Saturday

When tragedies happen (and is there a day when tragic events do not befall communities of bewildered families, friends?), I want to believe that they happen at the margins. That most people seek to aid, not to destroy. I look for that in the stories that emerge.

Paris is in the headlines. And the sad thing is that it really is not unique, not really unexpected, and not something that cannot happen there or elsewhere, again and again.

When I first heard the news yesterday (and I heard it within minutes, because being alone, I was plugged into my computer) my immediate thought was -- each violent death has a lifelong impact on the loved ones who survive. And then -- I always wanted to take my grandchildren to Paris... And then -- what a messed up world we're handing over to the next generation and the one after.

Forgive me for starting a post in this way. I work hard to steer Ocean in the direction of the simple but noble. I leave it to others to decipher and expound on the events that leave us gasping. But of course, I owe Paris so much of my good, reverent moments. I cannot ignore here the pain that has flooded the city right now.

I write the few emails to people I know who live in France. I'm sorry... I'm with you (but of course, I'm not really there, I'm here). I read the stories, watch the news videos. And I start my day with my sadness. For all that happened in Paris. For all that happens elsewhere to people who, like you or I, merely want to live a life of calm, where a stroll to a park with a grandchild takes center stage and a dinner (or even a breakfast) with family, lovers or friends is the most important event of your week.


Breakfast.






Cheepers. Getting along today.






And a hike with Ed.






Where all is as it should be everywhere today -- peaceful. Quiet. Beautiful.






With a path leading toward the brightest of blue skies.






Are you wondering if I will be less likely to travel to Paris, going forward?

That, at least, is an easy question: no, not at all. I will be going there in a couple of weeks, when perhaps the shock will have morphed into a more constant pain. I wont hide nor stay away from that. It's my turn to show gratitude and admiration for all that the city is and can be for the millions who call it home.


One more photo -- evening sky over the farmette.






And a last one -- the fields beyond.

a Friday alone

If I have accepted the fact that I travel mostly alone, at home, I rarely am without the company of either Ed or, these days Snowdrop.

Today, for the most part, I had neither.

Well, after breakfast. But that morning meal was rushed!






And here's a curiosity: minutes later you will have found me running, really running from a downtown garage where I parked my car in the last years of my law school work. Where to? Actually, the law school.

I had been back to the law school only once since I packed up my office and retired nearly two years ago. And now today I was doing what I did so many mornings where I had an early lecture: running.

The good news is that I can still run that distance as fast as I did a few years back. Seven minutes, if all lights fall into place. The last leg of it uphill.

It was actually a weird return visit: I wasn't there for the law school part. This was merely the place some medical personnel were using for biometric screenings -- part of a wellness program in our state where if you filled out a questionnaire and subjected yourself to some basic screenings of the cholesterol, BMI, waist size etc. type, you could earn $150 from your insurance provider. That was , for me, an easy calculation. Several years ago, when I was trying to put a few more dollars into my travel pouch, I would have had to work for a whole weekend selling French creams at l'Occitane to earn that much cash. You want to record my vitals now? Sure! Send the check to my home address, thank you.

After my "appointment" (hence the run), I suddenly had a huge amount of time on my hands. Friday is always grocery shopping day, but typically I have to squeeze that into the morning hours. Not so today. I have no Snowdrop to visit. My day is strangely bare.

So I walked down Bascom Hill -- where I worked for a quarter of a century...





... and I tried to get a handle on how I felt about it all. Time has passed. I think of my work more expansively than I did when I left it. As with raising kids, I see the good moments and, too, the missed opportunities. Do I wish I had done it differently? No, as my kind Polish friend told me just a few days ago -- then I wouldn't be me, would I?

The campus was empty, in the way that it gets in the middle of a class hour and especially on a Friday. I was fine with that. I wanted a quiet moment. I got a very quiet moment.


I then walked down State Street and I was really stunned how much this set of blocks, linking campus with the Capitol keeps changing. Stores come and go, new buildings go up. If anything made me feel like I was truly in a retirement bubble, this was it: the familiarity mixed with the unfamiliarity here.






Well, it was a good walk anyway. The air was cool and the winds were still gusting, but the sun was out and I gave myself the luxury of popping into stores, trying on a sweater here or there...





... thinking that it's good not to need that sweater. Putting it back, moving on...

