the mud

Last week I drove to Indiana to pick up our oldest from his first year at college.  While I was driving, my youngest son served as co-pilot, offering me snacks, navigating the Waze app, teaching me Spanish, and generally keeping me focused and entertained at the same time.  It was a long drive.  We broke up the 680 mile drive by first driving to Youngstown, Ohio.  We left mid-afternoon on Thursday, before rush hour hit.  We were traveling west, tracking the path of the sun set.  The further we drove, the lighter it seemed to be.  Even by 8:00 the sun set still seemed to be far off.  The sun beckoned us on, assuring us of safety and hope and making it feel that it hadn't been six hours of driving in the car.  We had a nice cozy bed waiting for us somewhere - we just didn't know where. Thankfully the sun lit most of our trip no matter what time it was. The next day we woke easily and drove the remaining 6 hours to South Bend.  We never cr...

About 8 years ago, we found ourselves outgrowing our house.  We had four little children and a little Cape Cod with a big family room.  I had prayed for that little house "with small white beds up the stairs" but the time had come for a change.  The three boys were in one room with two bunk beds, a single bed, and one dresser.  And they were getting bigger.  And their clothes and their stuff were getting bigger too.  We needed another room.  We hired an architect.  He showed us plans with everything we had asked for.  We sent them out to contractors.  But no one quite knew where to put the heating ducts.  What?  No heat in the new room?  So we found another house.  A perfect house with four bedrooms and lots of old amenities.  Linoleum walls in the bathroom.  A light with a red swirly plastic cover over the fireplace.  Metal cabinets in the kitchen, circa 1950.  We moved in.  We gradually made...

We are all searching for guarantees.  The guarantee on shipping from our website order, the guarantee on the newly-purchased mattress, the guarantee that when we wake up the electricity will still be on, the guarantee that the weather will get nicer soon, the guarantee that my car will still be parked where I left when I get back, the guarantee of a healthy pregnancy, the guarantee of an easy child.  All the things we expect at the beginning of the day to go our way, the meeting, the conference call, the sales pitch, the ruling, the game, the score.  I see people searching for schools, looking for a guarantee that the choices they make, the selection of this school over that school, will guarantee that their child will thrive, be successful, and maybe happy.  They want the guarantee.  They expect it when they walk in, as if they were going to a car wash, that the car will be perfectly cleaned when it comes out the other end.  As if kicking the tires will gu...

For several months now, I’ve been noticing a new word in my children’s lexicon.   Stop.   I can ask the simplest of questions and the only response I get is Stop.   If I ask one question too many, like “How was Physics?” the word that I hear is Stop.   It means I have crossed some invisible line of communication, some term of agreement we had that I can only ask two, maybe three, questions when the kids get in the car or we are sitting at dinner, or maybe at breakfast the morning after they have been out with friends.   “So what did you eat?”   “Stop.”      I even try to follow their lead.    My son will explain to me something about a car that he knows a lot about, but if I ask that extra question to show my interest, he looks at me sideways, and “Stop.”   It’s become a joke, because I can predict when it’s going to happen and we all laugh when I say, “Can I just ask one more question?”   Then they usually just walk...

We are reading about the First Thanksgiving in first grade.   Every year at this time I find myself reading to my students about the harvest and the hunters and the gatherers and I think to myself, “Thankfully I would  have been a gatherer ; I would  not have been a hunter .”   It sounds much more peaceful, much more humane.   Gather, bring in, bring together, collect.   That’s the way I want to live.   I think I earned a Girl Scout badge in Collecting.   Then I think about myself at this time of year, searching for gifts as if they were prey, getting to the store early just to hunt down the product that inevitably will be devoured in some insignificant way and never thought of again, hunting down the ‘best’ price, even if the cost is rising out of bed at some ungodly hour!   Even with Thanksgiving dinner, I find myself fantasizing about the perfect food with the perfect presentation from the perfect restaurant - and Pinterest doesn't help! ...

We headed back to Rowe this year for Old Home Day.  Such a wonderful time.  So absolutely glorious!  We packed a little lighter this year - just 4 short days.  No tennis rackets, no dog, no food - we would buy groceries when we got up there.  When we walk in we walk right to the large picture window that overlooks the lake - it summons us to come directly there - do not unpack, just kick off your shoes and go directly to the porch.  We had forgotten the color of the sun and the light through the pines and the reflection of the mountains on the water, the clouds that create dark shadows in the middle of the day.  We had lost track of the way the days unfold so easily and so effortlessly until it's time for dinner.  We had almost forgotten.  But there is always that piece of home that we take with us when it's time to go and it is rekindled when we return - Yes, this is what it was like.  This is what I was missing.  This is what it ...

Summer afternoon, summer afternoon, ... to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language. - Henry James I don't know if I've used this quote before, but it is one of my favorites.  I completely agree.  Summer. Afternoon.  It conjures up images of laying in my grassy backyard, watching my brothers in the pool, playing on the front porch, going down the stairs to the coolness of the Haddon Heights Children's Library and gathering up books, and of course, earning swim bands.  We didn't belong to the pool. My cousins did.  But a few times a summer they took us along.  The Oaklyn Swim Club.  I still drive past and I'm amazed at how it has shrunk over the years.  When I was young it was like a mecca for kids ages 5-15.  I wasn't a part of the swim culture there.  So when I first arrived I usually stayed near the baby pool, with the little cousins and the moms and would "help" get the food ready because we a...