Tag Archives: adventure

Sep25

Packing In, Packing Out

Posted on by
Standard

You know what role you play in life by how you carry your “stuff.” In a purse. In a wallet. In an art folio. In a drawing tube. In a briefcase. In a book bag. In a diaper bag. In a gym bag. In a rolling suitcase small enough to fit overhead on an airplane.

I’ve switched from a small clutch purse and laptop case to a backpack. A heavy backpack. Lots of pockets and compartments for everything from textbooks and computer to student ID and train pass. Plus extra pens, Kleenex, snacks and change of clothes. Yes, I prepare for all possibilities, including being stranded overnight.

I’ve always been known as the bag lady in my family. Now isn’t any different. I usually have necessities for all sorts of emergencies that never arise. But heck, if they come up, I’m ready. Carry around almost everything except a first aid kit!

This also means that I tend to take on burdens and lug them around. Regardless of whether they’re mine to worry about and try to fix or not. It’s just how I’m wired. So I do a lot of work about letting go of issues that I cannot control or change, and trying to be responsible for those things that I can do something about … usually my own stuff. Sounds like a twelve-step recommendation, doesn’t it?

What I bring to campus, even with all the extras, is an editorial process every day. Some books go into the pack, others come out. Depends on the class. Sometimes I add layers like a sweater that I might need later, as the weather changes. Or extra meals, if I’ll be on campus very late.

I try to lighten the load, both physically and metaphorically. Acknowledge which texts I’ll have a chance to read, and give myself permission not to carry an extra stack, just in case I have unexpected blocks of time (usually I have less time than anticipated, rather than more). By minimizing what I need, I take a few pounds off my back, and incidentally off my mind.

To make sure I’m only bringing what I need, I often check my calendar and syllabi, reviewing deadlines for both reading assignments and papers due. Then I pick one project I can work on, using my computer or some time in the library, to keep up with course work. That’s what I’ll complete during my “down times’ for the day.

Staying focused, and one step ahead of my assignments, seems to keep my spirits revived. And that’s another way to lighten the ‘stuff’ that I’m lugging around.

Anyway, today’s journal is simply an acknowledgement that we’re all carrying a lot of burdens. Some of them pack away tidily into our chosen forms of storage and porting. Some spill out. Some just don’t fit at all, and we carry them loose, in our arms, slung over a shoulder, or in some other unexpected ways. Some burdens we try to leave behind. Or put into storage, until we have a chance to cope with them.

Every time you empty your pockets, your purse, your backpack … every time you move your gear from one container to another … it’s a chance to conduct an editorial exercise. Relinquish those things you don’t need. Collect and bring along those items that you find essential (right now). In the same way, it’s an exercise that can also lift the weight of a spiritual load, at least for a little while.

I’ve written, more than once, about the act of taking inventory, holding on to the essentials, and letting of of the rest. In sustainable ways, when possible: donating, recycling or repurposing.

My backpack is heavy. So is my schedule.

But my step? My step is light-hearted. I’m where I want to be, a lot of the time. I’m fortunate to be able to say so.

Sep15

Apples, Corn and Dogs

Posted on by
Standard

Just paying attention. Autumn in New England rustles just outside my door.

About 10 days ago, I saw the first pale leaves flutter down and skitter along the sidewalk. Swirl upward again in circles. Come to rest.

Pumpkin seeds to be baked.

Now small splashes of color burst from the green canopy of trees. Auburn. Amber. Gilt. Fire. Fall sets the horizon alight with her bright palette, in our part of the natural world.

Local orchards are thronged with tourists enjoying an idyllic weekend: filling bags with apples and other fruit. Visiting geese and farm animals. Taking the hay ride out to the low-hanging trees. Plucking among the many choices of crisp, ripe apples. Splurging on cider and donuts, debating about recipes and ingredients for pies or cobbler.

Local farms come to life at harvest season. They’ve set up their corn mazes! Labyrinths wind through taller-than-head-height stalks; these puzzling trails beckon to adventurous folk. Get lost in fields of green and gold! Find your way out again. It’s even more fun, and a little alarming, in the dark.

