Monday

My dentist asks me today -- how are you dealing with the absence of structure in your days?
And I tell him quite honestly -- I felt put out today when I knew I had a 2 o'clock appointment that interfered with my structure free day!

Why is it that I get this question mostly from men? I mean, you could hypothesize that women, used to juggling care-giving and work, have been tied to the clock even more than men. You'd think they would worry about being set loose into the abyss of an unscheduled week. Yet I rarely (never?) hear them fret about retirement. Whereas so many men do ask and then inevitably I hear this response -- I don't think I'd like it.

Well, I do like it. Even as this morning I am up again with the cheepers...






But after, I retreat into a few more minutes of rest and so in fact, breakfast is late.






The bugs are out massively right now. The last big swarm of mosquitoes is passing through. Not as bad as some years, but certainly as bad as we've seen this year. And so again, yard work is not going to pull us away from our respective projects. We pick a few weeds and then retreat into our bubbles of self-imposed work.






You would not call this day beautiful. Or at least you'd have to qualify it as "unconventionally beautiful." And yet, these early hours of Fall sit well with me. Everything around us is so established! It needs no help, no stake. It moves at its own speed now.






This abundance -- a  summer's growth spurt, it is what the season has given us. And now, slowly, it is time to pack up and put it away for a rest.

But not entirely. No just yet.






We play tennis in the early evening. The best volley series ever! Two people, playing their crazy game even as the pine trees are dropping needles on the court and the sun sinks too low too quickly by my calculation.

Harvest moon tonight. It used to aid farmers in the completion of their work outside. Now, it's just there to love and behold.


 

what if...

It is, in all ways, a perfect day for the porch. And I have to admit, I spent most of the daylight hours out there.

Predictably, for breakfast.





And thereafter.

Oh, I tried to be more expansive. It's time to trim back some of the spent flowers that will offer a quick rebloom this Fall if you let them. But the bugs hovered too close to my face, my legs, my arms and after a few armloads of dried stalks, I gave up. The garden may well have to stay this way until October, when the bugs will finally be gone.



(the Fall bloomers)


Too, I had a writer's chore to complete: a straight read through of my written work, concentrating especially on the first ten pages. Because what if someone did become interested in seeing a chapter or two? I should have something to send them, no?

So I sat all day long -- a terrible thing to do on a beautiful fall day, but there you have it. Two more days of this and I'm ready to stuff the pages in an envelope. In case someone asks me to do just that...

In the evening, perhaps worrying that I've become forever molded into a reclining position...
(not surprising, considering our earlier conversation:
We need a larger coop. It's hard for me to squat to clean this one.
Why don't you kneel?
Gross! There's chicken poop near the coop.
People in certain countries squat until the day they die.
We are not living in those countries.
Practice squatting more.
From a whole day of sitting to squatting practice. Just what I need... and so on)

...Ed suggests a more vigorous game of tennis. Ah, tennis! How it has come to save our days from the sedentary slough that both our projects have lead us to!






I take a deep breath in that thicket of pines and do my little dance numbers as Ed chases balls that have gone astray. We have only one more week left together before I go off on my solo voyages. I am so glad that it is a time of such gorgeous days! Absolutely gorgeous.



(the brood: Ed with Oreo, the hens, Isis, and a drying rug)

Saturday

A day does not get any more beautiful than this! (You may accuse me of being especially enraptured because I had a decent amount of sleep, but I think that is only in part what makes me giddy today. It truly is a gorgeous day!)

And cool enough in the morning that I overreact and reach for the first time for fall clothes. Leggings. Tunic. I'm feeling dizzy with excitement! Goodbye shorts and sundresses, time to turn the page!

Not so fast. After breakfast...


 



...as my daughter and I walk to the downtown farmers' market...






...I quickly discard the sweater. And when we walk back and I lug many pounds of cucumbers for Ed's pickling project, I'm thinking that I miss my sundress very much.

You can't rush things. And why would you want to? Summer is the season to love and to hold sacred.











Why this delight in cooler weather?

My daughter, of course, marks time by weeks of pregnancy. And by a vegetable measuring stick: right now, the baby is as big as a squash! -- she tells me excitedly. So I suppose we both have reason to look forward to fall.

At the farmette, it is warm enough for the cheepers to hide in the barn. In the terrible horrible dirt there.






I tell Ed that we don't have the cleanest pets in the world. He just smiles.

a little off...

