This is 45

This is 45.  I am halfway through my forties.

In the first half of this decade, I have: lost a parent and a parent-in-law. watched a child leave home. watched a child get her driver’s license. watched both children grow taller than I am. visited 3 European cities with my children. seen cancer up close. watched my close friends lose parents. gone to funerals, weddings, and christenings. with 4 beloved colleagues, founded a company that’s thriving. seen the Grand Canyon and Hawaii for the first time. edited an essay collection published by Simon & Schuster.

I am less sure of anything than ever. I have more questions about what happens after death every year. I have known some of those dearest to me for over a quarter century. I’ve been married 19 years, and have lived in the same house for 18. I wake up at 5-something almost every day. I can recognize a kindred spirit when I see him or her (and the reverse, too). I told my college friends I was both shocked and grateful to find myself here in midlife, and that’s true.

I have frown lines between my eyes but I’m happier than ever in a quiet, sturdy way. I deeply, deeply love my life.

originally posted on my birthday (8/16) on instagram.

College tours

Over the course of the last three weeks, Grace and I made three separate trips to visit a total of 13 colleges.  As we planned these trips (with precision, I might add!) several people told me how important these experiences had been to them.  These were from all perspectives: people reflecting on college trips they had taken with their parents, parents remembering special visits with their teenagers, and people just slightly older than me who’ve recently done this.

And all three trips – Philadelphia, Connecticut, and Virginia/DC – were absolutely marvelous.  Chock-full of memories and laughter and the occasional bickering too.  Just because we are regular people.  We visited a couple of dear friends but largely kept that to a minimum so that we could just be the two of us.

We danced with the past, the present, and the future these last few weeks, in different, complicated, and lovely ways.

More than once I had the kaleidoscopic, dizzying feeling of time contracting and of my own teenage self walking alongside my adult self and my teenage daughter.  My father in particular was so viscerally present while we toured my alma mater and his that I positively ached for him.

We were quite adamantly present.  I did some work in the afternoons and evenings, yes, and we stayed with two of Grace and Whit’s three godmothers, but mostly we spent a lot of time alone.  We went for runs in spectacular nature preserves, explored unfamiliar towns, tried new restaurants, passed many hours driving, got a little bit lost, experienced two major rain squalls, and took a lot of selfies.

Most of all, though, these three weeks made me aware in a new way of the future.  All of a sudden I can see and sense the years that lie ahead for Grace – the years that were some of the most cherished and formative in my own life – and they are dazzlingly bright.  I feel excited about the experiences that lie just over the threshold for her.  She has two more years of high school, and this future isn’t here yet, but she – and I – feel suddenly aware of it in a new and tangible way.  Like all transitions, this one is bittersweet (holding within it as it does her departure from our home – though, in many ways, that’s already happened), but the truth is it’s far more sweet than bitter.  I’m just plain old excited for her.  It didn’t escape me that the two women we stayed with – two of my very dearest friends – are people I met when I was in boarding school and college.  She’s building relationships and laying down memories now that she’ll have for the rest of her life, and that fact makes me happy.

I shared many photos of our tour on Instagram, and for the next month I’ll only be there.  Happy end of summer, all.

Monday morning thoughts: Hold On

Started Monday with a throwback song at spinning. “Hold On” reminds me intensely of college and the friends I made there, who remain the closest people to me in the world. I’m feeling a swirl of themes that feel correlated, after a wonderful Fourth with family and friends and the World Cup win.

Forgiveness because everyone has their own demons. Everyone grapples with the freight of life in different ways, and the best way forward is to assume that they’re all trying their best.  This is much easier said than done, at least for me!

Love because that’s all there is. Period.

Memory stitched into every day, bittersweet and beautiful. Being in Marion reminds me of my father, every minute of every day.  Maybe not every minute.  But frequently and keenly.  It’s still painful, but I can see that someday the memories will also make me smile.  My father had traveled more widely than almost anyone I’ve ever known, and yet I’m quite sure that the water off Marion Harbor was his favorite place in the world.

Time and retrospect bringing details into stark relief, their edges apparent, their meaning clear.  This weekend Matt and I reflected on our last sail with my father on Brea and how on the return to the harbor we found that the ensign had fallen off.  That never happened in the years I have sailed (or, more importantly, in the many years my father sailed).  In retrospect, knowing what we know now, it’s a detail I find imbued with meaning and eerily prescient.

