Syracuse Bound?

I haven't written in a while. I got swallowed up by the end of the fall semester and Christmas. Then we spent most of the winter shoveling and trying to keep our pipes from freezing. And as the weeks, then months went by, I started thinking maybe I was done with the blog because maybe I was finally getting used to my emptying nest. But last week I hit a bump in the road. Friday night I was sitting in the darkened high school auditorium watching act one of Bye Bye Birdie. I glanced back and saw my son, the director, standing at the back, keeping watch over the production. Steve was in the seat next to me, and my daughter, Em, was sitting nearby with her boyfriend. She'd arrived home a couple of hours earlier, and as I was fixing dinner, she checked her email and discovered she'd been accepting into the SUITR program at Syracuse University. We cheered and hugged and took big, deep sighs of relief that she'd made it into the program and now had a good option for life after graduation, then we headed off to see the musical. I think I was watching the scene where fifteen-year-old Kim McAfee starts calling her parents by their first names and her mom is wishing her daughter wasn't growing up quite so fast, when all of a sudden it hit me: if Em goes to Syracuse, she has to be on campus by June 2. This means for the first time ever, we will have no kids at home for the summer. I whispered this to Steve and saw in an instant the thought hadn't yet occurred to him either. He squeezed my hand and we turned our attention back to the show. But later that night after we got home, we tried to come to terms with how we were feeling. Were we happy for her? Absolutely. Proud? You bet. Yet were we sad for ourselves? You better believe it. Suddenly, the summer started stretching out looking long, hot, and lonely. The Syracuse shadow has loomed over me all week.  But then I started thinking about Bye Bye Birdie. One of the main characters in the show is 33-year-old Albert Peterson. Part of the plot revolves around him trying to break the news to his overbearing mother (Mae Peterson) that he is going to dissolve the family business and marry his secretary Rose Alvarez. Deep in the second act when Albert finally gets up the courage to tell his mother, once and for all, she says, "So it's come at last. At last it's come. The day I knew would come at last has come, at last. My sonny-boy doesn't need me anymore." Now there's a part of me that can definitely relate to and sympathize with Mae, but I know I don't want to be Mae. I would never want to get in the way of my kids' futures. So if Em heads off to Syracuse at the beginning of June, we will cheer her on and move her in and hug her hard. Then we will come back to our empty house and muddle through the long, hot summer as best we can, reminding ourselves that July will be easier than June and next summer will be easier than this summer. And maybe one day soon, this blog can find a new direction!

Cape May

The first time we went to Cape May our kids were six, four, and one. One-year-old Emily spent most of the week asleep in her little umbrella stroller, but the rest of us fell in love with the Victorian houses and the little shops, with Sunset Beach and Bodacious Bagels, and especially with the sun, the sand, and the ocean! We returned the next summer, and then four more times over the next twelve years. We always went with some (or all) of my family--sometimes renting a house together and sometimes getting adjoining motel rooms. Some of our fondest memories are from those Cape May vacations--despite years when it was cold and rainy or when the water was too full of jellyfish to swim or when half the group had the stomach flu. To me there's something almost magical about a beach vacation, and I've been missing the ocean. After a seven-year dry spell, we are headed back to Cape May. Before long we'll be packing all three kids (now twenty-six, twenty-four, and twenty-one) and all our beach gear into our good old minivan to make the long drive to the Jersey shore. When we get there, we'll be cosily sharing one hotel room--tightly equipped with two double beds, a sofa bed, and a cot, so we're hoping hard for good weather and cheerful moods! I know things will be different than they used to be: Bodacious Bagels is no longer in business; my kids won't have their cousins to hang out with; Steve and I won't have my siblings and their spouses to laugh and talk and walk with; my mom won't be whizzing by on her bicycle. But I still can't wait to get there. I can't wait to see the mighty Atlantic Ocean and the brightly colored houses of Cape May again; I can't wait to take early morning walks on the quiet beach and spend afternoons reading in the sun. But what I'm looking forward to more than anything is having our little family together again for a few blissful, uninterrupted days.

Burlap Curtains and Locust Shells

Two things happened recently that reminded me of my childhood. First, I read this Facebook post by author Anna Quindlen:

"Can I get a cicada update from hither and yon? Ours seem to have progressed from deafening to loud to persistent, which perhaps means one morning we will wake to discover they are gone. Two cicada uses, one small, one great: when you drop one onto the surface of the pond and a bass comes at it like a torpedo, you instantly understand the genius of fly fishing. And when you think that this brood of cicadas will not reappear for 17 years, it makes you soberly consider the passage of time. I will be 77 when they emerge again--that is, if I am very lucky."

