. It expands up and out, like my children’s six peaceful years of Yes.

 

 

Posted in General, Uncategorized.

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By the Coconut Girl – May 29, 2012

Boundaries

At 2 AM, there are more drunk men in Rome’s Tiburtina rail station than there are trains.  The men mill about, sometimes checking the departure board, sometimes stumbling towards a platform. Often, they’re just stumbling. If you’re a woman, you might get a look or a comment you don’t want. What you do want is a roll of tape, because it turns out that the sticky strip possesses astonishing protective powers. My friend B. and I found this out in graduate school when we had a four-hour layover at Tiburtina waiting for the morning train to the airport. We’d trekked in from Venice, where we’d spent two months studying architecture. B and I were obvious targets with our tagged suitcases and drawing tubes.  Any man reeking of vino could see we were lodged in situ for the next few hours.

B and I were never scared as men approached us. She and I had traveled a fair amount by that time and felt safer abroad than we did in cities like Chicago and Philadelphia, where we’d lived for years.  Still, that night in the station, we knew not to let our guard down. Arms reached out towards B’s long brown hair. “Touch?”  Pointers aimed at my light complexion. “Ireland?”  We were glad we couldn’t understand the other things they said.

When a particularly sodden pair of forty-somethings spotted us from across the hallway and turned in our direction, B and I got to work. She rifled through a tall stack of postcards she’d bought during our stay in Venice.  She swung an image of Titian’s “Assumption” at them like a torch of Catholic guilt. Peals of laughter ensued, punctuated by cries of “Ma—-donna!”  That’s when I remembered the clear packaging tape in my bag. I’d used it the night before to McGuyver a cardboard portfolio of my architecture work. “Permesso!” I said.  Permission. Let me pass.  I shooed the men back a few feet and ran my fingers over the tape, looking for the edge. The screech of the adhesvie ripping free from the roll bounced around the tiled alcove where B and I were encamped. I secured the tape to one wall, walked three yards, and attached the other end to the opposite wall.  A boundary at waist height that said “do not cross.”

It worked. The men (and about ten others who ambled over during next several hours), came up to the tape, but stopped short of getting their shirt tails stuck. During our studio in Italy, B and I had sketched Roman city walls and medieval fortresses. The Tiburtina men were licentious, but it was in in their DNA to respect a line.

Last week, I hoped my children might respect a line, too. At 7:55 am, I was late getting them off to school and myself off to work. They ignored my directions not to run through the kitchen, much like a traveler disregards platform announcements once she’s arrived at her station. On the window sill, I saw the painter’s tape I’d used the previous week to refinish the door threshold. First I heard the screech of adhesive, and then the screech of small feet.

Posted in General.

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By the Coconut Girl – May 21, 2012

Election Year

Everyone who drives turns left sometimes. It’s a beautiful thing to do, and it’s even more beautiful to see. A driver waits for a gap in traffic, yields, and leans in. Light glints off the grille if it’s sunny; wheels swish if there’s rain. Muscles flex with the spin of the wheel, an earring swings with the look up the lane. You know how the steering wheel pulls through the tube of your hand. Your eyes dart exactly the same way, gauging the distance. The pull of Gs is as great as the undertow or a mountain peak, but it’s right here, in your city, on your street, in that driver, who you’d help in need and who’d help you, too, red or blue.

 

Posted in Learning from Others.

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By the Coconut Girl – May 8, 2012

Holding Dangerous

It’s good to get an injury now and then, just a little one to remember the sting of a scrape or the itch of a scab. I bandage my children’s knees, pull ticks from their necks, and extract splinters from their thumbs.  If the razor grazes my ankle every now and then, it reacquaints me with hurt and empathy.

“How’d you do it?” my husband Joe asked late Tuesday night, poking his head into the bathroom. He’d come to investigate the sound of running water. My finger was bleeding a lot for the size of the cut. “The glass on a picture frame snapped when I was putting it together.” Another of my too-many-projects: hanging new art in anticipation of weekend company. I looked at the orange drops scattered evenly across the sink like dots on sheet candy. Orange? Was that me? My blood mixed with water looked so different from the crimson paint I’d diluted earlier in the day for a watercolor.

I returned to the ruined picture frame on the dining room table. The drawing had been almost ready for the wall, full of brilliant circles conjured by someone named “Artis” from Louisville.  When I first read the name I thought it said “Art is,” and swam in the open-endedness. But I misread, and  bent the glass. Some materials are good in compression, and others in tension. Glass is. Good in neither.  The frame came from far-away IKEA. The mat had been custom-cut at an art store.  Chards dotted the tabletop where the children would eat their eggs come morning. With a length of white artist’s tape, I safely gathered the tiny, clear discs. There they were again, dots on a sheet. Not candy, not neat rows. But still a strange, sweet remembrance for the next time I tend another.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Design, General.

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By the Coconut Girl – May 4, 2012

Camera Obscura

The charge in the air hasn’t changed at school yet. Next week, though, it will. Sound waves will crest higher and dip lower. Knees will itch to jump. There will be more of everything at pick-up time. More tears and clumsiness. Meaner scuffles over sandbox toys. Heartier laughs, and wider smiles.

Thirty days hold off the start of summer vacation. They’ll tear away like calendar pages in an old black and white film. Parents already feel the frenzy. Local churches and camps have been winding us up for weeks with their ads in the grass islands of parking lots. “Vacation Bible School” they announce.  Cartoon jungle animals hug the bright red font on the signs. Instead of writing the number down, I picture windowless church activity rooms with painted concrete block walls, fluorescent lights, and vinyl chairs. A list of summer childcare to-dos jams my mental switchboard while I idle at the stoplight.

The children learn that school’s winding down because of the special events that take place. Mother’s Day lunches, school concerts and plays all signal a growing culmination, a sort of Spring harvest of intention, effort, and realization. Kids overhear their parents talking about summer trips and swimming lessons. It’s a bittersweet transition, especially for those graduating, or otherwise moving on.

So this is the week I grab my camera and arrive a little early to pick up my children. I sit on the bench unnoticed because they’re not looking for me yet. Both of my son’s feet press firmly on the pedals, and my daughter’s gaze stays fixed on her book.  Soon we’ll have a wonderful summer, and a photo album of the way we were at school.

 

Posted in Bits of Beauty, Learning from Others.

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By the Coconut Girl – May 1, 2012

The Side of the Road

The woman stands on the grass instead of the sidewalk. I pass her on weekdays, when I get my children from school.  Twelve years ago, she and I lived in the same apartment building. Now she’s near sixty, and heavier than she was. But her face looks much the same, her hair still red, her eyes kind, her lips constantly moving, whispering a mystery.

Where is her family? Far away, by death or by distance. I’ve only ever seen her alone. She dresses in clean, pressed clothes and comes to this place, in the shade between bus stops, and rocks from toe to heel.

Dappled around her are the long-ago prayers of her mother and father, and perhaps a brother. Of strangers kneeling in Venice and crowds making the hajj. Prayers of protection for the vulnerable. “Who is that lady talking to?” my young son asks.  The traffic stops and frames her in his window like a portrait. His curiosity sees without judgment and blesses her. My well-wishes, always thumbing, hitch a ride on his innocence and pass through the glass. “To God,” I say. The brake lights dim and we roll on, looking for a destination she’s already found.

Posted in General, Learning from Others.

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By the Coconut Girl – April 26, 2012