Third misfire, in terms of a fitful sleep. I can no longer recall why. There were no violent storms, no discussions on economics. Even Isie was his more charming self, preferring to spend the morning hours downstairs. (It helped that the window was closed and so he didn't hear Oreo sound off.) Somehow we all moved at times and in ways that disturbed sleep for the other. It happens.

And so, as I get up to let the cheepers out, I feel a drag to my pace. I go with the greatest reluctance and only my desire to let Ed sleep pushes me out without a grumble (he's been working too hard on his machining project every night this week). And when I step out, I think -- why so muggy still? Aren't we supposed to cool down already?

The storm clouds are almost gone, but their exit does nothing for the humidity.






After breakfast...






... as Ed and I proceed to go our separate ways to do our usual Friday stuff, Ed calls me from the garage where he keeps his motorbike.  
Look here... he says, pointing to the wheelbarrow where we throw weeds for the compost pile.






 Oh my goodness! One of the white hens is laying outside the roost! What is she thinking?? It's the first time I've caught them dropping an egg elsewhere, though of course, there may be hidden eggs that I don't know of.  Between this and Scotch's irregular laying issues, I'm wondering -- is it time to lay sprigs of lavender again in their nesting boxes? (My lavender is having a robust second bloom  right now.)






I do my usual grocery run for the week. I am a tad more tired, true, but I enjoy stocking up on food. It's exciting (for me) to think about the meals I'll be preparing. I'm one of those few who thinks a walk through the produce section of a grocery store is something to look forward to.

Still, the expedition has its off moment: I had a credit slip and as I hand it to the store clerk and he tries to plug it in for the discount, it doesn't work. Off I go to customer service. It doesn't work there either.
But you owe me $11 from a return of a stale product! 
It tells us you used it already. 
But I didn't use it! I just got it last week! And so on.
Forty-five minutes later, to profuse apologies, the matter is resolved. I am happy I don't have ice cream in my cart.

As I pull up to my final store stop,  I pass a man selling StreetWise (a newspaper by and for the homeless). My daughter's never faltering work on behalf of the homeless has taught me to never pass StreetWise people without throwing something into the donation box.
In a polite and appreciative moment, the guy asks me -- are you having a good day?
I say -- it's just a little off.
He frowns, obviously not used hearing a somewhat qualified response (you say no, you say yes -- but it's not the norm to aim for accuracy). Well I hope it improves...
No, really, it's not that bad, not bad at all!

I feel foolish. Because in fact, on balance, I think it's a wonderful, happy, delightful day. With just these slightly off details that add texture!


In the late afternoon, Ed and I go to our local cinema which, finally, today, begins showing Woody Allen's Magic in the Moonlight. I've long since given up on expecting a delicious satisfaction from seeing his new films, but I am always excited when one comes out and have a sense of great familiarity and continuity when I do go and see it. My adult life, which trails his adult life by eighteen years, has been marked by my watching his films (and I've seen more of his films than any other movie director's work) and somehow, like a day that may be a little off, his movies, too, can be a little off and yet on balance, they'll leave me happy.

We go to the first show: 3:50. We are the only ones in the entire theater. 

When we leave, the weather has cooled considerably. I wipe rain drops off the seat of Ed's motorbike, and a vestige of a tear from my face. How can I possibly explain how much I adored this film? You'd think that the whole experience of watching it in an empty theater would be especially offputting. How can you possibly laugh alone?

Oh, but I did laugh! Toward the end, I laughed at things that surely anyone would not find terrifically funny. Critics said: For all its visual delights, Magic in the Moonlight, the 44th feature written and directed by the admirably industrious Woody Allen, has to be one of his bigger duds (Philadelphia Inquirer). And: Can we all stop making excuses for Woody Allen now (Slate)? Well yes, but movie viewing is a personal thing. I surely understand why this film splits critics exactly down the middle. Me, I listen to the dialogue and I think -- this is a conversation with Ed! And I laugh very loudly and Ed looks at me and grins and says -- I'm glad you're having such a good time.


I huddle behind him on the motorbike as we ride home. It's really cool now. Even as at the farmette,  a few of the daylilies -- those quintessentially warm weather flowers -- have sprung small blooms. A little off schedule, a little out of the ordinary, a little beautiful.

Thursday

Let me begin with the absurd and disturbing coincidences that we've been dealing with here at the farmette.

