Friday

It's funny to have an end to the first week of school just one day after it begins. Or maybe it's good for students to get a soft reentry. The change from a light summer schedule with plenty of downtime to a full blown school schedule is huge. I'm sweating just at the thought of it!

Ed and I have frequent discussions about the role that school plays in a child's life. He wasn't a fan of institutional learning as a kid growing up in New York. Too many hours being bored, too early a start to the day. At the same time, he'll be the first to push for an educated populace. Perhaps one that doesn't have to show up at the schoolhouse gates in the wee hours of the morning.

As for those wee hours -- ones when he sleeps and I work outside -- I'm finally back to my normal schedule. European time zones seem of another world.

So, to work: good morning, farmette lands! Oh dear. All those weeds... I pull some. Actually many bucketfuls. Still, all those weeds remain...

(Oh, but those wonderful autumn colors! Dusty green, gold and purple..)

(And fluttering butterflies!)

Never mind -- I haven't the time for much weeding. 

(Breakfast, with Ed's flower choice...)

I'm in between several summer events: call it the Summer of Visits and Trips. My Polish architect friend and her family came and left. Check. Snowdrop and I went and came back. Check. Next week, a whole bunch of Polish friends are arriving, though not yet here, in Madison. I'm going to meet them elsewhere. And then again elsewhere. No checks there yet. And then my daughter has a trip and I have another. Are you dizzy yet???

With all that still before me, the weeds occupy just a tiny corner of my headspace. 

I try to plan, to navigate, to imagine the next month or two. And all this keeps me indoors until it's time to pick up Snowdrop.

At least, this is what she and I think -- that I am to pick up today. It's not my regularly scheduled day, just a filler to make up for all those days next week when I cannot be there for her.

As always, she comes out beaming.

And full of recounts of the horrible things a friend, or at least a girl now in the shadows of friendship, said to her about war and about meanness. Skipping over the war tales, which simply showed that a second grader living in Madison Wisconsin is going to know little about war (unless she has a grandma born in postwar Poland, or someone in her household touched by the drama in the Ukraine), we concentrated on the meanness issue. It's a suppositious question I would think -- is it sometimes okay to be mean. I wonder how you would answer a young child on this one! 

Snowdrop is well schooled by her mom on what to do when someone is mean to you. She tells me right away about your options on how to respond and when to ask for help. Being mean back is not on the chart as an option. She asks me now if I agree and I quickly tell her that I do. Very much so. We don't have to revert to Godwin's law on this one (you know, the rule that if you argue long enough, every discussion will  compare someone else to Hitler). Sure, it's okay to be mean to Hitler. But, in life, we don't really come face to face with Hitler types. With your run of the mill meanies -- you stay with your principles.

She is relieved.

And contemplates life from her perch on the tree...

And rejoices at the beauty of life in her favorite romp in a field of creeping Charlie.

This is when I get a frantic call from her mom: do you know where Snowdrop is? They say at school someone else picked her up!

In the evening, when the little one is home again,  Ed proposes a kayak trip, but I tell him I need a break from these super late outings with super late dinners and super late Ocean posts (how many times have my eyes closed as I typed up an entry? Too many). He suggests an alternative -- tennis.

Oh, tennis! We haven't gone to the courts for several years now! Somehow Covid messed with this for us, though I can't imagine why, since an outdoor activity seems like a fine way to cope with the limitations imposed on us these past years.

It feels so good to be chasing a ball on a cracked court surrounded by tall white pines! We are alive! We gratefully accept the gifts those pines offer us (oh, the scent of pine needles!)!

And then we go home and order pizza. Delivered to our door. Magic! We are tired and therefore so grateful!

With love...