everyday life

Around here lately

Whit spent a week studying the reproductive system in school.  On the last day of the unit, they watched a video of a birth.  “How was it?” I asked him.

He thought for a minute and then answered, “Gunky.”

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One Friday night in late January, after family dinner, Grace, Whit and I spent a solid hour looking at old photographs and reading old blog posts. It started with my remembering Whit’s passion for his exercise pants. I felt grateful for the record I have of them as small children.  Then, the evening devolved into poking Whit’s stuffed narwhal’s horn into each other’s ears.  As we do.

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Grace has been wearing her hair in two braids for hockey, which reminds me of both my own childhood hairdo and, far more poignantly, of the two pigtails she used to wear as a toddler. Oh, life.  Taking my breath away on a daily basis since 2002.

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Many years ago we had a spirited car conversation about what we would get if we ever got a tattoo.  Everyone had an answer and mine was a small tear under one eye.  Last week, Whit came home from school with a small tear under one eye, rendered in sharpie.  Because it was sharpie, it took a while to come off!

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As usual, in this dark season (meteorologically and otherwise), life is full of beauty.  Small, glimmering moments.  I just try to keep seeing them.

 

Marching

On Saturday, January 21st, Grace and I left our house at about 10:30 to head into Boston to join the march.  There was a couple behind us in pink hats as we walked down our street to the T stop.  It was crowded at the T stop, and it was slow going down the escalators to the trains.  It started to dawn on me that a lot of people were there.  We had to wait for a couple of trains to go by because only a couple of people could squeeze into the cars, and the platform was jammed.

Finally we got into a car.  As we made our way into Boston, slowly because there were a lot of unusual stops (presumably because the car ahead of us couldn’t shut its doors when trying to leave the station ahead of us), the people in our T car began to sing.  First, We Shall Overcome.  Then, This Land is Our Land.  I had tears rolling down my cheeks within moments.

We got off the T in Boston and made our way slowly down Charles Street towards the Boston Common.  The streets were packed with people walking, holding signs and wearing pink, men and women both. When we got to the Common, we found a corner to stand and Grace climbed the gate so she could see more.  As far as the eye could see: people.  Old, young, male, female, families. There were many fantastic signs, about 95% of which were positive in nature.

I was moved to tears over and over again during the day.  There was a tangible energy in the air, of cooperation and support, of love and energy and, yes, resistance.  But it was peaceful and strong and diverse. I’m a Bostonian through and through, and there are many times this city has moved me. The parades and the tragedies and the triumphs.  All of it.  But Saturday felt different, somehow, soft while still being resolved, determined. There were so many people, and yet it was calm, peaceful.

I kept looking at Grace and several of her friends, most of them 14 now, thinking about how they will vote in the next presidential election, about how I desperately want our country to be what they deserve.  Grace is paying attention.  I was so proud to watch her as she watched the crowd, noticed signs, and sensed the energy around her. I don’t know that I have a specific conclusion other than to say I was tremendously moved to be a tiny part of the tidal wave that was this past weekend.  When I heard people chanting “This is what democracy looks like” I felt a frisson of acknowledgement, deep and true, that I believe that, and also of how far parts of our leadership have drifted from that.

In the days since Saturday I’ve seen one quote over and over again on social media.  My mother gave me a pillow years ago with these same words on it, and I love them:

Here’s to strong women.
May we know them
May we be them
May we raise them.

Amen.  I’m grateful to be flanked by strong women in my own family, and I am more thankful than I can express to have been a small part of Saturday’s demonstration.

Winter break

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I want to remember winter break this year, because it was utterly ordinary and not at all perfect.  Already, as I write this in early January, the not-perfectness, the yelling and the imperfection, is fading into the slurry of memory and I’m recalling the shimmer of quiet days together.  It was the last time that my children will ever celebrate Christmas at 14 and 11, and every moment these days is limned with its own numbered-ness.  I know we won’t come back here. I want to remember it.