Self-reliance and a simultaneous awareness that we can’t do it alone (thank you Catarina).  Taking ownership of what we want and going for it. Find your people, hold them close, and go. I think that’s my Monday morning lesson.

Best Books of the Half-Year

I’ve written posts like this for the last several years, and I really enjoy pausing at the year’s midpoint to reflect on what I’ve loved (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018).  I am always interested in books you’ve really enjoyed lately, so please share!

Memoir

All the Lives We Ever Lived: Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf, Katherine Smyth – This memoir, about a giant of a father, his death, and the echoing importance of Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, took my breath away.  I shared a few thoughts about it here.  This is among the most gorgeously written books I’ve read in years.

Running Home, Katie Arnold – Another memoir about the loss of a father, but couldn’t be more different.  Katie’s story, interweaving her childhood with her adult discovery of endurance running, is both moving and inspirational.  I loved it.

Novel

The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai – This book immersed me in a world I knew nothing about (the AIDS crisis in Chicago in the 1980s) and I fell deeply into it.  Makkai’s characters are nuanced and sympathetic, and this was a story I was very sad to see end.  Beautiful.

Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi – This novel captures time, and the often-unseen ways in which the past animates the present, in an intensely lovely way.  The book is haunting and gorgeous, and I am so glad I read it.  This is Grace’s all-school read this summer, and I’m looking forward to talking to her about it.

Gone So Long, Andre Dubus III – I loved this book, which is bleak in many ways but profoundly humane at the same time.  Dubus writes some of the most thoughtful female characters of all, in my opinion.

Late in the Day, Tessa Hadley – There’s something about this quiet book, one of the first I read this year, that has stayed with me.  The characters, the complexity, the echoing absence of the beloved father.  It’s just lovely.

Other

Mostly Plants: 101 Delicious Flexitarian Recipes from the Pollan Family, the Pollan family – I rarely buy cookbooks these days (oh, internet, how you have spoiled me) but this one spoke so directly to how I want to eat these days that I did.  It’s also beautiful. Plant-forward, but with a little bit of meat here and there, recipes that are both inspiring and flexible.  I love this cookbook and have already used it several times.

The Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide for the World’s Most Adventurous Kid, Dylan Thuras – I love this book and gave it to all of my godchildren.  It’s not a surprise that I love maps and atlases, and this book is a fun, adventure-centric play on traditional books of maps.  It is a reminder that the world is large, and beguiling, and full of challenges and joys.

 

Disclosure: these are Amazon affilitate links.

Things I Love Lately

The Great Believers – I was slow to read this book and I’m not sure why, but wow.  Much like The Heart’s Invisible Furies, which I read and adored last year, the novel is about a time and place I knew nothing about (in this case, the AIDS crisis in Chicago in the 1980s).  It’s thoughtful and beautiful and heartbreaking and engrossing all at once.  One of my favorite books of 2019 for sure. Highly recommend.

Forties Stories – I have mentioned this podcast before, and I love it.  It was an honor to be interviewed by Christy a few weeks ago!  If you want to hear a little more about my strange childhood (a tantrum about visiting the Berlin Wall, for example) please check it out.  I love all of Christy’s episodes and think the world needs more curiosity, more stories, and more empathy.  She’s contributing.  Give them a listen.

All-School Reads – I am fascinated by what schools choose as their All School Read.  I think it’s a telling choice in many ways.  Grace’s this summer is Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing, which I’m going to read alongside her.  Whit’s school doesn’t have one this year.  I’d love to hear whether your children’s school or college has a required book and if so, what it is!

The Handmaid’s Tale – I subscribed to Hulu just to watch this series, which I started after re-reading the book in March.  I just started the third season.  Wow.  I know I’m only adding my voice to the (deservedly loud) chorus but I think this is a must-watch.  It’s terrifying and prescient, powerfully acted, and scary precisely because there are ways in which this dystopian world feels believable to me. I don’t watch a lot of TV, but in my opinion this is essential viewing.

I write these Things I Love posts approximately monthly.  You can find them all here.