the mud

One book I have to reread every summer is All the Places to Love, a lovely, lovely picture book by Patricia MacLachlan.   How is it that when we come to Massachusetts I fall more in love with my husband.  His face changes, my face changes, we are calmer, we are more patient, we are happier, all because of a place. His family has lived here for generations.  His grandfather was known in town as Doc.  His grandmother was the school nurse.  He grew up climbing this mountain and swimming in the lake and now our kids are doing the same.  I can hear their voices echoing across the lake form the top of the mountain.  It is the most beautiful sound in the world.  If I were a designer I could have a grand time redesigning all the rooms and window treatments and furniture and floors.  But this house, "the camp," has gone untouched for 50 years and it will be awhile before it is ever redesigned.  Yet each little thing is precious.  A picture of a cousin, circa 1970, that

It's almost July 25.  Okay.  Back to life.  Back to being Mommy, or Mom, as they now say.  I have four kids who are easily bored, or rather easily sucked into TV Land/Kindle/iTouch - the Matrix!  But I have a plan for combatting the lazy, hazy days of summer.  The Dog Days.  Dog Days were popularly believed to be an evil time "the Sea boiled, the Wine turned sour, Dogs grew mad, and all other creatures became languid; causing to man, among other diseases, burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies." according to Brady’s Clavis Calendaria, 1813. [ 1 ]  - wikipedia We'll see if it works.  1.  Keep a tight schedule.  This is a copy of our schedule.  You have to come up with one that works for you.  I don't really think anything on it matters that much.  I don't think the time slots matter, the activities, the downtime/active time ratio - none of it matters.  It is merely the fact that the kids have something to reference to see what they might be doing.  I have

"We know how the story ends, What we don't know is what happened along the way." - The Map of Love I know how my brother's story started out and was there along the way for most all of it.  I was there when his story ended too.  I saw it.  But through the course of the last few weeks, I have learned more about him from his friends than I ever knew.  Some stories I'm sure he'd never have shared and he'd probably be mortified that I know.  Yet knowing them makes our grief a little less and makes us feel closer to him.  One of his friends can do a perfect imitation of his voice, something our family might never bother to learn but that made me laugh on the day of the funeral.  There is a sign hanging over the bar where he tended, which reads, "Dude, you've been waving me over for ten minutes for drinks and now you don't even know what you want... that means this beautiful girl here has to wait even longer for a drink... at least buy her one!&qu

My brother (another brother) flies in the Navy.   He has been through years of schooling and has become a flight instructor.  He teaches new pilots how to fly, but at a certain point there is just too much information to learn, so when the newbies ask questions beyond the realm of knowledge they need to know at the moment, the response they get is, "The unofficial Navy explanation for why planes fly is PFM, or Pure Fucking Magic."   Funny, huh?  Magic.  There is a lot of PFM in our world right now. Pure Fucking Magic. I know no other way to explain it. Symbols of my brother are all around us. A frog flag hanging on the way from the cemetery that reminded us all he was okay, a surfer magazine cover that reads, "All Good Kids Go To Heaven" that arrived in the mail the day after he died.  An ocean perfect for surfing. Sky lanterns that transcended over the ocean in front of our house on vacation. His name everywhere I look. A's, his initial, that formed around st

I am hunting through the bag of trail mix to see if there are anymore salt-coated raisins that I love.  Someone has already gone through and taken all the m and m candies.  (Matthew!!!) I also look carefully for almonds, though there are thousands of other nuts in here too.  But really I'm looking for my Loved Ones. Loved Ones are all that matter to me right now.  The only faces I am longing to see are my family's.  I know this sounds infantile, but I'm going through those LifeStages again and it is what it is.  I know I will see my husband tonight when he comes home, and I love seeing my kid's faces throughout the day, but I need to see my mother's face now to know that she is well, that she is still here, and I need my brother's voice to tell me that it is going to be okay, that I am going to be okay.  They are like the m and m candies and I am shaking the bag trying to find them in there.   I once read that Anna Quindlen said that no one really grows up u

A few weeks ago, I took Annie for a bike ride with my camera along the route that I usually run.  It was less like a bike ride and more like a photo shoot.  Every couple blocks I would say, "Oh I need that picture..." and we would slow down and I would try to get a shot.   I finally got out for a run yesterday.  A good one.  I did not want to go.  I wanted to go back to bed.  But there is something about the rituals of life that keep us going.  If we didn't have them, we wouldn't know what to do in times of crisis.  So I swung my legs out of bed, laced on my running shoes, and started out the door.  I still didn't feel like running.  Someone told me not to run and cry at the same time.  It isn't good for you.  I wasn't sure I could do it.  I started with a walk, then a short run, and before I knew it, I was running past the old familiar houses that are part of my running ritual.  The streets whose ruts I know, the trees that shade me from the sun.  The ri

You never know where you'll be when you get that phone call.  The one phone call that changes everything.  The report from the doctor, the news about your friend, the passing of a loved one.  I will never forget that phone call and where I was.  I was at my kids' Art and Music Festival and had just listened to a tear-jerking rendition of All I Ask Of You from Phantom of the Opera.  It was sung by two fifth graders, and let's just say I can't wait to see what they do in high school!  We walked down the corridor and were enjoying this art display called "Tapped."  I remember thinking that I would show the pictures to my brother, who loved water in all it's forms, salty, snowy, frozen, especially when frozen ice chips were all he could stomach and all he was allowed.  The salty and snowy had more to do with his passion for adventure, snowboarding and surfing.  Regardless, I knew he would appreciate this display.  I never got to share with him.  I got the phon

The calendar has changed to July.  But I am living in days of Before and After.  Before and After my brother died.  Really I am living in During and, as everyone knows, the during phase of construction is always the worst.  Everything is all over the place.  Nothing feels settled.  I can't find anything where I thought I placed it.  Someone has come and moved everything around.  Nothing works.  Or at least nothing works the way it's supposed to.  June was definitely During.  I know somewhere in there my daughter graduated from elementary school and my son's baseball team won the championship.  We celebrated with friends in a rare night out at a restaurant on the deck.  We all went to a Phillies game.  These things kept me going.  We went to the shore and drank margaritas and ate clams and went on the log flume.   These things kept me smiling. But now that is over.  I am done with talking, listening, crying, hugging and being held.  I don't feel like running today. I c