For some reason have had Crossing the Bar in my head lately – one of Tennyson’s finest, and a poem that always makes me think of my Daddy. Not sure why it’s on my mind – it’s a little gloomy, to some, though I think it’s hopeful and reassuring. Maybe it’s just the notion that I’m setting out to a new sea. So, for Daddy, I post it here.

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

Just piled Matt and Gracie into the car (with Mary Poppins on DVD, much to Matt’s delight) and am now hanging out with Whit. Matt & Grace are going up to New Hampshire to join the Lavallees for a ski weekend and I’m going to hold down the fort with the little guy. He’s sadly not much interested in Bob the Builder and keeps coming into my office where I’m trying to pay bills and write birthday cards and generally take care of the details of the week.

Have been reading a lot about my new industry and just feel so excited! Just need to get on with it. One more NY trip for BCG to close some loops & say some goodbyes, and then Providence here we come! Hooray! After a long President’s Day weekend (and my half birthday – and you know how important half birthdays are to August babies like me) I will get into the car and head south. I can’t WAIT.
Don’t have a lot to report. Lovely visit with HWM yesterday, albeit too brief. Also saw Bouff and got to celebrate the news that her baby is a … X! I won’t spill her news here, but it’s exciting and I can’t wait for July to roll around so I have a Princeton newborn to hug and cuddle and coo over. Especially since my own Princeton babies are large and loud now, very distant from their own babyhoods.
Photograph is of the Cambridge Skating Club in full ice mode … from last weekend, where we spent most of our weekend on the ice. Grace is a maniacal skater already and I can easily flash forward to my future as a hockey mom. Will need to invest in some Sorels for that.

Today was the first day I noticed it staying light perceptibly later; all at once spring seems visible over the edge of the horizon. This awareness of lengthening light always makes me think of Lacy. Who else is as attuned as I am to the rhythms of the world as we move from solstice to equinox, and back again?

Valentine’s Day. I normally hate this holiday with a passion, though I’m enjoying sending Tabblo Valentines … check it out. Really cool, fun, and easy.

I think most things about Valentine’s Day are trite and hackneyed and lacking in real emotion. I don’t know that I’m interested in romance, per se, though I am very moved by deep human emotion. I filled out one of those dumb questionnaires about myself today (and I say dumb in a non-judgemental way, because I LOVE those things) … and the answer to “when did you last cry” was “yesterday – I cry most days.” Carly responded and said, what are you crying about – is it x, y, or just from real emotion? And the answer is clearly Z. That’s just how I’m wired. That whole without-skin thing.

Songs that I think evoke true feelings, that I’d consider “romantic,” include:
Romeo & Juliet – Dire Straits
A Case of You – Joni Mitchell
Love Will Come to You – Indigo Girls
any Springsteen from The Ghost of Tom Joad
Melissa – Allman Brothers
Simple Man – CSN&Y
Easy Silence – Dixie Chicks
True Companion – Mark Cohn

I’ll keep thinking of more and will add.

And, now that I’m in this mood and cooking with gas, a few of my favorite words by others that evoke love, romance, emotion, feelings (this could be an epic post, so I’ll try hard to pick only a very few).

“I believe that without each other we are missing something vital to us both. I believe simply that.” – Mary Gordon, Living at Home

“Thank you, whatever comes.
One hour was sunlit and the most high gods
May not make boast of any better thing
Than to have watched that hour as it passed.” – Ezra Pound

“I believe in the soul. I believe in the dawn, the evening, the small of a woman’s back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch … the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning instead of Christmas eve, and long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days.” – Bull Durham

“He taught me to trust myself and not to settle for seeing things the same way.” – Ann Beattie, Jacklighting

“A magic person walked up to my life just now and my life shifted ninety degrees.” – Reynolds Price, Blue Calhoun

“To the one with her head out the window, drinking the rain.
To the one who sang me a lullabye over the phone.
To the one who, divining love in this rocky terrain, has made it her own.” – George Starbuck, dedication of Bone Thoughts (to Anne Sexton)

Closing up the BCG shop. I have over 10 years of personal writing, photographs, etc on this computer so I’ve been going through it all in preparation for transfer to a new home computer …

And someone suggested that it’s dangerous not to have any of my pictures backed up, so I am putting as many as possible onto Tabblo … I trust my beloved Tabblo-ers will take good care of the pictures … the process is resulting in some crazy strolls down memory lane. If you find yourself with time to kill, check out www.tabblo.com … if you’ve ever accepted pictures from me you should be able to see a whole bunch from the past now. Weddings, christenings, and a couple of ones dedicated to special folks.

Whit turns two


So, Whit is two. Seems like yesterday we were at Verrill Farm at Grace’s very elaborate second birthday party. Poor Whit had to make do with Bread & Circus cupcakes and a few dear friends in the kitchen. Company was excellent, the planning a little less detailed than Grace’s bash. It’s amazing how differently I feel about them at age two. At two Grace felt like a little person – I re-read yesterday the letter I wrote to her on her second birthday, and she was clearly such a little personality already. Whit is clearly himself, of course, but he’s just so much less fully formed. I’m sure at least half of this is my own self wanting to keep my last baby a baby, and it may also be a boy/girl thing … it’s certainly driven in large part by how much less verbal he is than she was. But I still think of him as my baby – I still call him that, I still carry him most of the time, I seem unready for him to be launched into the life of his own independent childhood! I’m not aware of this unreadiness, by the way, intellectually, but when I reflect on the way I treat him, that is the emotion that seems to be manifest. It also seems odd to think that at Grace’s birthday I was six months pregnant with Whit – it’s hard to imagine being pregnant now.
Well, I guess it’s official: no more babies in the Mead-Russell house. It’s a cliche and it’s also powerfully true: the days are long, and the years are short.