And this was all really pleasant and unusual for me and the kind of thing I can do once every two years or so, because honestly, State Street isn't my turf anymore. I'm just revisiting an old haunt, much as I would revisit the neighborhood where I grew up in Poland.


After grocery shopping (which I stretched out to take up a ridiculously long time), I returned to the place that now does feel like it's my corner of the world -- the farmette. The late afternoon sun added warmth to the scene before me -- still dominated somewhat by the colors of the crab apples...






I watched the robins pick at the apples -- red and gray birds against a red and gray tree, all framed by the blueness of the sky and the yellowing leaves of the willow...





At the farmhouse, I put on the music that I've neglected for so long (trying to shake out of my head songs about sweet potatoes and clapping your hands) and made myself a pot of tea and sat down to write.

And then I read about the tragic events in Paris. Sigh...

a day in art

Because I am with Snowdrop from early morning til late at night today, my Ocean writing is going to be minimal. At the same time, because I wont see the little one again until Sunday eve (the young family is getting together with Snowdrop's aunt and uncle), I'm likely to include more photos than usual -- to carry me through until the end of the weekend!

Breakfast is just for Ed and myself today. Our young guest was off to work and our leisurely morning meal would have been a stress more than a pleasure for him.






The day is windy, cold and gray, but looking up, I'm still delighted with the landscape. Perhaps it's the crabapple. or the wind in the willows (!)...





I have another mouse to let out. Number eight and counting! And then I drive to Snowdrop's home.


Here we go, bits and pieces of her Thursday, in photos:

First we have the little girl with her post-breakfast, post-bath contemplative gaze...





I remind her that Thursday is art class day!

We were told it would be a messy class, but I'm prepared!

What follows is a series of photos that I took as we were killing time before leaving for class. Snowdrop just loves it when I roll her around on the floor.



























Okay, off to class.

Once there, we wait for the others to arrive. This may well be her favorite part. She is delighted when the kids (and adults!) show up.






She is the youngest today, but she sits with the rest at the table and weighs in on the project -- which is to create something that eventually will resemble a turkey. A lot of enthusiastic adults are saying "gobble, gobble," but this of course means nothing to her. She contemplates the orange on the squishy sponge.






It's a bit puzzling to her...






Assessing her work so far:






Don't be too hard on yourself, Snowdrop, there's more! Finger paints (or get-paint-on-everything time!):






Finally, the feathers.






The teacher sticks on turkey eyes, but by that time, Snowdrop was done. As was grandma, who couldn't wait to get her into the tub again.


Fresh and honest once more!






And so full of joy!







In the late afternoon, we joined Snowdrop's mom for a quick stroller walk (it was gusting close to 50 mph!) and Snowdrop and I lingered for a while in her home, where the poor girl again hoped for a cuddly moment with at least one of the cats...






But no matter. As the evening approached, Snowdrop and I left to give the young couple a chance to attend to their social obligations. We picked up grandpa Ed and went over to our local farmers market (indoors this month!) to purchase cheese and veggies.

Snowdrop was adored by the vendors (who did not have many customers while we were there) and she had the most wonderful time munching raw broccoli.






A poster child for broccoli love!






One vendor offered her a slice of market pizza and she was thrilled with this as well, though I removed the mushrooms because I wasn't sure if ten month olds could eat mushrooms.






It was a wonderful outing, followed by a wonderful reunion with her toys at the farmhouse and of course a bunch of magic moments with grandpa Ed.











True, the little one protested her evening nap to high heaven and was not appeased by our clever inclusion of Christmas lights in her room to chase away the darkness, but she can be forgiven: from art to broccoli -- the sweet girl had an exciting day. She wasn't ready to slow down.

And now the evening turns to night. The girl has left. The farmhouse is quiet. Goodnight, goodnight sweet child! Have a beautiful weekend. I know you will.

Wednesday

The regularity of certain tasks allows your mind to drift while you're doing them and that can be a good thing. But it does mean that when that regularity is slightly disrupted, your automatic pilot flounders. You have to suddenly pay attention. And even so, you can veer off course.

This morning, our farmette guest is still with us as we try to figure out where to place this poor soul who is suddenly, understandably I suppose, quite unpopular with his landlords. (Hey, haven't you ever left a burner on inadvertently? And gone off to work, Wiener Schnitzel in hand, fire slowly causing havoc in the premises you left behind?)