Early Jack O Lanterns

Our daughter Sarah and her friend brought home hefty pumpkins to carve. Admired curling stems. Cut off the lids. Scooped out the insides. Carved faces. Baked the seeds. Just to pass some time and connect with the season.

Farmers’ markets continue to hum with activity. Jams and honey line the shelves. Shares from Appleton Farms bristle with crops. Yet the countdown is coming; soon the barns will be quiet and the staff busy planning for next year.

Just now, though? The vaulted sky is bright blue. Branches arch overhead with changing hues from green to crimson. Orange gourds dot sloping verdant lawns.

And a neighbor drives past with the family dog. The dog’s head hangs out the passenger window, ears blowing back, tongue lolling to one side, gulping in the fresh air, grinning a canine grin.

That describes how I feel today. Drinking it all in. Enjoying this moment in time.

Sep13

Stress: The Good Kind

Posted on by
Standard

I’m so busy I almost can’t breathe. I’ve added every deadline, book, project or homework assignment, class time, phone call, advisory meeting, and other school task to my calendar to keep up with it all. Getting home at midnight one day a week, and between 8-9 pm the other nights. On campus in Cambridge all day, either in classrooms, library or quiet work spaces.

And then there’s family life; that’s being “scheduled,” too, so that I can grab some time with Sarah while she’s home again before going off to her semester abroad in four more days. (I saw her Monday night between 10pm-midnight, when we picked her up at the airport, so far.) Or to make a date with my husband Chris while we’re both awake. Mostly I maintain contact with them via texts. * sigh *

Work life fits tidily into chunks of the day when I can plug in my computer. Sometimes on the train, or in the library. As emails exchanged between classes. Or on the weekdays when I’m staying on the North Shore.

Field education hasn’t started yet. That starts next week. (I’ve already had the interviews). I’ll be apprenticed or interning, so to speak, at a UCC church on the North Shore to gain professional experience in a parish other than my own home faith community. This works both as part of the educational experience at Harvard, but also toward my “discernment” process for ordination by my denomination (UCC/Congregational).

All in all, it’s a whirlwind time. I dream about school. I’m reading books about Christianity and Islam and pastoral counseling and philosophy and language, instead of suspense and science fiction novels. I pack a lunch and dinner. Carry a to-go mug for hot coffee, as well as a water bottle. Have external pockets with  easily accessible student ID, T-passes and commuter rail ticket. Wear sensible walking shoes for the hike from train station to subway station, from subway to classroom, class to library.

In a way, this rhythm is familiar. I used to make the commute in and out of Boston to an office. Rise and go before the sun came up. Come home after it set. Rarely saw the sky, except through the office windows of executives in the buildings of the large financial corporation where I once worked. Made well-intentioned goals to get outside for lunch, walk instead of eat, but usually found that I needed every work hour to complete a project, so that I could make it home to pick up children from extended hours at daycare.

Even further back, I used to work full time, then attend classes at night. Took two courses a semester, for several years, to earn a Bachelors degree with Honors from UMass / Boston. Chris was deep in studies to pass his exams for licensing as an architect. So I’d work on my thesis until 2am, and walk home across the Boston Common at odd hours of the night, to our apartment in the city.

It seems like I’ve always been juggling a lot. All of us have been.

It’s happening to Chris now. He rises at 3-4am to start his work day. Volunteers, works, and makes time for his family when we can be here to connect. Fits in a bike ride now and then.

It’s happening to our daughter Sarah as she juggles saying good-bye to the few friends who haven’t left for college already, or makes trips to see them on campus in Boston. Then packs for her own adventures through Northeastern University’s international program next week.

Yes, it’s stressful. But I want to acknowledge that this is stress we choose, and in which we willingly participate. It leads to something more. Opportunity. Open doors. Education. Vocational shift. Personal transformation. Survival. Hope. Healing. Tangible change. Something we want. There’s incentive to take on this busy schedule, instead of remaining within the status quo.

This form of stress contrasts with situations that are out of our control. Circumstances that cause stress to which we also respond, not because we want to, but because we must. I have lived inside that pressure cooker, too.

In fact, I don’t have to describe much of it to you. Many of you knew us during those times.

