Life in the Ninja Castle

Ninja Castle from creek side

   Maxine's new house is so big and so dark at night that she calls it the "Ninja Castle."  I visited the castle last week to help David take care of Maxine and Simone while Courtney was  in Vermont with her college girl friends.

1950s kitchen design still works

Spectacular dining room

     The new house is a mid-century modern rambler,  designed in 1956 by the head of the architecture school at Texas A& M.    It's big, but the rooms are all in good human proportion, and the flow still works smartly for a family in 2012.  There is a creek at the back of the property. A group of boys next door have made swings and forts along the banks. Maxine can run across the back lawn, wade the creek, scramble up the other bank, and be at a playground.

Maxine busy with Aunt Mary Beth

Maxine outside her new room

    Maxine's new room sports a bed with purple sheets.  (After I slept in them she wanted to know if I felt purple. ) All the bedrooms open up to a deck, with views of the woods and the creek.  Maxine danced on her deck in the fairly wings and tutu I gave her.  Then we walked around the neighborhood, Maxine waving her fairy wand at the Halloween decorations.  We knocked on the door of the one person she knows, and walked up the driveway and introduced ourselves to a family sitting on their porch.

Simone not unhappy

Simone happy

     Simone was  all smiles, gurgles and squeals until about 9 o'clock the first night, when she woke up  in her crib and realized that her mother was gone. ( I hadn't learned yet the delicious truth, that Simone falls asleep in my arms and then needs to stay on my arms or next to me all night long.  None of this sleeping in a crib stuff.)   When I finally got her calmed down and tried to lay her in the crib again, there was  a roll of white silk on the sheet.   I was not surprised to discover Tibetan texts inside the fabric.

Thinley

Khempo

     David and Courtney have two Tibetan lamas living with them.  Thinley has been with them for three or four years.  Khempo, a retired teacher  and scholar from a large, thousand-monk monastery, has just arrived in August.  David arranges  for the monks  to speak at university religion and anthropology classes.  He interprets for them Buddhist meditation sessions and retreats. He also helps to translate some of Khempo's books into English.
     While Simone was crying, Khempo was consulting his books.  He chose certain texts to comfort a baby whose mother is gone, and placed them quietly in her crib.

Conversation pit

Altar

     The Ninja Castle has one very large rectangular  room, designed as a combination living-dining room.  The end with the built-in china cabinets is now an altar and meditation space.  Khempo works on his texts sitting on the floor at a small table.  Although he and Thinley share the fourth bedroom and the guest bathroom, Khempo sleeps on the meditation rugs in this large room.   Wooden folding doors  shut the room off from the rest of the house at night, and on Sunday afternoons when the Buddhist group meets there.  The rest of the time, Simone  can wriggle and twist on her play mat on the thick carpet, and Maxine can romp in the Mad Men-era conversation pit at the other end of the room.  We put the great spaces of the new house to good use.

Simone at 5  months