lo and behold

Even in summer, we barely have a wide open weekend day with nothing going on.  But lo and behold, we found ourselves in just such a situation this weekend.  We did some internet searching, hopped in the car, and headed out on a day trip adventure to someplace we’d never been before.  When the kids asked us questions, I loved saying, “I don’t know. I’ve never been there.  We’re going  to find out together.  Maybe it will be great.  And maybe it won’t.”  Not being the most easygoing person in the world, this is not a comfortable or common string of sentences to flow past my lips.

Our destination:  Horseneck Beach State Reservation

What a sweet and lovely place on a slightly overcast day with a slight breeze.  And some blue sky as in the photo below.  

It met all my criteria for a perfect beach day trip (once we got upwind of the guy smoking a cigar.) A 2-hour drive. No traffic.  No boardwalk. A picnic in a cooler.  One small concession stand. Soft sand. Bay waters that were warm in a New England kind of way.  Gentle waves (kids could have even handled them a little bigger.)  I love the beach, but I’m not a sit-on-the-beach-for-a-week kind of vacationer.   A day here and there, though, in the presence of ocean water and shells, goes a long way for the good of my soul. 

My husband laments how fast the summer flies by.  Come September, he’s doing all that he can to keep the summertime feeling just a little longer.  Last year, second week after school started, he wanted us to take a family trip down to New York City for the weekend.  I just couldn’t do it.  He took the kids and his parents and they had a great time, while I spent a quiet weekend in the house by myself, recuperating from summer.

I used to like summer, too - and it’s not exactly that I don’t like summer now.  But for him, it’s summertime and the livin’ is easy. . . for me, not so much.  His life pretty much goes on as usual, except actually his work slows down.  He puts in the same hours, pretty much the same schedule, but with less stress.  He hates that he can’t spend more time outdoors, and like me, he misses the way summer felt when we were students and/or teachers, but mostly, he still enjoys summer and it’s a good time for him.

For me, summer is a revolving door of carpools and changing schedules and transitions and keeping the kids busy and listening to them whine when they are not.  And I don’t say that in a bad way, completely.  My kids have great summers, and I’m immensely glad and grateful that they do.  For them, it’s one amazing camp after another:  ballet, cooking, outdoor education, art, and horseback riding. It’s afternoons and weekends at our neighborhood pond or our CSA farm. And that’s before they go off to two weeks of overnight camp and a family vacation or two!

I remember the days when I was a school teacher and summers were a time of tremendous rejuvenation for me.  I would relax, be spontaneous, sleep to my body’s own rhythm, ride my bike, and take adventurous trips.  I think, for me, being a parent has changed my summers more than having a job has changed them for my husband.   

And so, that’s what I’ve been pondering here in the middle of July. I have been on the summer treadmill for about three weeks, following a fantastic trip we took out west.  The kids are old enough now that we are trying to bring them along on some of the kinds of trips we took in the old days, and this year was a big leap in that direction.  Two weeks in Utah and Colorado.  Sleeping in a different place every few nights.  We all had a lot of fun and we felt like we were gone a long time. I had a great plan that I was going to take a photo a day on my iPhone and post it to the blog. Except that I had no idea how little cell service there was in Utah. There was more in Colorado, except where we were staying, so by that time, I just gave it up. 

Later this summer, for the first time, both kids will go to overnight camp, and the summer pace will change again completely.  Hubby and I still have to work, but maybe I won’t cook.  Maybe we’ll go to the movies every night.  Maybe we’ll go out and finally buy ourselves new bikes.  Who knows? 

So, looking back and looking ahead it’s all good.  Tomorrow, another carpool.  Or two, in opposite directions. 

Scenes from the west:

When Rachel was born 8 years ago, I worked a rather intense job in corporate communications and Nikki was our nanny. Rachel called her Ninny and she was a tremendous help to me - calm, even, dependable, patient - during a rather difficult time. She had moved to MA from CO, and after 2 years, she moved back. She hosted us on the first night of our vacation and it was great to see her!

One of the many times I was trying to explain to someone what this blog is about, I launched into a story that went like this:

I remember when I turned 40; I had just stopped nursing my younger child.  I knew that my baby-making years were behind me, and I felt a wonderful freedom thinking of the new decade as one in which I got my body back.  Then, when I turned 45, my younger one had just finished kindergarten.  I had two children securely ensconced in school, more sure and capable every day – I felt it was the beginning of the era in which I got my brain back. 