Living inside a hospital as the levels of acuity increased over time. First, a shared hospital room with other cancer patients and their parents. Having roommates for weeks at a time throughout the cancer journey. Transfer into private rooms on the oncology unit, which might sound like a privilege, but was too often a bad sign. It was usually due to severity of infection, contagious complications, or more life-threatening conditions (beyond cancer, as if that wasn’t enough). Later, months of life on the transplant unit, inside a single room with changeable mood lights in the ceiling as a second-best attempt at environmental stimulation instead of being allowed to live in the larger world. Life reduced to one room, inside a HEPA-filtered unit with its own air and water circulation, and airlocks to control the environment and separate it from the rest of the hospital (though strangely, you could escape to the Prouty Garden if you traveled …  you couldn’t share the elevator, wore a mask through the halls, and didn’t touch anything).

Finally, the most critical level of care. ICU. Where they have two medical rounds a day, and I woke up for each shift of consultations, regardless of the time of day or night, because events moved so quickly that even 24 hours wasn’t enough time to assess things; we only slept about 2 hours a night. Where the lights are always on, and the number of tubes and machines attached to the patients multiplies.

Through it all, Jessie just stymied everyone. If you looked at the reams of paper, she shouldn’t have appeared as perky as she did. She shouldn’t have transitioned once off the ventilator, sat up within hours to play Hangman with her primary nurses on the ICU team, and lured us all once more into hopefulness. But hey, that’s how she lived through every hour she was allowed to be awake. And even consciousness was taken away, at the end, because she needed to be sedated to stay on a ventilator. But she broke through the drugs from time to time, to try to whisper to us, to kick her feet, to squeeze our hands, to cry, to listen to books, to be part of this world and connect with us.

We have endured that other kind of stress. It escalated inexorably for years. Then months. Then weeks. Then hours. Final moments.

That accumulated stress seeped deep into muscles, bones, minds and spirits. It took years to work its way to the surface, and be released again. We’re still letting go of it, I’m sure.

So I acknowledge that these stressful circumstances may be different in every family, caused by different issues, but that many of us live with them. Unemployment. Mental health issues. Diagnoses of chronic or terminal conditions. Economic instability. Uncertainty about shelter or food: basic necessities. Lack of access to other resources. Addiction. Violence. Crime. Death or endings of many kinds. Loss. Isolation from community. Caregiving for a loved one with an extreme condition.

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons I’m seeking this vocation: pastoral care. Stress is a universal experience. With many causes. We all share it at some time or another, in one form or another.

And I believe — I hope — we all have chances to experience a different kind of stress. The “good kind.”

Although my calendar is busy —  my phone vibrates often, my computer pings with reminders and alerts and alarms to keep my use of time focused, my backpack is quite hefty with gear and books, and I’m always moving —  I don’t mind. There are other sorts of alarms and appointments, meetings and conferences, phone calls and consultations, that lead to different outcomes.

Right now, this stress leads to transformation. So I celebrate it.

Sep1

If These Walls Could Talk

Posted on by
Standard

What stories would they tell?

Our daughter’s friend Shelly, who has been living with us since the spring, just moved along to college! She packed up her life in 9 hours. She’s taking some things to her mom’s place in Haverhill and others to her college residence near Boston.

Outside in the twilight, skyping by phone from Ipswich to Italy for a long distance BFF college good-bye between Shelly and Sarah.

She wanted us to see how tidy it all looked: boxes, bins and suitcases, zippered and capped, stuffed with her paraphernalia, organized into different piles depending on their destination. Then she carried down load after load of belongings. Filled a truck. She’s gone and the room is empty. Last night the street outside was filled with final hugs and reluctant good-byes.

We remain behind, as our children leave. Empty nesters? Us?

Well, there’s one empty room in our house, anyway. It has been home to several girls. It’s the same bright blue room that was once Jessie’s. (Jessie chose its colors back in 2005, when we were just moving in, right before she relapsed with leukemia for the first time.) Later it was the bedroom for two beloved Rotary exchange student host-daughters: Tina Danila from Belgium and Chicca Tizzoni from Italy. In between, it has often served as a guest room for family and friends.

