from pink Henrietta, to bluegill, to green mustard greens, and orange nasturtium

We finished our celebrations with a breakfast at Henrietta’s Table. Our family first ate breakfast here when the girls were very small. We had paused in Cambridge on our way to the Cape. It was the first time someone said of the food there – it’s fresh and honest.

That it is.

This is also the place that taught me to love lattes (even though they call them large cappuccinos). I’m less happy about that. It’s an expensive habit.





We take one final stroll through the quieter streets of central Cambridge.





I note the discarded texts at someone’s door. Law Sschool work that now belongs to the past.





A sunny day on the east coast. A calm and happy way to say good bye to the city that was home for my little girl during the years when she could properly be labeled a young adult.

My time in Boston ends as it always does – with a ride on the T, over the river, into the tunnels, up in the air, hello Detroit, goodbye Detroit, hello Madison.



It’s evening. I find the car that I left maybe a half mile outside the airport. I drive away from the city – east to Lake Mills, where Ed is having a small reunion with his friends from coop days. (Ed lived in coops during his young adult years.) At the Lake Mils town beach, I see the first signs of true summer: evening splashers. The thermometer is close to ninety. Who can blame them...





But oh, is it really summer? I am reminded of the New Yorker cartoon from last week. A guy is walking through the park humming:

While strolling through the park one day, In the merry, merry month of -- WAIT a minute! It can’t be May already! That’s ABSURD! Oh my GOD! The summer’s almost over!! I might as well be DEAD!!!

Too fast. These weeks fly for me. I remember making summer lists of projects and ideas for the kids when they were young. We’d get through maybe half. I don’t have free summers anymore, but in my mind I still should be launching great ideas now, when my load is just a tad lighter.


Our host is frying bluegills from Monona Bay. With corn and slaw and potato salad at a picnic table.





The true pleasure of summer is to take your life outdoors. During the childhood summers I spent in my grandparents' house in the Polish village, we were inside the house only when it rained. In fact, my grandmother did not allow us to be underfoot in the kitchen during the day, and our bedrooms, too, were off limits. Go outside! - she'd say if we strayed in for a minute. Go outside!

The sun sets. The day ends. The men in our group had wanted to take the boat out, but the night is perfectly still.







By morning, I am with both feet into our Madison routines. Saturday shopping at the Madison Westside Community Market, where everything is so green right now!





But even here, the red and orange of summer is beginning to take hold.









Summer came in May this year.

We ride the motorbike to the farmette, were I settle in on the sling chair to finish up the grading of the second course (one more to go!).

Commencement Day, Harvard Law School

My littlest one walked off the platform with a law degree.





I hope she is proud and happy. I know she is modest and gentle.







It was perhaps Boston’s finest day. The skies were blue, with the occasional puffy clouds that drift in, as if to look down on a happy congregation, then out again. The temperatures were perfect, the air was crisp. Breezes caused leaves to rustle on the tall trees above us, but I don’t know that anyone noticed. We were so focused on the stage before us, waiting for that name, our girl’s name.

And finally, there she was, shaking the Dean’s hand.





Done.

Nothing left but to admire the fine print.





...and to pose for numerous photos. Including this one: of the three lawyers.





After the granting of the diplomas, her grandmother retired for a while and we strolled over to Harvard’s Tercentenary Theater, which isn’t a theater at all, but a large courtyard between the Widener Library and the Memorial Church.





We sat on the steps of the library, leaning back to listen to the beautifully delivered words of Former US Supreme Court Justice Souter.






Justice Souter was addressing the entire university community, but I think the young and old lawyers were especially listening. We, who throw around words “it’s constitutional” or “it’s unconstitutional” need these rare times where wise people remind us what meaning there is behind those words and what happens when principles and core values suddenly are threatened.

It was a good way to leave Harvard.

...and to proceed with the eating part of the celebration...