As I told this story, I realized that I am a person who seeks out markers.  I need milestones and I rarely let one pass without imbuing it with meaning.  Not that this surprised me much, the evidence has been there for, what, 45+ years.  With my birthday in June, the New Year in January, and the Jewish New Year in September/October, I have three nicely spaced markers each year to pause, reflect and make up new traditions. 

What can I say?  This is how I think.  No one ever accused me of being a casual person. 

So, it’s June and if I had my way, I’d celebrate my birthday every day for the whole month.  Or maybe it’s that I want my birthday celebrated for me, with gifts and attention showered from many directions, day after day.  But that is another story. 

This year, I am going to buy myself a present.  Something handmade.  A piece of jewelry.  Funny thing about the artistic journey I’ve been on to become a maker of jewelry is that I actually am not much of a jewelry wearer.  However, I do own a few pieces of jewelry that I really love, none of them very fancy or expensive, and I never tire of wearing those pieces.  And in my online travels over the last couple of years, I have discovered quite a few makers whose work I very much admire, but I haven’t really bought anything.  It’s not that I have such great will power, but more that I’m just not that much of a shopper.  But lately, I’ve been thinking that I need to start supporting other artists more often and building my own collection of handmade stuff.

But what to pick?  Great choices . . . . 

I am not going to do an in-depth report card like I have for each month this year.  I am going to do a quick review of the month, and the “semester,” and then “my personal fake grad school” is going on summer vacation.  Which is not to say that I will not continue learning or growing in my artist-identity, or that I am going to stop blogging, but that the pace is going to change -  because that’s what summers are for. 

And I feel it, anyway. It has already happened. My stance relative to the project has shifted.  And I cannot (nor do I want to) fight against the movement.

When I started this idea in January, I felt like the blog and the prospect of “being in school” would push me, keep me accountable.  And it did.  I pushed hard.  I kept the belief that I had to move forward on many fronts:  reading, writing, thinking, meeting people, almost elbowing myself into a community and into way of life. It’s a hard thing that I am trying to do, and it would be easy to stop and stall,  or tiptoe and retreat, or to try and then run away scared. But I did not – and do not – want to treat my transformation timidly.  I am nearly fifty years old.  I don’t have the time to be anything but serious.  

So, I traveled to Austin, TX in April and to Millville, NJ in May to take what for me felt like “master” glass classes.  I spent serious time and money absorbing what I could from great teachers.  And now that I have had a big dose infusion of other people’s greatness, it is time for me to incubate.  I need some quiet time with my self and with my “new flame” as Steve calls the torch.  I have been very true to my hour-a-day regimen and it feels great.  But instead of pushing, my job now is being open and receive what the glass has to offer me. 

The one push I need to still focus on is getting my torch set up in a studio that does not need to shut down when the New England winter rolls in.  I have done some preliminary thinking about how to safely set up in a finished room that already exists in my basement, and when I came home from Millville, I thought I had the answer: natural gas and an oxygen generator. It’s a true basement – no windows. At all. But still, it’s a large room, and I began to imagine what color I would paint the walls, and how we could improve the lighting, and what kind of shelving I’d like. . . I was feeling excited about it.

And then, in the last week, the universe delivered me two options for studios outside my home in shared space with other artists.  One is about 10 minutes away in the next town over, and one is literally about a mile away.  Both have pros and cons, and on one of the spaces, I will have to make a decision in the next week.  Each has a story that I will share soon;  for the moment, I am trying to be open and discern what I am meant to do. 

June is a transition month: the kids finish school.  It’s my birthday.  Some years, including this year, we take a vacation at the end of June to sort of launch the summer. 

July and August are going to be about my physical space here at home. The traveling is done, including that I cancelled my registration to The Gathering.  I will feel a longing, I know, when it is going on without me, but I also know it’s the right thing for now.  By September, I will have the room of my own that I have been waiting for and longing for.  Not shared with Steve.  Not the guest room. 

And then, I think another burst of energy will come with September.  And what – I’ll be a sophomore?  A senior?  LOL! 

I can’t shake this family from my thoughts this morning.  (The link may take a long time to load due to heavy traffic today.  Can also get a glimpse of the story here.) 

A mama in midlife, expecting a baby in July, and saying goodbye to her first baby, 1991 – 2010. 