First, there is the matter of Isis. It is deeply troubling to us that our cat quite suddenly has to share his name with one of the most horrific terror groups in the history of humankind. How could it be?? Ed named his pet something quite innocent and beautiful in a quirky sort of way and suddenly boom! The name calls forth tragedy and horror.  Lucky break for us -- at home, we nearly always call him Isie. Henceforth, on the blog, he shall appear with his nickname. Isie, consider yourself renamed for the purposes of Ocean.

The second disturbance again has to do with sleep. Ed came upstairs rather late last night and, as always, I slightly woke up when I heard him coming. And then I had a question for him about how the stock market functions. You wont believe it, but it has been bugging me that, being a product of a "communist" society, I did not understand many aspects of how some people become rich and Ed is a walking encyclopedia of esoteric information. By the time he explained things to me it was almost morning. Still, I would have gotten a fair amount of sleep, had it not been for the storms. Crashing, violent, torrential -- these are the words that well describe the remaining hours of the night.

At 6, I was, of course, wide awake because of the storms. Isie (I know, we all have to get used to seeing it in print) had no interest in going out and Ed was fast asleep. Having bothered him with a question about capitalism for a substantial portion of the night hours, I now thought it would be cruel to throw him out to free the cheepers, so I went out myself and then, of course, could not return to that deep sleep that should have/could have been mine, but for the weather, my economic curiosity and the cheepers. In that order.

Enough grumbling? Oh, just a little more. The forecast said -- hot and muggy. The last of such summer days. I am okay with that, but I was a little put off by the fact that this seems to be nirvana for mosquitoes, so that even though I tried to do some garden trimming, they won and I retreated.

On the up side? Oh, so much!

Breakfast!






Too, I finally was satisfied with my query letter (asking for a consideration of my manuscript) to the first handful of agents, so out it went! And I got two immediate (automated) responses, to the effect that "if you don't hear from us soon, we don't want you." At least in the past, there was a pause between when you sent things out and when you got your first dismissive comment. Now it's instant whatever is the opposite of gratification.

But in any case, on the upside, the query letter went out.

And, too, the weather toyed with our sensibilities. It was sunny. It was stormy. It was windy. It was muggy. It was pleasant. We had it all! Here's "stormy:"





And here's "pleasant:"





Finally, as it's Thursday, we went to our local farmers market and I'll just note a couple of things: our French bread baker was not back from vacation. Perhaps that's to be expected.  It's only been three weeks. Our cheese person was there and ready to do an egg and cheese swap (our eggs for his cheese). And veggies were at their September best.





After, Ed and I played tennis. Wonderful, joyous, delightful, cost-free tennis.

Clearly the upside has it. By a landslide.

Wednesday

It has been a long time since I stayed up until 3 a.m. messing with travel plans and emailing people who live several time zones ahead of me. Please imagine what kind of a mood I was in when then, at 6, I stumbled out to let the cheepers out. (Hint: rhymes with weepy.)

Ed, too, had been up late, but he is (lucky him) quite capable of sleeping through the whole saga of sun rising, rooster crowing, cat meowing.  Me, I'm wide awake now, so I may as well be the one up.



(fields to the north, just before sunrise)


But as I make my way to the fenced in coop, I hear the familiar noises of Scotch, our most vocal hen. She comes toward me, a touch groggy but otherwise with all feathers in tact.
What are you doing outside the coop and on this side of the fence?!? I ask her, but she just does her cackling noises and follows me to where the rest of the cheepers are clamoring to get out. I unlatch the door, they go out, she goes in and catches up on eating.

So what happened here? Why did she spend the night outside?

Ed?

In fact, it's easy to have missed her. She has always put herself to sleep in the coop. Always. The other hens doze off on the fence and each night, Ed gently picks them up and places them within, but Scotch is a self-help girl and no one ever bothers to check on her, because she's the kid who always knows the rules. She doesn't need a lift and carry. She puts herself inside.



Scotch (and Butter) on the run


But not last night. And not henceforth. Ed finds her tonight, up with the white hens, snuggled against them. How sad she must have been yesterday, to see the other two carried away while she was left behind! Lucky -- that's what she was. No one had her for dinner. She survived. Lucky.

In other news?

Well, after breakfast...





... Ed picks tomatoes -- which had been fun to imagine and anticipate when we were planting the seeds in March, and still exciting when we watched them sprout in April, and exhilarating when we put the tiny plants in the soil in June, but now, in September, you just want them all to be done already. It doesn't help that we've shared some with bugs and beasts, so you have to pick very carefully. Every two days or so, until the first frost.