...at Oleana – the place that blends flavors from the eastern Mediterranean – most notably Turkey and creates foods that we have loved during visits on blustery fall and winter days in Cambridge.





On Friday we disperse. But I’m okay with that. My girls are coming back to Madison this summer: the littlest one will be waiting for her Chicago job to begin in January, and the older one will begin her own teaching career at our Law School.

Milestones. This was a big one for all of us.





...but especially, of course, for her.

Class Day, Harvard Law School

The day is searing hot. I may be the only one in Boston delighted with the steam bath, but truly, I don’t mind.

We begin the day with a breakfast across the river, in Boston. It’s pleasant and breezy in the shade and so we sit outside. I tell my clan that from now until September, I’ll eat every breakfast outside (when possible). There is no better way to greet the world, no better way to begin a summer day.

My mother, being a Berkeleyan for more than a decade now (where she tells us it never gets hot or cold), is wilting a little and so we put her in a cab for the hotel. The four of us set out for a last sentimental stroll through Boston.





















In the afternoon, all of us gather at my daughter’s apartment (another last time? I had so many happy visits here!), drink a toast to her future, their future really – both my girls, because, of course, it is their cohort that will set the terms and give us a different world.



And now the graduation celebrations begin.

Class Day. We sit under the tall trees outside the Langdell Hall of Harvard law School. It’s a time of speeches...



Samantha Power from the National Security Council, class speaker


...of many proud parents taking many pictures...



one of many


...of glimpses of our sons and daughters, the graduates...



my little one

...of sweet treats...





...of iced tea to cool off...





...and bouquets of flowers...





...of parents and their children.





On Thursday, she gets her diploma. On this day she is still a student. One last day of having a kid in school. One last day.

another short post from Cambridge

Record highs spread over the northeast states. I am completely in love with these summerlike days in Boston. A sunny last glance at a city that I have come to regard as intensely lovely to visit, and without the sharp edges of, say New York or Chicago.

We have a full day of events before us. But the day commences for me with a glance at the river, at the rowers on the Charles.





Let them exert their energies in the early hours. I’m sitting back and having a contemplative moment. Thinking about generations of family: daughters, a mother, a grandmother, and about the passing of time, about this coming together for a brief interlude, before we all retreat into our corners again, thousands of miles apart.

a short post from Cambridge

A day spent getting places. For instance – to the airport. I could not get a ride, since my occasional traveling companion was in a reclining position at the time I needed to leave home (5:30). Besides, he’s of little value, as he can’t pick me up on the day of the return (Friday). So I had to drive.

My parking of choice is usually a side street close to the airport. Of course they decided to repave it this week. Of course.

So I had to park further, in a space that might or might not be for public use. We’ll see on Friday when I come to locate the car.

You see – it’s this level of trivia that constitutes a travel day.

Interspersed with phone calls from my traveling mother (who is old and who does not travel if she can help it – last time being in 2003, to her other granddaughter’s college graduation), and from various sundry other family members gathering for the big event.


In Boston, I’m staying in a hotel overlooking the river -- quite lovely, actually (closer places were prohibitively expensive; when Harvard does commencement, prices in Cambridge triple). My room has a view that is considerably better than the view from the apartment in New York.





And the bed does not deflate.

When Ed and I travel together, I hear a running stream of grumblings about maid service. (Probably because I make him clean up and pick up before the maid comes in; this is the way I am, I cannot help it.) In this splurge of utter luxury, I intend to enjoy maid service. I intend to leave the room neat for her and I will smile at a freshly tucked in bed each day.

Other notes from today?

We gather for dinner at Hungry Mother’s...





...the daughters, their dad, their grandma and me. Tomorrow their dad’s partner will join us, but today it’s just our small set of five. Beginning the week of proud reflections on how cool it is to have all kids out of school and up and running.