Now it’s plain. Bare of any evidence of its latest occupant. Shelly’s “personality” drove away in a borrowed pickup truck … it used to be spilling off her corkboard covered in favorite mementos, a bright striped bedspread, the sprawl of her adolescent clothes and shoes and books. Now there’s silence where her music played and her voice rose and fell.

It’s a room that has known a series of comings and goings. Even when Jessie was alive, she only stayed there part of the time, because much of her life was also spent inside the hospital. We always had a suitcase handy, and the room was often the recipient of random bags stuffed with the evidence of her re-entry to home life, bringing along the detritus of hospital stays (craft projects, medical items, etc).

Over time, we have moved Jessie’s memorabilia to other parts of the house, and allowed the blue room to be a blank canvas for more recent occupants. So when they move out, it’s quite sparse.

Sarah’s room, on the other hand, is only temporarily empty of her presence. It remains filled with her “stuff.” She’s coming and going all the time. She’ll be back next week with suitcases and souvenirs from her cultural exchange in Italy. A week later, she’ll pack up and head out to her first semester in college.

In many ways, Sarah’s room won’t change drastically. We expect her to come and go for years, back home on many holidays and school breaks, using the house as her operating base, even when she’s always on the go. She can safely leave behind her overflow of gear and childhood belongings, and take only what she needs for a dorm room and college life.

For a glorious few months this summer, Sarah’s and Shelly’s friends, along with our exchange student Chicca, filled our house with their clutter, debris, noise and life. We loved it.

They made messes. Built bonfires in the back yard. Slept over in sleeping bags, in small groupings, unable to let go of each other. Generated odors from gym shoes and wet swimming gear. Cooked food for each other. Burned some of it. Moved furniture. Used computers. Ate all the snacks we put into the cupboards. Made noise late at night and early in the morning with their comings and goings. Played a concert of sounds in the house with slammed doors, shouts, chuckles, thumping footsteps on the stairs and in the hall.

They filled the house. And it’s meant to be this lively. To contain this much commotion. It’s spacious and old enough to welcome all of their activity, and not be more scarred for the experience.

I admit it. It’s lonely without all of them, even if it’s nice to have some privacy again.

Chris and I will stay here, while the girls are launched to their different destinations. Oh, the abrupt contrast between all those 18-year-olds, some so tall they had to duck to walk between rooms, filling up the space with their summer busy-ness before setting off for new adventures, and the current quiet.

The house feels too big now. In other ways, it feels as if our own lives are shrinking. Getting a little more hollow. Requiring less space … a smaller footprint.

Maybe that’s not true, but it’s part of how we experience the transition. It’s a natural and honest feeling from parents letting go.

Our house as painted by Miranda Updike in 2006.

In our town, our house is 130 years younger than the oldest homes. In other words, it was built c. 1770, but the oldest-standing residences in town go back to the 1640s.

Anyway, even if it’s only 230 years old, it’s seen a lot of life. Generations have been born, married, left home, returned and grown old within its walls.

Wherever you look, the house is full of stories of centuries of town life. It’s been a single home, it’s been wartime apartments, it’s been worker housing, it’s been multiple units with separate entrances of shared spaces, it’s been a combined doctor’s office and home, and probably seen many other configurations along the way.

It had two additions added in the early 1800s, so there are three chimneys and a total of nine hearths. The remnants of others, such as the large kitchen hearth, were largely removed during later construction along the back of the house, but nine fireplaces is plenty. Lots of cooking and warming of cold hands and feet must have taken place at these hearths.

Though its bones are solid, and were once built square and true, they have long since settled. Floors rise and fall, and some are thin enough to buckle or pitch with changes in the seasons. Walls tilt. Ceilings slope. Doors creak and latch with old cast iron hardware, but swing open mysteriously of their own accord (we often tease that Jessie is visiting, but then again, we mean it, too).

Every room and story has different details, as they have been altered over time for different uses. Soft or hardwood floors, plaster or panel walls, plaster or strap and tile ceilings, wooden trim (or not). Fireplaces are much-changed: none their original size, since all were made shallower. Chimneys lean, bricks curve unnaturally, and a few are missing.

