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Merry Christmas from Perry, Laura, Tannah, Cuyler and Caden!
Dear Friends,
2003 has been a year of intense contrasts, of achievements and sorrows, puzzles solved and ironies pondered. Here are some images of our life as we wrap up this year... ~
Our house is a “refuge of chaos.” Never ends. I'm playing the kids' favorite game of 1-2-3 Smash. It's played on mama's waterbed, and anyone with a decent command of the English language can figure out how it's played. Normally ends with someone crying, but they always want to go again. They like playing it with daddy, but they've learned to play it unsupervised. It's always good for kids to be self-sufficient, you know.
Tannah's 7, blossoming into a confident young lady: Art, cello recital, ice skating, Awana, martial arts. Summer camp in Nebraska with swimming and horses every day. Learning that directing plays is hard work and requires the cooperation of others. Discovering firsthand that anything worth doing is hard work. Tannah loves being read to – history, fiction, scripture, science – anything is good.
Cuyler: a living picture of live combat. Guns, swords, Tae Kwon Do, moon boots and umbrellas. “Daddy, I was playing swords with Jack and he hit my finger. Make him stop!” Hasn't figured out that swords is a two-way street. Maybe when he's six. He loves Awana this year, and to mama's great surprise likes workbooks.
Caden just turned 3½ . Everybody loves Caden. Matter of fact, just today at lunch (Buzz Café), Caden scooped up a new girlfriend. She's 23 and she goes to DePaul. I told Caden that it's hard to find parking there, but he's undeterred. He loves to draw and make patterns with anything he can get his hands on. Caden also really likes his twice-a-week gymnastics class.
~
39,000 feet above the Sahara desert, the moon above and inky black below. Time for my annual reality check, a trip to rural Africa , to see how the other half lives…
The sun shines bright in Mozambique . Standing in the back of a pickup truck, wind in my face, we race through the wild beauty of the African Savannah … mobbed by children at the Ray of Light school, they radiate love whether they're sick or healthy. Women with babies in tow line up around a mud hut in Mafarinha. Robin, RN from Minnesota, treats them, waging war against AIDS, malaria, parasites, malnutrition and witch doctors.
Reality check acknowledged. Life at home is Disneyland . Thriving business. Echoes of applause in hotel ballrooms and the sound of five million mouse clicks… Homage paid to the Big Mouse. Lunches, dinners and Theater On The Lake. If you hear me gripin' – slap me .
~
Starbucks, 8:30am. About once a month. Venti decaf with cream. Fervent discussions, knowing our time together might be cut short. Conversations take on a distinctly spiritual hue as the days pass.
“I love you, man.”
“I love you too, Jim. In a non-sexual way, of course.”
My close buddy Jim Cleary needs a four-organ transplant to stay alive. He rounds up 18 trusted friends – insurance experts, legal minds, publicity hounds – to wage war, because the insurance refuses to pay. Opponent relents, Jim is off to the U. of Pittsburgh hospital for an operation and a grueling recovery. It's April, and I visit. His abdomen is a war zone, tubes going in and out all over the place, but he's fighting, fighting, fighting.
He's steadily improving, engaged to be married to his sweetheart Maura next Saturday. Saturday comes and goes, no word about the wedding… Then sad news arrives.
Indian summer sky. Women and men in black on a pristine September day, gathering to pay tribute to the greatest fighter we know. Jimmy is laid to rest next to his father. Emmylou Harris is in my head:
It don't matter where you bury me
I'll be home and I'll be free
It don't matter where I lay
All my sins be washed away
~
A couple big boxes arrive at the door. Laura tears into them and spends days organizing the books and information inside. She's in her element.
Our home school is flourishing, in part thanks to reading lots of real books (not textbooks). Mom and Dad also consume a lot of books this year – most notably the detective series by Alexander McCall Smith, the Mitford series by Jan Karon and some boat-rocking books on education by John Taylor Gatto. Perry's top picks: The Poisonwood Bible, The 80/20 Principle and Blue Like Jazz .
~
The boat stops to pull in a net. Tannah holds a sea urchin, Cuyler shows the other passengers a seahorse in a little dish before it is released back into the Bay.
The Marine Aquarium in Tampa , Florida has an eye-opening boat tour on the Bay. The kids get up-close and personal with sea life. Caden especially likes petting the stingrays back in the Aquarium's tanks. A day at the beach, a day at Disney, and we've had a picture-perfect vacation – except for a sunburn we won't soon forget.
~
West Side of Chicago . Police officer pulls up beside me and motions to roll down my window. “Rough neighborhood, are you lost or something?”
“I'm picking up the kids here. I take ‘em to church every week.”
So here I am toting five kids to our Wednesday night gig. Anthony, Marcus, Drea, Isaiah, little Jojo and me, we're Ebony and Ivory, man. Anthony says to me, “My friends say if you take us to Oak Park , we'll get shot up. They wanna make a big deal ‘cuz we're black and you're white.”
“Well, Anthony, guess what – my friends in Oak Park think that if I come to your neighborhood, I'll get shot up, too. So I guess all our friends are wrong.”
~
Three kids is enough, so Perry has a little ‘outpatient surgery.' (Fun, fun, fun.) Just about that same time: “ Man, Perry, I've been fighting off this flu for weeks now.”
A couple of weeks later, she announces: “God's got a sense of humor. I'm pregnant .”
We do jazz improvisation around here. No Problem, baby.
As Tiny Tim says, “God Bless Us, Every One.” All six of us.
Merry Christmas,
Perry, Laura, Tannah, Cuyler, Caden, and ____
(Votes are welcome but we're not a democracy. Send your suggestions to perry.laura@tannah.net . See more family pics at the links below...)
Christmas 2002
Christmas 2001
A decade in the life of Perry & Laura - Year 2000
Caden is Born - 2000
Cuyler is Born - 1998
Andria, our Foster Daughter (and now our "God Daughter")
Perry's trip to Mozambique, July 2003
Perry's trip to China, January 2001
Perry & Laura go to Brazil, January 1999
Perry's company |