I'm also proud of the fact that my mother made it here on her own and seems to be quite up for the task of navigating a graduation. Were she a blogger type, she'd rant and rave about the travails of crossing the continent. But she does not blog. She does not even have a computer. She does have us to listen. And that's a good thing.

leaving Boston

It’s late Sunday and I am at the Boston airport waiting for my flight. There may be a chance that it’s overbooked and I have already put myself on the list of those willing to give up a seat. I hate the idea of a prolonged departure and I hate even more the thought of catching a before-sunrise flight the next day, but a coupon with dollars toward the next flight would be helpful; I have to put in many many hours at the shop before I see that amount of money in the bank.

Still, I don’t want to be called.

I settle in to do my work, not knowing where I’ll be that night.


It’s an untidy ending to a wonderful day. Very early, the sun pushes the clouds away as we set out for the long walk to Sofra (a Middle-Eastern bakery, where we are meeting my girl’s friend for breakfast). That walk could go on for hours and one would not tire of it. Not on that spring day, not with the delicate colors of the season visible now in every small bit of yard space.






The Turkish breakfast is delicious, the baked goods – sweetly delightful. Such a good beginning to a day!










And then the clock seems to leap forward, leaving too few hours to revel in the gorgeousness of the day.






I gather my pack and we take the T toward Boston's North End – a place I remember fondly, as it had been one of my first encounters with Boston. I had barely finished college and my friend had moved to this part of town (I like it here – she had said then – the people in the neighborhood look out for you). She made dinner for me (chicken breasts with canned peaches – what can I say, the year was 1974) and we looked out at the fire escape and I felt like adulthood had suddenly descended upon me.

Now, as I walk the same streets of the once (and maybe still now) Italian community...





... I think how my youngest is older than I was then.



We stop for a very, very early supper – it has to be, I have a flight to catch and she has work to do – at the Neptune Oyster Bar. Do you know it? The oysters are carefully described, both in terms of source and also flavor. We order a half dozen local ones and then wait for the big treat – my beloved Boston meal of a warm, buttery lobster roll.





After, we have just a few minutes, just enough time to walk to the Modern Pastry store...





...where I can pick up some cookies for her...





...and then, too quickly, we head back on the T and I stay on for one stop before changing for the airport, and she continues on toward Cambridge, and the next time I see her, she’ll be a law school grad, just like her sister before her, and just like their mother before.


At the airport, they announce the boarding of my flight. No, we wont need your seat, not this time.


The skies a clear, all the way from Boston, through Detroit, to Madison.

in Boston

On any fine spring day, but especially on this fine spring Saturday, the thing to do is to walk.

... to cross Cambridge...




...get on the Red Line...





...to cast one glance at the Charles River...





...make your way to the South End...





...for some hearty Shakshuka eggs (with North African tomato sauce and polenta) at the Beehive, where strains of jazz create a sweet backdrop for a comforting meal.





... and walk. Among heady blooms and the promising light green buds of the most inspiring season.





... and then walk some more.





...noting the many ways we all welcome spring.






My daughter an I finish with our usual circuit. This time, the park pond is with water, the skies are blue, the grasses are as green. Such basic pleasures.






In the late afternoon, she suggests a museum that is unknown to me -- the Institute of Contemporary Art.  It's in Fort Point, across the waters leading up to the Harbor.





We have a fine hour looking through the exhibits, liking especially the candid photographs, yes, very much so, but loving also the views from the beautifully modern building.









Just a few blocks away, on a street of tall brick warehouse buildings, is a place that serves drinks on demand (aptly named Drink).






Tell us what you like, we'll come up with something to suit your cravings. I say -- spring like and refreshing! I watch mint being crushed with citrus juices. Sinfully good.





... and maybe with a bubbly addition? Such talent.





The sun is almost gone by the time we find the T stop and retrace our way on the Red Line across the river.






We eat at Helmand in Cambridge. The most satisfying pumpkin dish, followed by spicy meats and herby veggies.









In the end, a day to savor. Spring in Boston. With a daughter. What more could you ask for...