When you leave the light on in the basement, you can see it shine up through cracks between the wide ancient wooden boards on the first floor. Some stairs lead to nowhere, or turn aside abruptly. Wallpapered rooms are still tucked up under the attic eaves, probably the former too-hot, too-cold territory of servants, household workers, or poor relatives (just guessing). Some doors don’t have a purpose anymore. Closets and cupboards were tucked into odd niches around the leftover space of the chimneys. Some rooms have been kitchens, later converted back into bedrooms or other spaces, but they retain leftover sinks, wiring or stove holes.

Despite centuries of use, we don’t think our house is haunted. Unless you consider Jessie’s visits to be that, and it doesn’t feel that way to us. She’s a lively, active presence, not a ghostly one. We never detected any other activities or presences before hers.

Like every other generation who has lived here, we have put the house to work and made it as useful as possible to us. Once upon a time, some of the rooms were used as classrooms and medical staging areas for Jessie, since she couldn’t always attend school. Some rooms have been (or remain) offices. This year, we added an accessory apartment downstairs, by restoring a wall that had been removed in the kitchen with some better plumbing and restoration of kitchen fixtures (granted through approval by the zoning board of appeals — ZBA — as a permissible use). We have a friend completing work on it. Eventually it will produce some rental income to help with college expenses.

Since our needs have changed, the house is changing with us. Sarah will continue to come and go. When she’s home, maybe her friends will land here, too. So the noise and activity level will continue to ebb and flow for a few more years. But in many ways, a long-term change in our lifestyle is setting in.

We’re (almost) empty-nesters. Aaaahhhhh!

Phew. At least we have friends from England coming to stay in October. They’ll roost in Jessie’s blue room. They’ve stayed here before, contributing their adventures to the collection of intangible experiences that fill our house.

Our family stories are being added to centuries of life that have animated this swaybacked antique house. We’re part of its old bones and skin. We’re part of its memory.

And it is part of ours.

Aug30

Go In to Go Out

Posted on by
Standard

Yes, we all know by now, the seasons are changing, and many of us find ourselves in transition. In the middle of all this change, chaos and bustle, self-care becomes more important than ever.

After all, most of us are responsible to and concerned for other people in our lives. We serve as partners, friends, colleagues, caregivers, guardians or advocates of some kind. We are engaged in relationships with people who need or expect some connection with us.

Yet if I don’t make it a priority to pay attention to my own wellbeing, who will do it for me? Admittedly, I don’t claim to know what that means for everyone else. Probably you know what’s good for you, and what’s not. You know what you want to do, what you should do, and what you’ll do anyway …

I have a well-intentioned debate with myself almost every day. It takes on countless variations. Sleep in or wake up for yoga? Drink caffeine or water? Take the stairs or use the elevator?  Walk or drive?

So this is just another reminder to me … and anyone else who needs it … to make time for what helps maintain equilibrium.

  • Sleep. (It’s the greatest gift we can give our bodies and minds, which are designed to rely on this daily renewal in order to operate at best capacity.)
  • Movement and exercise. (Our bodies work better when we use them. People in recover from joint replacements, for instance, are often supported and encourage to move as soon as possible, especially to reclaim as much function as possible.)
  • Nutrition. (Eat well. Hydrate. Choose healthy meals. Refuel.)
  • Spiritual practice. (Prayer, meditation, reflection, journaling, music, etc.)
  • Pastime or avocation. (Something you love to do, that engages a different part of the brain or different muscles, changes your rhythm and focus, and helps you switch gears. Maybe it’s yoga or running or reading  or crossword puzzles or cooking.)

Today, in a “being well” session during a week-long orientation at Harvard University, we were encouraged to continue our spiritual and physical self-care practices, regardless of how hectic life gets. After all, when we’re the most pressed for time and energy, when we’re pulled in too many directions, when we’re overwhelmed … that’s exactly when we need balance the most.

The reminder was posed as, “We go in, so we can go out.” This was the wisdom offered by Kerry Maloney from the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life at Harvard Divinity School. Her challenge suggested that we take care of ourselves (“go in”) so that we can serve others (“go out”).