Well, I was so distracted with the slightly different breakfast preparation (table set for three), that I did not remember to snap a photo of this very important beginning to our day. Just think yesterday's photo, only everyone's eating oatmeal and fruit instead of farmhouse eggs prepared to a 7 minute boil for one and 10 for another.

I can show you what the view was like for us -- this, looking out the kitchen window. Our Viennese guest had never seen a crabapple before and he was quite enchanted with ours. (It is indeed true that although the cultivated apple was brought over to North America by European settlers -- who in turn picked it up from its native Kazakhstan --the crabapple is the only apple tree that is native to this country. I'd never seen one in Poland either.)






Then, I continued to be thrown off by my adjusted Wednesday schedule. I had an hour to write and I did, forgetting to keep track of time, arriving, therefore, five minutes late at Snowdrop's home -- something no baby sitter should ever do to working parents. Everyone was very forgiving, including Snowdrop, who assured me she was just getting up.






Bath time then! And as I set her down and put away the various washing paraphernalia, she migrated over to a favorite spot in the kitchen -- her mommy's cook books, which is actually quite funny because her mommy, when she was that age, had a thing about cook books. She studied them obsessively for the first two or three years of her life.






And then Snowdrop sat down and gave me that "what now, grandma?" look.






Since this evening (not on my watch), the little girl has music class, I thought we should get in the mood and so I turned on the songs she'll be hearing in her music group. And we danced. There was a lot of arm waving (at least on my part!). [The photos are on a timed release, so you never know what you're going to get in the end.]






... But then I stood back and let her take the stage, because, really, she is much more fun and interesting to observe.





By the way, our color coordinated clothes? A total coincidence. I'm going out tonight with my monthly law school group so I paid a little more attention to what I put on this morning. Snowdrop -- she'd look good in a burlap sack, but happened to also don gray and red today.

Life is quirky that way.

In the afternoon, after her nap (where her hair got a little wild!) and some healthy, happy eating...






There was time for indoor play...





... and, too, we had a brief window in which to take a neighborhood walk. Storms are barreling up toward us and I hoped we'd manage to come back without being drenched and luck was with us, thank goodness!

Inside, it got a little intense toward evening. There are three cats in the house and not one is willing to put up with even a gentle petting session. And Snowdrop never stops trying. She'll climb all those steps trying to reach Virgil...






And reach for the sky wanting just a moment with Lucas...





But it's no use. They always escape her little hand.

Guess whose side I'm on in this?!

I come home late, after my retired-law-school-group dinner. Lightening flashes and gusts of rain pound on my windshield. Our farmette guest is working with machines in the sheep shed. Ed goes off to play volley ball. I settle in to write.

Tuesday

A hazy, sunny morning, lovely in its simple tones. We have an overnight guest at the farmette -- an engineering intern, here from Austria, with the unfortunate circumstance of having had his apartment damaged by fire because he was kind enough to make Wiener Schnitzel for a company social event. Something about forgetting to turn off the stove, but I could be missing a little in the translation.






I can't linger much over breakfast. Tuesday is an early day at Snowdrop's home. I barely have time to drop off a mouse in the fields to the far north (if it's all the same mouse family, then I think we're starting in on the cousins, because this one was number seven for the year).

I've said before that Snowdrop is an energetic little girl. This morning she surely fulfilled that promise. After her breakfast and bath she lingers maybe for a handful of minutes...






... and then she is off. To the kitchen.






To the bathroom. The hallway.


 


The closet.






Up the stairs, chasing Virgil, or I should say trailing Virgil who moves with lightening speed, especially on the stairs.






Her bedroom.






The kitchen again -- exploring the finest details of whatever item she encounters along the way.






(Sometimes sampling her discoveries...)






Yes, at some point we do take a break. I contemplate taking a nap at the same time she takes hers, but settle in for a nice cup of chamomile tea instead. Very grandmotherly of me, no?

And here's the other grandmotherly deed -- in the late afternoon I insist on that fresh air play. The little puff ball starts with some leaf piles...






... but we take a brisk stroll as well and the air is perfect for it: crisp, but not yet off-putting.

I know November will give us some poor weather days soon enough (tomorrow?), but I'm not thinking about that right now. It has been a beautiful month thus far. Truly beautiful.