Second, I saw this picture on Pinterest with the caption "DIY Burlap Curtains":

In the mid-1960s, when my dad was in graduate school at Ball State University, we lived in the Anthony Apartments, one of Ball State's off-campus housing communities.  Although my mom had very little extra money to work with, she did her best to make the small student apartment a home for the six of us. One of her thrifty ideas was making burlap curtains for the window in the tiny bedroom I shared with my sister and brothers.  They weren't as long or as grand as the ones in the picture above, but they did have red and white rick-rack trim sewed along the bottom.  Because the apartment was so small, we spent a lot of time outside, and because our budget was so lean, we mostly did things that didn't cost any money like taking walks.  But as I've mentioned before, a walk with my mom was never just a walk. One of the things we did on our walks during our two summers in Muncie was look for locust shells.  When we found one, we'd gently pluck it off the tree and take it home where we would attach it to our burlap curtains.  On the rare occasions we found a locust (actually a cicada) still in its shell, Mom would tell us the story of how baby cicadas hatch from their eggs then burrow underground where they stay for up to seventeen years before they emerge, crawl up a tree, shed their shells, and begin their adult lives. So to me, locust shells have always been more fascinating than ugly--though I've come to understand not everyone (including my husband) feels this way! As I remembered those burlap curtains with the parade of locust shells climbing up them, I was thinking about about how much the world has changed since I was a kid. I don't know where my mom got the idea of making burlap curtains--maybe she thought it up herself or perhaps she saw them in someone else's apartment--but today, with just a couple of clicks, I can find dozens of pictures and posts of burlap curtains as well as hundreds of other clever, creative, inexpensive window covering ideas.  And when I was a kid, the authors of the books I loved to read seemed remote, almost magical, and not-quite-real; now I can read the wonderful, intriguing, everyday details of authors' lives on their blogs and websites; I can even find out on Facebook that an author I admire shares my fascination with cicadas! Yet, at the same time, I was also thinking how little the world has changed: people have always found unique ways to decorate on a budget and amuse their kids at the same time; cicadas continue to emerge from their underground hiding places, reminding us of their presence with their persistent singing and by the shells they leave behind.  Since I often worry about the world my children are inheriting, I like being reminded that change can be good and technology can connect us in ways I never would have imagined, but I also like knowing that some things don't change.

Here We Go Again

The real packing hasn't begun in earnest yet, but the pile of stuff in the piano room is starting to grow as it does every year around this time.  I'm not sure that sending a child off to college at the end of the summer is any easier now than it was seven years ago when we did it for the first time, but I guess I've finally gotten somewhat used to it.  This doesn't stop me from feeling sad each time I pass through the piano room and see textbooks and dishes and laundry detergent waiting to be loaded into the van.  It also doesn't eliminate the tension I feel between yearning to hold on and needing to let go.  And, of course, I'm well aware of how empty and quiet the house is going to feel Thursday night.  But watching my children go and come back repeatedly over the past several years has built up a kind of resilience in me that I didn't feel when this whole process started.  With our youngest child heading into her junior year, we are nearing the end of the path we started seven years ago, and I suspect I am going to need every bit of that resilience as we face the next step: life after the college years.

A Long Weekend

My mom's recent visit went just about the way I imagined it would, and it was lovely.  It felt like vacation with its slow pace, good food, good company, long walks, board games, and frequent laughter.  One problem with vacations is the letdown that often follows, and this weekend was no exception.  When Mom left Thursday night, she was accompanied by our kids who had made plans to visit their Pennsylvania cousins.  Somehow, I hadn't really anticipated the emptiness I would feel--I thought I'd finally gotten used to my kids' coming and going and the quiet house, but for some reason, the sudden absence of both kids at once hit my husband and me hard.  It was as if we'd both lost our footing and neither was able to steady the other.  Friday was an exasperating day--nothing went right from morning to night.  Saturday was stormy outside and in--we muddled through the day, but by evening our tempers were short, and we ended up having a stupid argument that at first appeared to be about other things but once we had cooled off and calmed down, we realized what was underneath it all: we both missed our kids and I missed my mom, and we didn't quite know what to do with ourselves.  Then Sunday dawned bright and clear, and we regained our equilibrium.  We slept late, watched a bit of Olympic tennis and the end of the women's road race, went to church, and then spent the afternoon cooking and relaxing and reading on the porch.  We had a layered Cobb salad for dinner (a dish that none of our kids would have liked but we loved), followed by a peach pie made with the local peaches I got at yesterday's farmers' market.  After supper we drove to the lake to watch the sunset. The peace and contentment that were missing Friday and Saturday are back.  And although I'll be happy to see our kids when they roll in around midnight, I'm grateful for this long weekend and for what it's taught me: to be thankful for the blessings we've had and for those that remain.