The corn we planted is at its final stage. Pick now, or give it up. The cucumbers, too, are wrapping it up. Beans are done, peas too. Only the watermelons are straggling. They are just now about the size of eggplant. It was not a good idea to plant watermelon seeds into the ground in July.

So this is the end of the growing season for us. And it feels right to finally let go.






Tonight, Ed comes back late after one of the final evening bike rides of the season. So late that we're all on the brink of sleep. And still,  I take out a wooden board, throw some cheeses on it and we munch. All three of us. (Isis likes strong cheeses.) It is such a good way to end a very long day!

no school

Since I was three (meaning, for the past 58 years), there was only one year in which I was not a school girl, or teaching at an academic institution. (It was the year after I graduated from law school.) All other Septembers, for me, have triggered first day of school thoughts and preparations. I lived my life by the academic calendar! Until I switched to online datebooks, each year I bought one that began with September. This is the way I think of a fresh start. It starts now, today, with the first day of school.

So you would think it would be immensely hard to transition to a time when the beginning of school holds no meaning. That, after 58 years, I'd be so rooted in a fresh start in September mentality, that I would lose my grip on life with the elimination of the academic calendar.

Not so!

I had no trouble readjusting to a new perspective.

I was not amused, however, that Isis chose this day to get me up even earlier than a school-targeted alarm clock.
Isis, what is the matter with you??

It was the earliest cheeper wake up ever.






Barely a glow on the horizon.





Dismal, dark, buggy time of day. Makes you feel like some animal will lunge at you from behind the bushes. For company, I have four crazy cheepers and an antsy cat, who cannot sleep when a rooster crows (Oreo starts his song significantly before dawn -- I'm guessing that this is the reason Isis wakes up).


Ah well... All other roads point to a splendid day! Seventies! Cool! Sunny! The kind of day you wished for yourself when it was your first day of school.

Breakfast on the porch. For a change, Ed takes the photo -- of me bringing the usual tray out for us.






We have errands to do, but we do them together and there is never a better time to ride in the back of a motorcycle than on a day like this. We pass our neighboring truck farmer and I pause to pick up a bundle of Chinese lanters from her.





And of course, I work on various aspects of my writing project. And tennis! Yes, we do that, too.

I'm still convinced that this freedom to read and write is too luxurious. Decadent. Irreverent. That pensions will be cut, that unforeseen circumstances will place me in the employment circles again. That I'll have to write not essays or memoirs or novels, but jingles for commercials, or Hallmark greeting cards. I send this card to you, my dear, to wish you all the best next year.  Scary thoughts. Push them aside. Focus on the day before me -- a beautiful breezy day of yellow sunflowers and orange Chinese lanterns.





And I hope a wonderful day for all those who, in one way or another, did start school today.

title

Anyone reading Ocean over a longer spell would confirm that I am not great at coming up with  names or titles. I don't want the words on top to set limits on how someone may read what's below. And so in the title space for a post, I often find myself merely putting in the name of the day. You can't screw up too much with "Sunday" or "Wednesday!"

And so it probably comes as no surprise that my writing project has not had a title associated with it since its inception nearly a decade ago. I call my file Book Notes. I tell myself I'll think of a title later.

Well I'm at "later!" As I struggle to write the perfect pitch letter (and no, I cannot, CANNOT say it in less than 500 words), I know I need a title.

I ask Ed for help.

Mistake.

I throw out one title after the next to lukewarm or even downright cold responses.
Not too catchy, is it... he'll mumble, somewhat afraid of hurting my feelings or giving bad advice.
When I think I struck perfections he'll remind me -- google it. Someone surely has used that before.

Thanks Ed.

So this is my day: after rising way too early to free the cheepers...






...after a Monday breakfast that feels more like a Sunday breakfast because I know my girl and her husband will be over for supper...






...after picking out a few weeds and cleaning the coop and generally pacing up and down the farmette in a ridiculous way all day long...






...and after writing the first (then second then third then fourth) draft of a pitch letter, I come up with a title.

No, of course I wont share it just yet. That comes later. But just so you know, it was a very painful process. For a while, I considered merely titling it "Sunday." I mean, Sundays do figure in the text, so it would not have been ridiculous.

Well, yes, it would have been ridiculous, so I did better. I hope.

