Thursday - 174th

You know how you tell your kids that all one can do is try? You want to acknowledge their struggle, tell them that they wont be marked by success as much as by their own efforts. Don't look at a super pig picture and tell me it's imperfect. Show me how passionately you worked on it and I will be enraptured!

I thought about all this today as I continue to admire the efforts of so many to make this a good year despite, well, everything.

(morning garden walk: early fall always looks to me like a Seurat painting)





















(breakfast)






And I thought about effort as I went off in the morning for an outdoor, socially distanced visit with Snowdrop.

Since school has yet to start, the little girl hasn't a schedule and so we decided to log in such a visit now, while things are still loosey goosey for her. We considered the impact: is it disruptive? Does it offer continuity and reassurance? Are we over-worrying it?

The answer is -- who knows. We decide to give it a go. The run in the park was okay -- it normalized social distancing, but it didn't offer any of the stuff that Snowdrop and I share in our years of time together. Sparrow -- he's tougher to appease now. What he wants from me is harder to deliver. He does not get social distancing. At all. I can only offer walks, where some adult is holding tight to his little hand. But Snowdrop gets the distance metric and she seemed okay with it and so I pack a bag of stuff -- sticker sets, favorite old books, some new ones, her special art paper and favorite markers, a bowl of peaches and strawberries.

Clouds roll in, but there will be no rain and indeed, as the morning progresses, the sun comes out and warms our landscape and our souls.

Snowdrop comes out and she is on her blanket and I am on mine, and the breeze is so strong! We put rocks on all corners to keep the blankets from whisking us away into the high heavens!






She plays with her sticker set, I watch. Ed had asked me why Zoom is only second best, why a child can't be satisfied with just that much of you. Well, it's because of this: the wind that you both feel on your faces, the warmth of the sun when it does come out...






I read one old book and a whole new one and then I start in on a third and she switches to art on her favorite paper...






... and yes, it's super pigs and as she tells it -- they're having a picnic on a blanket and it's windy for them as well, just like it is for us!






We could stay there far longer, but it's lunch time and I know there is a sitter switch that's to take place and so after a couple of hours, I hustle her off and pick up the pieces of our morning together and head for home.

And yes, in the end, the departure is upsetting to her, but I have to think that expressing sadness is a good thing, no? The change for her in March and now again in September, has been huge. For Sparrow too, but his age makes him more resilient: a toddler's world is always changing. His mom and dad and his sister are his anchors. Everything else is fluid. (I had to smile last year when we all traveled together across the ocean and I looked at him and tried to guess what was in his head and I'd come with such possibilities as -- "oh! We are living here in this little house in Wales, with a castle out the window. Okay. I guess this is my new life now!") To be sad is normal. And still, a grandchild's sadness breaks your heart.

But, we're all trying. We are. You and me, in our new lives, where there is far too much out there that hammers at you and shouts at you to give up, we don't give up at all. We keep on trying.


In other news -- well, Ed and I hopped on the motorbike and made our way to Stoneman's for a last purchase of corn this year. I got two dozen ears, who knows why. It's me, wanting to keep that summer season going, as if we were still plotting our next wading pool splashing session and setting the table for a porch family dinner with everyone.






The late afternoon sun is so warm! Ed and I take a walk. Our goal? I suppose you could say to trespass on neighbor's land. I have trepidations. How is this permissible? -- I ask.
You don't understand these cultural norms: we're investigating.
Isn't it the norm that the owners could take a gun and shoot at us?
Nope! We're checking out new neighbors, that's all.
You mean like with a "welcome to the neighborhood" basket, except without the basket?

In truth, the new neighbors (across the road, not part of the new development) haven't even begun building their new home. And there is no indication of ownership. We knew the previous owners of the land. Nothing shouts out that this is now someone else's tract of land. And so we scale the hill, admire the new gravel road and walk over to the neighboring conservancy land.

At least here, we're on firmer ground: we've been very much a part of the effort to transform this to educational organic farming plots.

(looking out over the wetlands which this year are not very wet...)






At home again, I have video chats with grandkids. If I said it's not as good as the real deal, I must quickly add now that it's a pretty damn good filler for what could have, should have been.










We all keep trying. Really hard. With love pushing us forward.


Evening. Ed and I resume our talk of travel. Somehow, now that neither of us can go anywhere at all, talk about very distant places is on the table again. Go figure!