  

Gone Swimming

My dad never learned to swim.  Because of that and because he was big on safety, he wanted all of us kids to learn.  My earliest swimming lessons were less than successful--I clung to the side of the pool and cried.  But my parents didn't give up, and before long I was a swimmer.  I spent a majority of my summer afternoons at the town pool.  Although in those days, "going swimming" didn't really mean doing the backstroke.  It meant seeing how many somersaults you could do in a row underwater on a single breath, lying on a thin towel in the sun while talking to friends, going out to play in the park for a while, and doing can openers and cannon balls off the diving board.  It also meant sitting impatiently on the side of the pool with all the other kids for ten minutes every hour during the adult swim.  As I dangled my feet in the water, I watched the middle-aged women in their flowered bathing caps sidestroking their way across the pool; I used to wonder why they did it and what on earth was fun about those slow, steady laps they swam.  Well, now I am one of those middle-aged women.  My swim cap is black, not flowered, and I don't do the sidestroke.  But there I am, a middle-aged woman swimming calmly back and forth across the pool.  It started after a very stressful spring semester.  I was having trouble calming myself down, and for the first time in my life I had high blood pressure.  I had read that swimming was good for lowering blood pressure, so I decided to give it a try.  I started slowly, and before long I discovered I still really liked to swim.  I'm extremely nearsighted, so when I'm in the water with no glasses or contact lenses, I can barely see anything.  And when I'm doing any stroke other than the head-above-water breaststroke, I can barely hear anything.  So I once I'm in the pool, I'm in my own watery world.  The rhythmic strokes and the cool, soothing water did a lot to calm me down that first summer.  And the smell of chlorine on my suit and in my hair took me right back to my childhood.  Most of the time I swim at the college natatorium.  It's nothing like the pool of my childhood.   I don't meet up with friends anymore.  I don't jump off the diving board.  And I can't remember the last time I did a somersault in the water.  But once again I'm spending many of my summer afternoons at the pool.  Thanks for the swimming lessons, Dad!

Are You Staying Cool Enough, Babe?

We are on day three of temperatures near ninety degrees here in western New York.  Every summer we get several stretches of weather like this, and every summer I wish for central air.  Earlier this month, we went so far as to call for an estimate. “Let’s just see what it would cost,” I told my husband.  The answer: a LOT.  As it turns out our 120-year-old house is not well-suited for central air—something about no cold air returns upstairs and other things I don’t remember because I didn’t really understand them to begin with.  The bottom line is we’re back to fans and window units in two of the upstairs bedrooms.  Seeing an air conditioner in the window always make me think of my dad.  All the years we were growing up, he had one in his bedroom.  I remember feeling that blast of cold air when I walked in to borrow his scissors or to ask him a question in when he was working at his desk.  Years later when I had grown up and moved away, the first question my dad asked when he called on hot summer days was “Are you staying cool enough, babe?”  I wrote this poem a few years ago, and on this hot summer day I am thinking of my dad and of the way parents never stop taking care of their kids.

Are you staying warm enough?

he would ask when he called

on cold winter days

ever since he heard

that our dog's water froze

in her dish

in our cold New Hampshire

kitchen.

It only happened once

a long time ago,

but he never forgot.

"I'll send you some money

to help with your heating bill.

Turn your thermostat up a few degrees

I don't want the kids to be cold."

Are you staying cool enough?

He would ask when he called

during summer heat waves.

Despite my reassurances

of fans, backyard wading pools,

and sprinkler parties,

a second call came one summer day.

"Be watching for a surprise delivery.

It should be arriving soon. . .

Oh, I'll go ahead and tell you:

I got you an air conditioner.

You need one room to cool off in."

I wish I could call him today

to tell him

that a crazy hot June

drew us to the old air conditioner

that's been resting in the corner

of the bedroom through

several temperate summers,

buried under rolls of wrapping paper,

blankets, and stuffed animals

I want to tell him

how his grandson

lugged it up the stairs alone

and helped me wrestle it into

the window.

