we stopped at the snowboard store and asked the guy there if he could bring a snowboard outside. he happily complied with our request and the last test – making sure a snowboard…The Girl’s livelihood…fit in the vehicle that could potentially become hers. this was right after we picked the vehicle up from our amazing mechanic who happily checked it over for her. this was with the cheering-on and support of dear dear generous friends as we searched for the right snowy-high-elevation-roads-with-no-guardrails-appropriate AWD/4WD SUV.
we had help in the quest for this reliable, affordable vehicle for our daughter who needs something worthy of a momma’s trust in the middle of the mountains. we have been steeped in research, in car-shopping, in internet searches, in spreading the word about this need for safe new wheels. one of these days all that knowledge will drop into the moat in my brain and i will forget it all. until then, we name every SUV as it passes us by…forester, outback, rogue, rav4, crv, patriot, crosstrek. we are grateful to have found this one. grateful for the help.
and this morning, in between tears as she drove away, i said a small prayer and whispered to IVY, her newly-named-new-used-car, to keep her safe.
i went back. we had passed this on the street while taking a walk. when it registered a moment or two after we passed it, i had to go back. out of context, it made me laugh aloud. i showed it to jen and she and i both decided on a 3 year old. i mean, it’s a FREE 3 year old!!!!
now….everyone knows THAT’S just not true. i think wryly about the lifestyle difference between people i know who have never had children and people i know who have had 2-4 olds (who grow up into snack-devouring-soccer-playing-music-lesson-taking 8 year olds who grow up into gatorade-guzzling-granola-bar-munching-tennis-playing-nike-sneaker-loving-makeup-wearing-hair-dying teenagers who grow up into university-tuition-paying-care-package-receiving-ramen-noodle-eating-dorm-room-paraphernalia-moving-apartment-sharing-car-driving college students who grow up into….. )
the air coming through the windows this morning felt cool. almost chilly. it has been a long while since the last time i could say that of a morning here. we have had a very hot, very humid summer…not my favorite combination. but today. it was different. and it made me feel immediately homesick. that happens every fall for me. maybe it’s a melancholy recognition of the passing of time, years zooming by. maybe it’s the season-change-thing…we know grey days are lurking right around the corner. either way, i feel homesick.
it’s a time when i miss long island the most, recall my growing-up years, pine for the autumn at millneck manor and long deserted-beach walks at crab meadow. a time when my sweet momma and poppo are really present for me in their absence, if that makes sense. i yearn to talk to them. a time when The Girl and The Boy seem oh-so-grown-up now, steeped in their own adult-lives, having adventures and being a dynamic part of this world, far away, without the benefit of hearing ‘good night moon’ every night. i know that every evening they roll their eyes at my goodnight texts to them, but i figure that someday they will understand. homesick.
yesterday was my father-in-law’s 85th birthday. we called columbus and sang ‘happy birthday’ to him. my momma and daddy did that every year for me and i try to carry on the tradition with the people i love. he laughed and told us he had gotten back from dinner at texas roadhouse and was listening to an old record. he listens to old records a lot. i suspect, because he is the man he is, that he gets homesick. i can tell by his eyes that he would totally understand me if i told him how i felt.
so today, if you are spending time together with someone, memorize it. if you are lucky enough to spend time with your momma or your daddy, please hug them. if you are one of the fortunate parents who have their children nearby, hold on just a little tighter and look into their faces when you say goodnight. relish it.
this face entered my life nine years ago now. i had never had a cat before, but my sister and niece conspired when a kitten showed up on heather’s doorstep in florida. my sister had asked me, maybe weeks before, what kind of cat i would want if i had a cat (which she insisted i needed.) not having had sharing-life-with-a-cat-experience (for i know now not to call it “owning a cat”) i was less convinced. but then this little (short-lived on the word “little”…babycat is BIG!) kitten showed up on heather’s doorstep. after searching for its owner, it seemed fortuitous that i had answered my sister with the less-than-emotional-or-even-informed-but-kind-of-more-practical response, “i guess i’d want a black cat so it will coordinate with my clothing and i won’t always be using a rolly-thing to get fur off my clothes.” it was a match!
and, indeed, it was. after many trials, babycat was named “wilson” (a nod to The Boy’s tennis involvement) and we (The Girl, The Boy and i) drove him back to wisconsin, none of us quite sure how to handle his eating and relieving himself, a crate, food, portable litter box, water, toys and our laps handy. he has never ever answered to the name wilson and he totally chose his name babycat, readily answering to one of his nicknames. and so, his dominance over the household started.