A powerful, honest writer who has found words for the deepest kind of loss there is.  And for her, it seems, a loss that has been accumulating, tragically, for years.  I just can’t shake the visceral feeling I get when I think of her, of them.  And I don’t know them personally.  But I am touched.  And as much as I don’t want to, I am holding them in my thoughts, with my best wishes and prayers. 

I read a book recently by Anna Quindlen, a writer whose works I have long admired.  Also a story of loss.  Fiction, but still. . .  I consumed the book in about 2 days.  Could. Not. Put. It. Down. Except that I had many responsibilities for many hours of the day.  Didn’t take a walk after dinner with the family  so I could read.  Put the kids to bed and took the shortest route to the couch with book in hand.  It, too, has stayed with me. 

It’s a grey morning and I am obsessed with other people’s loss.  And yet, I had a lovely weekend.   

The weather was heavenly, and it makes me so happy when I hang the laundry to dry.  So happy?  Seems strange, even to me, but it’s true.  I know it takes longer, but I am happy that I have the time to mindful and to match my life a little closer to my values, that my life is not (warning: midlife moment) so chaotic and full of demands that it’s all I can do to move from one thing to the next and keep my head above water. 

On Sunday, we were offered three Red Sox tickets from a friend who has seasons tickets.  I would have loved to go to the game, but I knew the kids would have more fun with Steve.  Plus we also have a pair of tix we bought at a benefit auction, so I’ll go to that game with Steve later in the summer.  Instead,  a long quiet day at home for me . . .I didn’t suffer too much. 

Isabel dropped a pan of hot brownies on the floor.  Or, more accurately, she put the hot pan of brownies onto a cooling rack that was perched on a narrow strip of counter next to the oven.  The rack slipped and the brownie pan landed upside down on the floor. 

I would have thought the brownies would become a flat smashed pancake of chocolate, but no.  They broke up and splattered all across the floor.  No mind, though.  The floor had been washed just a few hours earlier so we scooped up all the brownie bits and we were good to go. 

If you are person who loves the edges and the corners, the parts where the brownies are a little crunchier and dry, these brownie bits have lots of extra surface area.  No more fighting for the corners. 

Brownie crumble on vanilla ice cream, anyone? 

I don’t like gardening, but I do like gardens.  I live in a neighborhood filled with big pines and mossy yards and few lawns – a challenging gardening environment for even the most dedicated.  Vegetables are pretty much out, but some of my neighbors have succeeded in cultivating beautiful beds of shade plants that flower and bring color and thrive in our little bit of wilderness. 

We have lived in our house for 11 years (actually, it’s exactly 11 years this month!), and every few years I’ve made a half-hearted attempt at growing something pretty in a little patch of dirt by our front door.  I put in bulbs which flowered for a while, and now they come up measly green stalks but no daffodils.  I put in a bleeding heart plant and it comes up every year, gets four little pink hearts on it, and goes away.  It never gets any bigger, and it’s really pretty sad looking.

Last year, I decided to give it one more wholehearted try, a decision I’m sure is related to (midlife alert!) the fact that my 10- and 7-year-old children no longer need the daily watering they once did. And, in fact, they even helped.  I got compost from my friend’s house and bought some, too.  I dug up all the dirt and laced the richer soil throughout.  I dug up some plants from the same generous friend and tried to really fill in the space.  I bought a few established plants whose color appealed to me. I  never really understood why a garden needed mulch or what it did, but I bought a few bags and threw it around. By the time I was done, at least it looked intentional.  It had potential. 

This year, I am delighted to say that most of what I put in last year has come back fuller, greener, and healthier looking.  The yellow irises (?) above have been in the ground for something like four years and flowered maybe once, maybe not at all.  The deep red astilbe that match the shutters on the house has started to bloom. I’m most very excited about the pink blooms on the wild geranium that I LOVE in the yards of others.  I bought something new called gentian.   

 We (the kids helped, at least for a while!) put down more compost, mulched again, and planted some of my favorite petunias.  Last year, my daughters went to an amazing arts and crafts camp and made word bricks as one of the projects. Now there is poetry in my garden, too. 

I’ve always said that I like making things more than growing things, and that children were the only thing I could keep alive (haven’t had even a houseplant since the first was born and the pet guinea pigs came only on the condition that they were Daddy’s project.)  But watch this space – I’m growing, and so is the garden!