childhood

Sweetness

Posted on September 24, 2012September 25, 2012 by juliebarton in Blog

“Wow! You going to be doing a lot of baking?” the cashier woman at Trader Joe’s said. I felt caught because as I shopped, along with the usuals, I just allowed myself to grab what looked good. I ended up with brownie mix, blondie bar mix, pumpkin bread mix, and white icing. I decided to be honest with her. “Baking makes me happy,” I said.

On the drive home, I fretted. Am I unhappy? Not really. I’m doing okay. Most moments are good moments. So what motivated me to buy all those sweets? “Food is not love,” someone said recently. I’d heard it before, but this time it clanged like a gong in my ears.

I bake because I love to, but as I pulled the car up to the house, I thought about how I also bake now for my daughters, ages 5 and 8. I want to treat them. I want them to come home from school and walk into a house filled with dogs and cats, markers and crayons, music, flowers and cookies that are still warm and gooey. I want them to take a bite (after finishing their healthy snack) and feel safe, feel release. It’s okay. It’s allowed here. It’s all allowed here. Your messy feelings about your friends, the mistake you made in front of the teacher, the fact that you didn’t wipe your bottom well enough and now you have a rash. I bake as a signal that my girls can let go. They’re safe in this house with me.

And I’ll tell them a few things about my day, that I made mistakes too, that my hard work felt arduous at times, but that because we’re home together, sitting around a table with milk and cookies, I feel great.

I look at my girls, my beautiful little beings and I feel such hope and such fear—because I could be doing this all wrong. The mom who has the no sugar policy in her house, who races in triathlons; she doesn’t think I’m teaching my kids good eating habits. Do I tell her that when her daughter comes to our house, she pries open the pantry without asking and pilfers it? Do I stop her? Do I tell?

There’s a story there

Posted on March 23, 2012May 7, 2013 by juliebarton in Blog

I was walking to my parked car the other day and looked up to see this red balloon stuck in a red tree. It looked so beautiful, and I thought, “There’s a story there.” The kid with her balloon after the birthday party, so outraged that with just one slip of her fingers, the tree took her balloon and wouldn’t give it back. Or perhaps she gave it to the tree, said, “Catch!” When she let go, the tree actually did what she asked it to. Maybe every time she walks by now, she smiles.

Posted on March 9, 2012May 7, 2013 by juliebarton in Blog

This picture is how I remember my childhood. I don’t know who this girl or dog is, but I’m struck by how deeply this photo reaches into me. I remember escaping into sleep, finding bliss in the rhythm of a dog’s heartbeat. Welcoming the bug crawling up my arm, honoring her curiosity. I lay in the fields near our house daydreaming about other places, other people who would love me, who would tell me I was okay and that I could be beautiful.

Hundrs of puppys

Posted on October 25, 2011May 7, 2013 by juliebarton in Blog

This sweet little flyer was taped to the trash bin at the dog park today. The first thing I thought when I read it was that I was the kind of kid who would have done something like this. I used to contemplate life for the dogs at the pound, how awful those hard, cold cages must have been, how much those puppies missed the warmth of their moms and litter mates. I anthropomorphized so much that I even worried about the trees in the winter. I imagined that their tiny, high up branches were like frozen fingers forced to endure months of deep freeze.

I hope no one told the child who wrote this lovely note that there are actually hundreds of thousands of “puppys” that don’t have homes. I hope instead she went home and felt like she’d done her part. The dogs will get wonderful homes, and she can stop worrying now.