babycat was one of those who-rescued-who stories you read about. at just the right moment, he entered our lives. he has been a big (no…BIG) presence ever since. not knowing what cats really do, i taught him many a dog-trick, sitting and speaking on command, coming when called, sitting up to beg for a treat. he was able and, more so, willing. (if he’s not willing, there’s no way to make something happen with him.)
and then david and, subsequently, dogdog came along. b-cat reined them both in, alpha to each of them. a bit more aloof when younger, but never one to hide or totally ignore us, somewhere along the way, he became a cat who wanted to snuggle.
but that face. it’s just too easy to read babycat’s mind. and right now, i agree with him. where DID the summer go?
babycat. he’s a force. and a big (no…BIG) part of my heart.
when i saw aly a few weeks ago she was holding her sweet baby boy landon in her arms and she told me that every night he goes to sleep with this album playing. ian joked that landon doesn’t make it much past the first three pieces, so maybe they should start it in the middle so they would be able to hear more of it. either way, hearing snippets or the whole hour of lullabies, i am touched that this little boy is gently going off to sleep with this music playing him into dreams.
i recorded this album after many others. i had already recorded six original cds, three christmas albums, two retro 60s/70s albums, two hymn albums and several singles by this point. but many of the shops stocking my albums and listeners who had purchased albums asked me about a lullaby album. it was with the picture in my heart of rocking (or walking) my own children to sleep that i researched lullabies, wrote a couple original pieces and spent time in the studio at yamaha artist services in nyc recording this.
some of my most precious memories are of My Girl or My Boy drifting off to sleep as i sat in the rocking chair in the nursery watching the seasons change out the window. i would read goodnight moon and sing quietly to them. then i would tiptoe out of the room, careful to avoid the spots in the old wood floor that would creak under my steps.
and so, it is an amazing thing knowing that there are moms and dads out there in the world, rocking tenderly or softly slipping out of their nursery with my album AND GOODNIGHT playing their cherished baby into sweet sleep.
download the album AND GOODNIGHT on iTUNES or CDBaby for your nursery iPOD
we often walk at the end of the work day. we go inland to a lake trail and walk a couple times around the lake, somewhere around 6 miles or so in total. we mostly hike around the lake clockwise, which means that we are watching the sun come down across the lake at the beginning of our walk, a time when we are still processing the day and haven’t yet gotten immersed in the trail. sometimes we are so engrossed in talking or thinking-silence that we have to remind the other to appreciate…”look at that sunset,” one of us will say.
sometimes we will get up early and, with our coffee mugs, go sit on the rocks and watch the sun come up over lake michigan. every time we are witnesses to the beginning of a new day this way i think we should do that more often.
sunrise. sunset. it makes me think of the song from the musical fiddler on the roof. it’s truly a beautiful song, simple, sung with great heart. the passing of time. so fast. wendy wrote to say it was time to bring logan back to college – for his second year. i could so so feel how that felt, remembering times i had brought My Girl or My Boy back to college.
“Is this the little girl I carried? Is this the little boy at play? I don’t remember growing older When, did, they? When did she get to be a beauty? When did he grow to be so tall? Wasn’t it yesterday when they, were, small?
Sunrise, sunset, Sunrise, sunset Swiftly flow the days Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers Blossoming even as we gaze Sunrise, sunset, Sunrise, sunset Swiftly fly the years One season following another Laden with happiness and tears.”
(Sunrise, Sunset – by S. Harnick, J. Bock)
life somehow fits in between these sunrises and sunsets. and somehow, some days, we just seem to miss it. too many things to do, to worry about, to perseverate over, to check off lists. every time i vow to honor the sunrise and exhale with the sunset, somewhere in between i realize i forgot. i’ll try again tomorrow.
SUNRISE. SUNSET. a morsel from the painting A DAY AT THE BEACH
as i am writing this, The Girl just texted to say she was driving off the pass and that she and lumi-dog had finished their hike in the back-country. earlier she had texted (as is safe practice for all back-country activity) to let someone know both that she was going to be out of cell service, off the grid, in the high mountains on a hike and where she intended her hike to take her. she is a conscientious hiker and boarder and i can’t tell you how much i appreciate that. and so, early early this morning, i looked up the hike she was taking.
the #1 hike in the san juans (according to my trail app) it was taking her on a giant elevation gain and to a stunning lake, the color of which i couldn’t describe by the picture, and evidently was un-grasp-able even by the people reviewing the hike. this was a place incapable of being captured by even a crayola 64-box.
