Formulaic?

I wonder if falling into formulas of writing doesn’t turn into a kind of block? I start feeling like a parody of myself. Something cute the kids said or did, some piece on NPR, and its application to my life, earnest self-examination, pat little summarization. And when I write about something like the Suzuki Lessons piece, I wonder if I sound as if I think I have all the answers? When my best friend leaves a comment about mother guilt I wonder if I haven’t given a lopsided version of things, that I need to rush back in and qualify how I worry about pushing my kids for the wrong reasons, how the time I spend practicing with them is time not spent cooking nutritious meals and how much self-doubt I go through still regularly? That sometimes I think a...

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Posted by Mara Collins on May 28, 2008 | 2 comments

Suzuki Lessons (Having Very Little to Do with Music)

It’s probably clear that being part of my kids music education is a big part of my life, it gets a substantial part of my time each day and I put a lot of time into thinking about it. And most people would probably nod and agree “Yeah, music education is great for kids” and leave it at that, but of course, being me and having spent so much time and emotional energy into it, I am surprised at how it has become a part of my identity, and I have been a little frustrated not to have met other parents doing it with whom I can talk about it. Lots of Suzuki parents are a little strange, I think you sort of have to be to look at your three year old and say “Hey, I have an idea, let’s make practicing the violin a part of our daily...

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Posted by Mara Collins on May 26, 2008 | 5 comments

Good-bye Christopher Robin

If there was a set of books I wanted to inhabit most as a child it was Milne’s Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh books. There was a lovely completeness to the world of this boy and the companionship of his toys, with their range of personalities, a gentleness to the adventures and a general celebration of friendship. It was always the books, mind you, never the Disney version. That voice was so wrong! My father could recite many of the Milne poems from memory and so can I now somehow, so they were the poems that taught me to love poetry. I have a memory of going to a children’s theater production of the stories and being so caught up in it that that was all I would play for weeks. And at some point it was explained to me that there was a real...

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Posted by Mara Collins on May 23, 2008 | 3 comments

Competition and Camaraderie

So there are toy catalogues sent to parents like me — that is, somewhat crunchy parents who embrace peace and non-violence, and spend money on our children as if that can shape their values. These catalogues have page after page of toys with fair trade stamps, toys tested for lead paint, toys that challenge assumptions about gender and promote open-ended and imaginative and problem-solving play. There is never anything plastic or Fisher-Price in the whole catalogue. And inevitably there are board games that bear no resemblance to Candyland or Chutes and Ladders because they are “collaborative” rather than “competitive.” If you have ever watched a three year old devastated because his five year old brother beat him at a board game,...

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Posted by Mara Collins on May 19, 2008 | 2 comments

Mother’s Day Meditation

The Lanyard – Billy Collins The other day I was ricocheting slowly off the blue walls of this room, moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano, from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor, when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard. No cookie nibbled by a French novelist could send one into the past more suddenly— a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp by a deep Adirondack lake learning how to braid long thin plastic strips into a lanyard, a gift for my mother. I had never seen anyone use a lanyard or wear one, if that’s what you did with them, but that did not keep me from crossing strand over strand again and again until I had made a boxy red and white lanyard for my mother. She gave...

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Posted by Mara Collins on May 11, 2008 | 12 comments