Dalai Mama Dishes

by Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Dalai Mama Dishes

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

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Tooth, Wisdom

Posted May 19, 2008
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Ever wonder what Catherine sounds like? Listen to her read this blog entry.

Because we moved in the dead of winter, the warming days have brought us a string of beautiful surprises: Oh! we say about the tree we've been watching for months now as round, ice-encased buds burst into flat, waxy blooms. That's a dogwood! A bed of little chive-like clumps turns out to be grape hyacinths; another bed of little chive-like clumps turns out to be chives. We've got mint and bleeding hearts, yellow tulips and daffodils, violets and dandelions and lilacs and a cherry tree with some kind of disease that makes it look like it's been decorated by a pooping cat. Most of it is a little bit wild, and all of it is a gift we didn't know we were getting from an ancestry of gardeners we didn't know at all.

Every morning I dart out into the mist in my fleece robe and rubber boots, a mug of tea in my hands and happy questions in my heart: What now? What next? Green stalks shoot up promising us summer lilies and irises, a dead-looking rose is covered suddenly in glossy foliage, and when the large purple hyacinths push out of the ground like artichokes, it's as if we've been visited overnight by botanical Martians.

We will leave aside, for the moment, the issue of my being an appallingly lazy gardener and remain focused instead on the sentiment itself.

Because it is, I hardly have to tell you, almost exactly how I feel about waking up with this pair of growing children: What now? What next? Happiness and wonder coil their double helix through my very blood (which is, of course, already crowded with other double helices spiraling around - impatience/frustration, fear/angst - but still.) Birdy, for example, wakes with a loose tooth. "My toosh is loosh," she announces, wiggling it so exaggeratedly that her tooth appears to be swinging through the world on a trapeze. "Wow!" we say, yawning disbelievers all. "Your first loose tooth!" "Wea-wy," she insists. She's so fierce. Despite sweaty ringlets and sleep-pink cheeks, her white boxer briefs, bare chest, and gaping robe make her look exactly like a prizefighter. I lean over to push with a sleepy fingertip, and am shocked by the give. "It really is loose!" I say, and she says, "I know!" How old is she? Five? Is that young to have a loose tooth? I don't even remember.

I wish I'd made a documentary film that was just spliced footage of the children's teeth as they came in, fell out, came in anew. Tooth tooth tooth. Gap gap gap. Tooth tooth tooth. The shifting seascape of their dental archipelagos. Ben's got one of those gigantic front teeth coming in now - the kind that looks like a rock face is suddenly pushing up out of your child's gums and next you might see miniature climbers belaying themselves up its smooth face to the craggy top. We pretend it's a shy wild animal in need of coaxing: "Come on," I say gently to it every night. "Come on out! Don't be afraid. We won't hurt you!" Its slow and steady progress reminds me about the miraculous nature of inevitability.

What now? What next? I'm writing in my journal next to Ben, who is writing in his journal. We're draped across his bright pink comforter in his tiny bright orange room, the last of the spring light filtering bluely through his skylight. "How come you don't let me read your journal?" he asks, just like his father would - all gentle curiosity without a trace of resentment. I explain how I might write about grown-uppy things (e.g. sex, I don't say) or in a grown-uppy way (e.g. self-righteous, I don't say). What I do say is, "For instance, I might write about a fight I've had with Daddy," and Ben laughs, pats me on the knee with mock gravity, and says, "Um, Mama? Believe me - you and Daddy don't have any fights I'm not eavesdropping on." How old is he? Eight? Is this young for preemptive confessional hilarity? In striped pajamas, he is as leggy as a zebra colt, smiling his toothy toothless smile. The blue light shows the faintest scrim of down on his upper lip. Happiness lurks around every corner, in the strangest conversations, in the most unpredictable places. What now? What next?

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Tooth, Wisdom

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About Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman is the author of the memoir, Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family, available online and in bookstores nationwide.

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