By this, she meant that we turn inward … that we engage in self-care at the level of mind, body and spirit … so that all those integrated aspects of ourselves are whole and in good health. By maintaining internal equilibrium, we have resources and energy available to share with our loved ones and our larger community.

It’s a timely reminder, as we hasten toward the next page in the calendar, and enter an autumn humming with appointments, commitments, obligations and activities.

 

 

Aug29

Note to Self

Posted on by
Standard

Today at one of the orientation sessions for graduate school, incoming first-year students (that’s me) were asked to write notes to our “future” second-semester selves. We jotted down reflections about our hopes and expectations. Also, our worries and challenges.

Then we sealed them in envelopes. No one will read them … except each student opening and re-reading his or her own note. Next year.

Yes, these notes will be mailed out to us next March. They will serve as a check-in about where we find ourselves toward the end of our first academic year.

We’ll read our notes to ourselves, and gain some perspective.

  • Have we each accomplished or experienced what we hoped?
  • Have we resolved the issues that concerned us?
  • Have we found balance?
  • How are we doing?
  • What’s going on during the spring semester?

It’s a good idea to check in with yourself from time to time. Reflect. Recap.  Take a step back, and remember there’s a “big idea” to many of the decisions we each make in life. Ideally, we’re not just reacting … not just getting by. Optimally we have made some focused, goal-driven, value-laden choices that provide meaning and context to our  home, relationships, career, education, community, health, and other commitments.

Many of us are in some form of transition. Moving. Changing relationship status. Working toward sobriety. Seeking treatment for better health. Entering or hunting for a new job. Taking up new pastimes. Giving time to special causes. Going to school.

Whatever the reason for change … and whatever the nature of such a transition, it’s easy to worry about details, and forget about the new chances that await us. (This presumes that we can view the cause or result of transformation as an opportunity, which may not always be the case.)

In times of flux, we may lose perspective. In my case, I’m sometimes overwhelmed by a litany of anxiety about juggling loan payments, train tickets, textbook purchases, work projects, class schedules, commuting times, registration info, family time, community service commitments, and many other logistics.

Instead, today I literally wrote a note to myself. Months from now, I’ll open up that envelope and read it as a reminder about why I’m back in school. My reasons include personal growth, vocational development, and the integration of professional and spiritual experiences.

You have your own reasons for whatever changes you’re making.

We can each care for ourselves, metaphorically, by checking in from time to time. Maybe you, too, will write yourself a note and open it sometime in the future, like a time capsule. Or you could flip open your calendar and make an appointment with  your “future” yourself … to pause and take stock. Or make it a diary entry. Or a prayer.

However you do it … take the time to reflect. To appreciate. To observe.

And hopefully, if circumstances permit, to celebrate.

Aug28

Obstacles as Blessings

Posted on by
Standard

A wise person from my past once made the observation that we grow frustrated by obstacles. Yet if we look again, we might realize these are providential occurrences. Blessings.

For instance, we’re in a hurry to arrive at a destination. We’re driving. Ahead of us, someone is going slowly. Below the speed limit!

We grit our teeth, talk to ourselves, complain out loud, gesticulate and generally grow agitated. The woman making this observation, Rev. Sue Remick, challenged her listeners to reconsider whether the slow driver ahead was a problem or a gift. She suggested that this driver, going slowly and causing us to brake and travel at a more thoughtful pace, even causing us to arrive late, was placed in our paths to keep us safe.

Such situations – like a maddeningly slow driver, or losing your keys so you leave the house later than you’d like, or getting a call just as you’re about to walk out the door — could be read as cautionary signs. Blessings in our travels. Fateful moments that we could interpret as a chance to take a little time. Breathe. Pay attention. Stay safe. Slow down.

Some people call these moments “God winks.”

My kundalini yoga instructor has her class recite a specific chant three times at the beginning of many sessions. She also says the chant to herself three times before she turns on the ignition in her car. She believes that it is the difference between safety and danger …  this discipline that causes her to pause, focus, take a little extra care, and begin her journey with a breath of prayer to bless her way. She thinks those few seconds of repeating sacred words, invoking divine assistance, may have saved her life more than once.