that is what i love about our world. countless places we couldn’t begin to capture with crayons. no matter how many we could get our hands on.
the places that take our breath away. the places that give us breath.
it was close to midnight and we were on a pretty windy and mountainous road (might i mention with no guardrails?!) The Girl was driving and all of a sudden the deer ran out from the side, sprinting across right in front of us. she handled it like a pro; driving these roads can be stressful and dangerous, but she is level-headed and careful, a really good driver. and she kept us all safe. i was grateful it didn’t just stand there staring at the glare of our headlights.
i taught at a school in florida a longgg time ago. it was 1982 and i was in the teachers’ lounge eating a small snack lunch with one of the teachers, my friend lois. there was a group of teachers in there, all gathered around the stove (this alone seemed pretty bizarre to me – a stove in a teachers’ lounge. who has that kind of time??) they were cooking something in a large cast-iron frying pan, an economy size container of crisco on the counter next to the stove. i was new at the school and i was still trying to make friends, so i asked what they were cooking. “possum,” i was told. (possum?? insert grossed-out emoji face.) here’s the part where i slipped up: i -in all sincerity- said that i hadn’t seen possum in the meat counter at publix and asked, “where do you purchase possum?” without blinking (no pun intended) they told me that they go out most nights “shinin'” in the woods, snaring animals to hunt with the use of headlights. “you never know what you’re gonna get!” they added. i never really fit in there.
i keep a calendar. my sweet momma kept a calendar. the written kind. she had the old-school kind that you buy the yearly refills for, with two holes in them to line up with the two curved rings of metal on the holder. she wrote on it every day: appointments, important things, birthdays and anniversaries, dates of import, big events, the smallest fragment of time memory she wanted to keep. i guess that’s where i get it from. i love my old-fashioned calendar. i look forward to getting it at the dollar store every year and i keep a mechanical pencil with a good eraser in it. i write in it every day. and at the end of the year, i have always sat down and read through the year, re-living each day, sometimes a good thing, sometimes hard.
if i went through my calendar, even for this year so far, i would find moments i didn’t want to forget. days that were tough, days that were pretty amazing. i would read about My Girl calling out “mom!” and running over as i walked into where she was working and i could recall -way deep in my heart- exactly what it felt like when she introduced me to a friend and said, “this is my mom!” i would read about the manifest destiny of cucumbers and pickles, a funny-made-me-laugh-aloud debate over wine with My Boy. i would read about the gluten-free-dairy-free-egg-free chocolate cake my husband made me and the day we stayed in bed to read a book all day. i would read about lots and lots and lots of walking, hikes near and far. i would read about potlucks with our dear friends and laughter and wine and conversation lasting well into the wee hours of the evening. i would read about late late nights with each of my nieces and laughing till we were snorting. i would read about spending sweet time with my sister and ashes floating on the breeze over the lake. i would read about the quiet peace of the canoe and the sunshine and endless conversation on the pontoon boat. i would read about antiquing and the vintage typewriter i had fallen for that 20 sought out for my birthday. i would read about gatherings in our home and at friends’ houses, sharing time with our community of people. i would read about difficult days of worry or times of sadness. i would read about the hours of working together with d: writing all these posts for our MELANGE and designing all the products. i would see that it’s been much much more than 208 days in a year. it’s been 208 days in my life and every moment has counted. whether or not they are all joyous, all successful, all funny, all productive, they are all good.
recently, while perusing facebook (which i actually don’t do all that often) i came across a post by My Boy. he had made homemade ravioli for dinner. wait! what?? homemade ravioli??? now, this requires making pasta from scratch as well as stuffing it with a delicious tuscan sausage mix. just sayin! this is the same person who, long ago now, used to be able to live on honey buns and swedish fish. he has amazed me time and again with his creative cooking and the photographs he has sent of yummy meals. one day he grilled shrimp out on his deck for dan and me and d. just as thoughtful as the birthday he made me mac and cheese after a long evening i had spent volunteering, but, i have to admit, much tastier.
the first time My Girl made us dinner we had gnocchi and an excellent sausage sauce. i hadn’t had gnocchi in years – since i had it with the hot chics in montana – and her recipe immediately made it onto our ‘what-should-we-have-for-dinner’ list of possibilities.
these are the same two human beings who would ask, ” what’s for dinner?” now i find myself asking them. funny how cooking creativity blossoms in each next generation.
reverse threading 