the mud

 Quite a few years ago, we were on our way to the shore. We have been going to the same shore house for almost 50 years! It is not fancy or new but it's a big old Victorian that has room for literally everyone, no matter what. I've slept in every bedroom from the attic to the room called the chapel room. I can remember my brother sticking his wet finger in the outlet to see if he would get electrocuted. (He did get shocked.) I remember my freshly bathed and pajamaed sister climbing back into the full bathtub to play a little more.  I remember my cousin and I took a boat ride from some cute guys we had just met, from the bar back to our street. I remember my other cousin, a lifeguard, telling us which bars we should go to and which parties we shouldn't. I remember being a newlywed and going with my husband for the first time. I remember bringing each of my children down for their first time to see the ocean. Each time we go there we are filled and refilled with the love of t...

I've seen dark times before. Dark times in my career, where I said something to make myself look good when I should have just been listening. Dark times in my health or my children's health or my parents' health, where no one knew what the outcome would be. Dark times in my family, losing a brother. Dark times as a mother, where I thought the kids were making the wrong choices or choosing the wrong friends, and dark times in my marriage, where the situation didn't seem to have a solution. But this time is different. This time feels really dark! And there is no power company coming to turn the lights back on. And it's not just dark in our own homes, it's dark everywhere, some places more than others. We can't just find our way through this dark. We are feeling so much! We have to  feel our way through the dark. And so I am reaching for anything. I claw my way along, grabbing onto the next table-edge to pull myself up, just long enough to catch my breath bef...

Every June or July I usually visit the shops down the shore, usually while on vacation and stock up on birthday cards. I love browsing through the cards and finding the ones that make me laugh and will make the recipient laugh too. When I go with Annie, we usually end up having to leave because we make each other laugh so hard and call a little too much attention to ourselves. And some of those card stores are like libraries - you have to be quiet! I buy cards for a handful of people, my sister, my niece, my friend from college, my cousin, and a handful of my aunts - all the summer birthdays. I haven't bought a card for Aunt Doris for a few years now, as she is gone, but I know she's still with me. This year she gave me a very special gift... I know we are all quarantining. I know we can’t hang out with people. I know we aren’t doing all the things we love to do with each other. We are choosing where and when and with whom we spend our precious time. I have to confess that I ha...

Hydrangeas are one of my favorite things. I don't claim to be a good gardener, but when they are in full bloom, I'm so happy. We have three huge bushes of limelight, or maybe they are Annabelle, hydrangeas that have grown so well over the last nine years here. I bought them home from church one Easter, so maybe they are blessed, too? They bloom so nicely all summer and I can see them from the living room too, so it's nice indoors and out. I'm giving them away, there are so many! And the royal blue of neighbors' hydrangeas fills me with envy! (and I've seen a lot on my everyday walks!) I don't know what it is that reminds me of my childhood - that cool color of the sky in a flower - and that freshwater smell, although they don't smell as strong as they did when I was little. So this summer I decided to move two blue hydrangeas from the backyard to the front yard. I tested the soil and dug big holes and tried to make sure I had the right mix of compost and...

My husband and I have been on many adventures in life, starting when we met in college. Each date was an adventure, some more memorable than others. Then marriage, then houses, and of course, having kids. Four kids. That is its own adventure. Now three of those kids are in college and that is another whole adventure. Dropping them off and picking them up each time is an adventure. Through the years we have taken them on many other adventures. We went to Maine, where they (not me) hiked the infamous  Beehive Trail  up a steep face of a mountain. We drove to California in a mini-van before we had smartphones. That was an adventure - camping, cabining, and glamping along the way, and finally staying at a 'real house' in Santa Cruz, California. On that trip, we had an encounter with a bear in Lake Tahoe, rode horseback to a cowboy dinner in Montana, got caught in a thunderstorm hiking in the Grand Tetons, and crossed a rather dangerous stream in Yellowstone. We didn't realize...

A long time ago, well not that long, but about 10 years ago, my oldest broke his collar bone. It seems like a very, very long time ago, when my kids were little, when kids were actually out playing, when we would actually drive places together. It happened during an ice hockey game. He was distraught. Now I am just thankful that's all it was. No concussion, no serious injury. Then, it felt like the end of the world. For him especially. He wouldn't be able to pitch for the upcoming baseball season. He wouldn't be able to play at all. He would be sitting on the sidelines. And sit on the sidelines he did. For every game for his team. Cheering them on as best he could. Kinda feels like that now, right? We've all been called out of the game, trying to cheer on our healthcare heroes from the sidelines. Wanting them so badly to defeat this enemy of ours. When I took Jay to the Orthopedic surgeon and he gave us the news, we walked gracefully, quietly to the car. When we got i...