I want him to know that one room

is now blissfully cool.

But he's out of range

of phones,

of cold snaps,

of heat waves.

And I can't tell him

that although

we're warm enough in winter

and cool enough in summer,

I miss the asking,

and I miss my dad.

I'll Walk

"It's hard to explain how a few precious things seem to follow throughout all our lives . . ." (--Kenny Loggins, "House at Pooh Corner").

My mom didn't have a car or even a driver's license when my siblings and I were young, so we did a lot of walking, especially in the summer.   And Mom did a great job of making walking fun--we'd sing along the way, skip to a certain landmark up ahead, stop to play Pooh Sticks at the creek, hide in stairwells, and sometimes stop for banana popsicles on the way home.  When I got older, I walked to town and to the pool by myself most days, singing show tunes along the way. Later, when Steve and I were newly married, we moved to New Hampshire. Our old Pontiac broke down on the trip north, so after we returned the U-Haul truck, we had no transportation other than our feet.  We walked everywhere those first few months in Concord. It ended up being a great way to get to know our new town, and even after we got a little car, we still took a lot of walks, just for fun; we walked around beautiful neighborhoods and dreamed of our future.  We were still a one-car family when our oldest was born, so after Steve started teaching, Ben and I walked wherever we needed to go on weekdays.  Even after the other two were born and we acquired a second car, the kids and I still walked to town and to the playground and library; well, I walked--they rode in the stroller or the wagon, then pedaled tricycles, tractors, and eventually two-wheelers.  In those days, I rarely got out for a walk by myself.  I didn't even realize how much I missed those mind-clearing, thought-organizing, perspective-restoring walks until I started taking them again after the kids got older.  Later on, when our nest first started to empty and I was struggling with my sense of loss, I walked and walked and walked, often with tears streaming down my face.  I consciously tried to vary my routes so people wouldn't start worrying about "that crying woman who always walks past here."  I'm in a better place now with the whole empty nest situation, but I still walk a lot, especially in the summer.  I headed out for a walk around nine this morning; I was trying to beat the heat, though it was already eighty degrees when I left the house.  I had my iPod with me (I've been on a Louisa May Alcott kick for a while now--I've listened to Little Men, Good Wives, and Jo's Boys and am working my way through Eight Cousins now), but like most days so far this summer, I didn't get around to pressing play until I was nearly back home again.  I was too busy noticing things: a grandfather lifting his grandson up to press in the code on the garage door, neighbors chatting across a hedge, a young dad pushing a barefooted baby in a stroller, explosions of color in cheerful, well-tended flower gardens, and a white-haired woman watering the hanging baskets on her front porch--she had these great pulley-gadgets that allowed her to easily raise and lower the baskets (when I complimented her flowers, she told me all about her new gadgets and demonstrated them for me--two for $5 at Home Depot for anyone who's interested).  As I passed the White Inn, there was a sprinkler watering the grass; almost without thinking, I slowed my pace so it would spray me as I passed.  I walked on, feeling a little foolish but refreshed, and all of a sudden, I was reminded of my little girl self walking with my mom.    And that's when I realized going for walks is one of the things I've been doing my whole life.  And I'm never just walking: I'm thinking and praying, planning and dreaming, watching and remembering.  And sometimes, like today, I'm even skipping a little bit on the inside.  My mother taught me well.  I hope my legs hold out and I can keep walking the rest of my life.

Playground Day

When my kids were young, once a year, toward the end of summer, we had a day we called Playground Day.  We would pack a picnic lunch and lots of snacks and sports equipment and set out early in the morning to visit all the playgrounds in town.  Back in those days each playground was different.  The one at the school was one of those amazing wooden labyrinth structures.  The one at Barker Playground had a tall metal slide.  Gardner Street Playground was their favorite with its curly slide and wooden merry-go-round.  By the time we got home in the late afternoon, we were hot and tired but happy.  When I was out walking today, I saw that the village has recently installed a new playground on the Hamlet Street side of Russell Joy Park.  It looks just like all the other playgrounds in town.  I know the wooden playground was prone to yellow jackets and splinters.  I know the steps to the tall metal slides were steep and the slides got hot in the sun. And I know kids sometimes tumbled off the merry-go-round when it got going too fast and they weren't holding on tightly enough. I also know the new playground equipment is probably more durable, as well as safer.  But I miss the old playgrounds with all their variety, and I sure do miss our old Playground Days.