The week before Christmas was sort of frantic, with Matt and I working and the kids seeing friends before they left town.  Whit had a wonderful visit with one of his besties from camp who was visiting Boston. We celebrated with dear friends and finally, on the 24th, baked Christmas cookies.  On the 24th, we went to our local church for the annual pageant and service that I love so dearly.  I thought of the two Christmas Eves that Whit spent in the Children’s Hospital ER before he was 5 and felt grateful that he was sitting next to me in the pew. Then we had Christmas Eve dinner with my parents and our oldest, dearest family friends.  I sat next to my very first friend (we met when he was 6 weeks old and I was 2 weeks old) and watched my son (his godson) as we sang carols and felt full – of love, of all that’s over and almost-over, of what’s coming, of life itself.

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Then, on the 25th, the world screeched to a halt for a few days of quiet, which was entirely welcome. We had several days of marvelous visits with my sister, her husband, and her two children.  We had dinner with my father’s brother and his family (his oldest daughter, my first cousin, lives in Boston and is near and dear to all four of us) and celebrated my sister’s birthday.  My parents took Hilary and me and our families away for a night and we enjoyed being together.  There was rain and blue sky, milkshakes and birthday candles, swimming in a tiny pool and board games on the floor of a hotel gym.

On New Year’s Eve, friends from the neighborhood came over for an impromptu drink before dinner.  It was lovely.  Then we had New Year’s Eve dinner as a foursome, under stars on which each of us wrote some intentions for the new year. We played board games and had dessert and then moved upstairs to the family room.  Matt fell asleep and I joined him about 10:30.  Grace and Whit watched the ball drop.  I don’t know how long they will want to mark New Year’s Eve this way, but I’m going to enjoy every single second of it while they do.

On January 2nd, Matt and I went for a run together!  We ran and walked, and mostly walked, but we were out there, and together.  I can’t believe how far he’s come from the fall, when he was immobile and recovering.  I’m thrilled for him, and proud. It felt like an auspicious way to start the new year.  I’m hoping it’s a great year for us all, and for you, as well.

2016 in review: October, November, December

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One random October Sunday, on the steps of the McKim, Mead & White Boston Public Library

I wrote about the gifts strangely, beautifully, painfully wrapped, that Matt’s injury held.

The word I chose for 2016 feels ironic or almost comical, sometimes.  Maybe it’s time to rethink what “ease” means to me?

Grace turned fourteen.

In what’s become an annual tradition, I wrote about the books I was giving this holiday season.

I admitted (over and over, when I revisit these months) that life was pretty stressful this fall.

I closed the year keenly aware of both darkness and light.

My favorite of the quotes I shared:

We are here to witness the creation and abet it. We are here to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed. Together we notice not only each mountain shadow and each stone on the beach but, especially, we notice the beautiful faces and complex natures of each other. We are here to bring to consciousness the beauty and power that are around us and to praise the people who are here with us. We witness our generation and our times. We watch the weather. Otherwise, creation would be playing to an empty house.

~Annie Dillard from The Meaning of Life edited by David Friend

2016 in review: July, August, September

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Sunset on July 4, 2016

We celebrated the Fourth of July with my sister and her family, as has become tradition.

I took the month of August off from blogging.

I reflected on the summer that was.  Spoiler: it ended with a big accident.

Matt and I marked our 16th anniversary.  It was a bit heavy on the in sickness part, but it was fine!

I celebrated 10 years of blogging.  It feels like I just started this blog, but I also can’t imagine my life without it.

This whole fall was a lesson in the power of showing up.  A lot of people in my life did, and I won’t forget it.

My favorite quote that I shared:

Melancholy isn’t always a disorder that needs to be cured.  It can be a species of intelligent grief which arises when we come face-to-face with the certainty that disappointment is written into the script from the start.

– Alain de Botton, The Course of Love