Saturday morning. Laundry. Yoga. Housework. Change the sheets. For some reason, my mental list grew exponentially longer the more I did. Clean the kitchen. Clean up the dog's spit-up.  Make student packets. Go for a walk. Get coffee. Plan a birthday party. Buy birthday gifts. Send emails. Get Venmo. Work on lesson plans. Place a grocery order. Return phone calls. "Visit" my parents. Go to the post office. Plant the garden. And I was already behind schedule. It was 10:30 and the day had barely started and it seemed to have gotten away from me already. I had too much to do. I had to stop myself. There was no timeline, no pressure. My parents weren't going anywhere. I still had two hours to get to the post office. And finally, I caught myself, wondering why I was so worried and why this felt so weird.  And I realized that just for an instant, these were Normal things to worry about. These were the things that occupied my mind not so long ago. And I felt normalcy re...

When I realized that my entire skill set, my whole executive functioning capacity, is now completely invalid, I started wondering what, if anything, I could possibly know to get my family through this time. All my decorating skills, not important. All my teaching skills, completely inept. All my good humor, maybe needed in a pinch? Cleaning - who cares at this point? All my cooking skills, vital. But what would really get us through this mess? Survival skills. I didn't know it at the time, but I think my mother taught me a fair amount of survival skills. And I have to say, my grandmother too. I always told my kids, in the face of fearful world events, that Gran and Marmee had survived and so would we. Gran had to darken her rooms and pull the shades during WWII so the U-Boats, reportedly off the coast of Cape May, wouldn't be able to spot them. Or at least that is how I remember it. She prayed every night that her brothers and later her sons would come home. And they did. Mar...

Last night I was talking to my mother on the phone. Gone are the days when I could run or walk the dog over to visit her for a quick chat or a cup of tea. How did that happen so quickly? As she and I talked about everyone's health, (mental health, too) she remarked that she hasn't done a thing all week and she didn't know why. She had been meaning to put away the Saint Patrick's Day decor (my mother decorates her mantle with a monthly theme as if she still taught second grade, and it's a big hit with the family) but she hadn't touched it. I told her that I have been meaning for three days to clean out the closet of all our winter gear, which we never actually used, and I just couldn't. We are in survival mode, I told her. This is one of the favorite things I've learned from my kids playing MineCraft, that you can play in Survival Mode or Creative Mode, and right now we are playing in Survival Mode. That means that instead of organizing the winter closet,...

I came across it by chance. In my sock drawer. I don't remember seeing it recently and definitely not in the sock drawer. But there it was and I was immediately taken back to a little room in a house we lived in two houses ago. To a little room that served as a bath space for the baby. The 'it' I found was a baby blue washcloth. Not a new one. Not the kind they sell today. The kind you got at your first baby shower.  A little remnant of love. That was 22 years ago. I don't know how or why it showed up. But it did. Looking back brings so many wonderful memories, when they were little and we would worry about bumps and burps and sleep. Back when I was a beginning parent. Now I've been promoted to Junior Parent. Not really, but a few weeks ago we were invited to "Junior Parents Weekend" a fabulous celebration that precedes graduation, getting all the juniors and families together to see what they are actually up to at college. We were even treated to what t...

A few short weeks ago, we celebrated a Homecoming for two of my children. It's an amazing feeling having them come home. Home. You long for it. You count down the days until they make it back. Home. It has so many connotations. The home you grew up in, the home you create. The place you are born, the place you live. We, my two high school sons and I, usually spend almost 12 hours each day gone from our house for various reasons. Coming home is the best. As soon as I pull in the driveway I feel a sense of enormous relief. We made it. I set down my bag, set down my burdens, and sit down. A cup of tea, a glass of wine and all is well with the world again. That feeling of unwinding and letting go. It is the best. It would be that way for the college-age kids too. Just as I pull into the driveway every night so relieved, so it would be for them, exponentially so, when they pulled in to our house after months away. Just before the kids came home, I was at church, another home for me. I...