Two more quick photos: first, dinner on the porch. Because you never know how many of those we'll have left this year. My daughter, solo. Everything else about the photo was so poorly presented, that I cropped it out.






Second, of our wild hens, having a bad hair day. You have to hand it to them -- they don't seem to mind. Life is all about getting the worm and laying an egg. Who cares if the crown tilts a bit to the side.





And there you have it -- the first day of September. Ushering in the beginning of the school year. Though not for me. This year, for the first time, not for me.

flip the page

For the first time in many years, I do not have a manuscript waiting on my computer for a dramatic (or, in my case, not so dramatic) ending. On this last day of August, which, for me, is tantamount to being the last breath of summer, I shift gears and begin thinking about my next writing project. (This last one, of course, will still require work and attention, but I no longer have it suspended in mid sentence on my screen. It remains to be seen as to where, how, when it will be taken up again. You know how these projects go: you thinks you are capable of writing a book, you are encouraged by well meaning friends and, too, your companion who likes to refer to you jokingly as the one-day-famous-author-person and so you write. And then you finish. And then you have to deal with the "now what.")

If I am to fall apart in a post retirement disintegration and discombobulation it would be now, because for once, I really truly have no agenda. (Except to embark on my next writing project, but that one is still morphing. You can't enter a brave new world the same day you exited your comfy and familiar one.)

But I'm not falling apart. Farmette routines today had me plod through in the most predictable way: rising with the cheepers (to a foggy morning)...






...eating breakfast out on the porch with Ed...






...walking through the flower beds, mentally taking notes as to which of the spent flowers have to be cut back and how much and when.






It's a beautiful closure to summer. The sun is out, the air is warm. I imagine people are having countless picnics and barbeques  -- the American rendition of Labor Day weekend. I think the tug-a-war championships are still taking place in Madison and I know the food fair is in full swing downtown.

Here, on the farmette, things are more quiet.





The big event is witnessing Martha the groundhog parade by the great willow this afternoon. The cheepers were napping, but I surely took note. For one thing, Martha has grown awfully large this summer -- she would be hard to miss now.

Ed and I play tennis in the quiet of our secret tennis court. The sun sets, day is done. Summer is effectively over, the new season, for me, begins now.

Saturday

...and the day ran away with the spoon!

It's rare that I sit down to compose my first Ocean words this late, so be patient as I gather my diffuse and sleepy thoughts.

Instead of starting off with a chronological recap: how I slept in, how breakfast was late again...






...how the garden was hanging in there, after very many bursts of rain...



(toward the entrance edge of the porch)





(toward the great willow)





(toward the side where we eat our meals)


...I'll stick with noting just two small events from this day.

First, the trip to the farmers market.

Ed hasn't tagged along to the great downtown farmers market this year at all.
You go and bond with your daughter, he'll say each Saturday, which is really another way of saying -- no, I don't feel like it.

But today he agreed to go. My daughter is away for the day and I told him I had just a short list of produce to pick up.

On our way there, we paused at my daughter's, just to peek in on her cats. Two out of the three were delighted to see us. The third hid underneath the couch.



(Virgil and Ed, at play, with a feather toy)




(Virgil at rest)





(Goldie, the old timer and Virgil the newcomer; Goldie surely is wondering why anyone would waste energy jumping after a set of feathers on a string)


Okay, that was nice. But the market? It wasn't the usual joyous affair. Madison's food festival (Taste of Madison) was encroaching onto the square, the same square where the vendors sell their produce and so the whole downtown area was in chaos.  In the end, Ed waited in the car to the side, while I dashed out to pick up the essentials.



(I know what they're thinking: why do so many people not like eggplant??)


Not the kind of market experience you like to have. Still, we got terrific corn, mushrooms, cheddar-cauliflower and salad greens, so I was only modestly disappointed.


The second event? Oh, that's a repeat of something that we both think of as uniquely our own: in the late afternoon, we go to our favorite secret tennis court to play.

If anything speaks to the joy of these days it's that game of tennis that we go back to more often than I even mention here. It's very quiet there and the smell of pine trees is intense. The game is bouncy and perky and it goes by rules that we've made up, though we've never felt compelled to say them out loud. There is always laughter. More than in any other setting, here, on the tennis court, I laugh loudly  -- at my misplays, at his stumbles. It is our language here. The game (which we began very early in our time together) has forever been a joyous event and on days where some worry or fret is so intense that we can't let go of it there, on the court, we end quickly and go home. But not today. Today, we played!