I say this same prayer to slow a wheeling mind at night, or to calm me down when I’m angry or overwhelmed, and need to breathe slowly and deeply.

In any situation, you can be annoyed by the delay. Feel your blood pressure escalating.

Or you can breathe. Say a prayer. And try to be grateful for the frustratingly slow driver, or missing keys, or extra errand that sends you on a detour … and consider it a blessing. You may not know just what fate you have escaped today. Or what fate you have embraced.

Such an interpretation is entirely yours to make … but if the event is the same, regardless of how you respond to it, you might as well receive the benefit of it, yes?

After all, if you arrive safely at your destination, or even find yourself going someplace else altogether, you are one step further along your journey … wherever it may take you.

 

Aug27

Exchange

Posted on by
Standard

We’re trading away one experience for another, one season for the next, one set of rhythms for a different one, and even swapping a native tongue for a second language. There’s change in the air, for everyone, including our family. It’s different for each of us, but there’s the common experience of preparing for partings, farewells, movings, relocations, new beginnings, and transformations of all kinds.

Today we exchanged dollars for Euros. Both girls have their plane tickets and passports. They’ll change planes at London’s Heathrow Airport tonight and land in Milan tomorrow morning, where Chicca’s family will meet them. Sarah will visit there for 2 weeks, then come home briefly, before she leaves again for college studies abroad in Greece.

All around me, as I run errands today, picking up this-and-that on our last-minute shopping lists, parents and students are stocking up on notebooks and pencils, markers and backpacks, sneakers and snacks. Just a few days (hours in our case) to go, and so many logistics to complete. Bills paid. Medical forms completed. Schedules printed. Registration forms filled out. Permission slips signed. IDs ready. Transportation arranged. Meals organized. Even housing and dorm room supplies for older students.

It’s a rush. It ends – and starts anew — at a doorway, a gate, or a portal of some kind. Our children, our families, our friends, our loved ones … we, ourselves, are destined for an exit, a passageway or a border crossing.

Even if it’s as simple as exchanging summer habits for autumn ones, warm-season activities for crisp-fall ones, and pulling out long sleeves, close-toed shoes, and extra layers … we’re all preparing. Packing up necessities. Getting ready for change.

For some families, it’s a change of caregivers for medical support. Transition from hospital to clinic.

For others it’s the move from home to college or boarding school. Or simply the start of class hours after a summer of different freedoms.

For some it’s a different sport or extracurricular season. Return to winter work hours, with a different pace and dress code.

The days feel long and lazy, even now. We might stop long enough to lift our face to the sun, and let its heat kiss flushed cheeks and closed eyes, before we keep moving.

Yet the pace of life is already quickened, urgent, thumping with a vitality that drums out the rhythm of change. In a few hours, Sarah and Chicca carry backpacks through security gates, leaving behind English-speaking countries, as the next step in their journeys.

All of us, one way or another, are on the move.

Aug24

Last Summer Wishes

Posted on by
Standard

Are you ever ready? Yes, yes, some of us are muttering, “Is it time for school to start yet? Will summer ever end? I’m ready …”

But are we ready? Do we wish to give up what we have right now? Do we desire to reach for something else?

Each season seems so brief, when we look back at it.

Moon over Castle Hill during Entrain concert (image by Miriam Novogrodsky)

At the beginning of this flip of the calendar, we felt wealthy. For instance, just weeks ago, I lived inside a largesse of time and possibility. Our summer schedule seemed well-stocked with a balance of plans and freedom: days and evenings, nights and mornings, to dawdle away or jam with activities … to spend as we chose.

We blinked, and now suddenly it is almost gone. It feels as if we’ve used up our wealth of time. Or worse, let it slip away, unappreciated.

Now there’s just one week until Labor Day weekend. Counting down. Ticking away summer in our last adventures!

Our exchange student (aka, Italian host-daughter) Chicca and our own eldest child Sarah are savoring their final days in the United States, and then they travel to Italy early next week. Their last few days are filled with:

  • Evening concert at Castle Hill
  • Camping at Pawtuckaway in New Hampshire
  • Swimming
  • Friends
  • Bonfires
  • Sight-seeing in Boston
  • Whatever else fits into one last long weekend …

Many high school and college students are already deep into training for the fall sports season. School begins next week for many local public schools. College students are moving into dorms (or flying away, similar to Sarah, to their destinations around the world for global exchange).

Folks with different seasonal vocations or roles will soon (if they haven’t already) be starting new schedules and projects. Me? I expect to be indoors for the much of the remaining month. (Who planned this?!) Next week, for instance,  I’ll spend four days at orientation for grad school.

So what will be on my personal wish list for the remainder of the summer?

  • Enjoy being in Boston and Cambridge next week. (Maybe get outside and spend time in Harvard Square.) Walk along the Charles River.
  • Kayak on the Ipswich river.
  • Walk on the beach.
  • Picnic.
  • Bonfire.
  • One last late summer dinner with friends.
  • Jump off a bridge (into the river)?
  • Harvest part of the share from Appleton fields.
  • Date night with Chris.

We have one week remaining. Okay, a little longer. So pay attention. Don’t let it slip past you, unacknowledged. Grab hold of some of it. Enjoy it. Make it count.

Then perhaps we’re ready for summer’s hot sweaty rhythms to wind down. We’re able to welcome autumn’s vivid colors and crisp days into our lives.

And the goodness of what we have experienced over the past few months … and surely there are some bright, wondrous, simple interludes to be savored and remembered … will continue to provide healing and balance, long after the days grow shorter and the nights grow longer.

Aug8

Wild Berry Season

Posted on by
Standard

My neighbors Hugh and Gary were recently out of town, and gave us permission to pick raspberries from the bushes around their home. They’re called canes, and they actually have thorns, so you have to pick with care.

Now if you are diligent, you may accumulate enough of these ripe wild fruits to concoct something sweet and filling. A dessert. A pie. A crumble. Something scrumptious.

Or you could just eat them as you plucked them. Save a few for one more serving at home.

The best intentions in the world cannot transform a half-pint of berries (because you ate as many as you saved) into a pie. So you might as well just finish them off.

Maybe you think I have lazy afternoons to stroll around, picking berries. Hah. Three of us ventured among the raspberry canes, plucking and slurping, on a late weekend afternoon, between chores and errands, because the enticement was too great not to go. And we didn’t want the offer to go to waste.

And yes, we each wanted an excuse to linger in the golden light and green boughs for a brief part of the day. To escape from the dirty, messy, sweaty tasks that had driven all of us earlier in the day … to remember that it’s summer, that life is bursting to be discovered and savored, and this was our chance.

Berries like this have a short time in the sun and the summer. Weeks, maybe. Birds and mammals will feast on them. We must compete for their juicy burst on our tongues.

The best ones hide, tucked beneath the dappled shade of overlapping leaves, among the thorns and daggers, so that you have to bend, cock you head to one side, and maybe even double over to peer from another angle, then reach thoughtfully through the gauntlet of “prickers” (as we used to call them when we were kids) before you discover the best cluster of ripe ones.

There’s a specific sensory memory I have, brought to “living color” with the scent of the ripe berries, and the sensation of the summer sun hot on my shoulders as I reach among the branches and leaves, into the purple-blue shadows, to find the sun-kissed promise of berries awaiting my tentative fingertips. I did this as a child.

And my mother always promised to make a pie, if I picked enough. But I never did. I nibbled. I sampled. I slurped and snacked. I brought home enough for a small bowl with a little milk … because that’s how we ate them, back then. Never enough for a pie.

Now? I’d eat them with oatmeal, or topping some of Meryl’s homemade ice cream. And I would taste my own long-outgrown childhood, and realize that some of life’s pleasures continue even into our later adult decades.

This week, my friend Meryl hiked up the hill while I kept her daughter company. She returned with enough blackberries to make a bursting-at-the-lattice-crust-seams pie. You can see some of the remains here …because it didn’t last too long, once it came out of the oven.

Childhood. Adulthood. Berry-picking. Some parts of summer, fleeting as they are, give us back the magic of life.