Monday

And she is in!

What began now three months ago reached a milestone today -- my mom, following a stroke, moved from independent living to hospital care to nursing home rehab and today -- to her new digs in an assisted living retirement community.

This final move came on a very rainy day. No complaints there -- rain means spring. Rain means the snow is nearly melted. Rain means we'll get a head start on washing down the glass roof over the porch.

Immediately after breakfast...






I set out to the store to pick up a few odds and ends for her and then I drove on to her new place, making sure that all is ready. Oh, it was now without small glitches and calls to Ed -- how come the power strip isn't working? Are you sure the light bulb you gave me works? Must be the lamp then... And so on. But by 11:30 I was ready for her and ten minutes later she arrived.

She was immensely surprised at how peaceful it all is. A studio, but a spacious studio. So much closet space! Such a nice bathroom! So much room!






(We will forget about the stuff she wished I had packed and that I did not know she wished I had packed.)

My own view is that it feels spacious because it is (at the moment) uncluttered. But vestiges of old habits remain. I heard the words "I never throw anything away..." and I recoil. All you seniors, this is not a good approach. If you don't throw it away, someone else will have to do it for you. All those little plastic containers and jars and bags and extra everything? They cannot stay in the cupboards forever.

Right now, my mom has to have time to take it all in. When someone else unpacks for you, you can't find a thing. Switches, mechanicals -- all new, all different. But, her computer (and thus a return to Ocean) awaits her, the telephone is plugged in and she is on her way to resuming normal life.

I just make it in time to pick up the kids.

Sparrow has been borderline sick these past days and for the first time I got a report from school that was less than stellar. The little guy is needy. Not his usual self.

Well, perhaps an infusion of Snowdrop's excitement moves things around for him, because by the time I get them both to the farmhouse, they're all smiles.

They are enormously creative in their play. Snowdrop is one long story that morphs into another and another and Sparrow? Well, at this point in life, he just wants to keep up with her.






Such sweet innocent play! You can even forget the dire news headlines for the few hours that these two are at the farmhouse. They laugh, you laugh.





And the rains come down and the snows vanish and you hope for a really beautiful spring. I mean, the rough season is the one that was. We need the pick-me-up of an emerging field of spring flowers! Soon!

Sunday

You do know it's International Women's Day, don't you? Oh stop blubbering about how you don't observe such holidays! Go celebrate the women who contributed to making your life grand. What, your life is not grand? Don't blame the women. We had no say in that!

Anyway. It is Women's Day and I always remember it, because in the Poland of my youth, it was a fairly big deal. At the very least you got a flower for your gendered efforts. And a lot of good messaging about the value of women. And honestly, sometimes the soul needs to hear some good stuff coming at you. Your brain says "it's all just there to make you feel good" and the heart responds "I don't mind being made to feel good..."

For those who say -- every day is women's day, I'll respond -- ah, but were that the case! Until that happens, let's give ourselves a flower and take stock of all that we have accomplished in our varied and full lives.

So, Women's Day, but also Sunday, an especially beautiful and spring-like day here, in Wisconsin. Really stunning.

But first, breakfast.






We wait a little for the temps to climb up and climb they do! We reach a high of 57F (14C). It's by far our warmest reading of 2020. Amazing and wonderful all at the same time.

A hike is in order. Ed and I pick a segment of the Ice Age Trail that is especially pretty (we think) in early spring. It starts right by a wonderful goat farm (they make great goat cheese there) and meanders up the hills and into the forest...






... before coming out on this bluff, with possibly the best views in south central Wisconsin.





We do live in a lovely corner of the country!

Selfie, to commemorate the successful climb through at times muddy, at other times slippery portions of the trail...






In the evening, the young family is here for dinner. Oh, that extra hour of daylight! It makes such a difference!






(ice cream fan...)






(out to feed the cheepers and cats with Ed)





Late evening. How did it get to be late so fast?  Lost an hour... International Women's Day, cut to just 23 hours. So unfair! Ah well. We're used to it.

Saturday

And so ends winter time. Tomorrow, we spring forward. (Europe does this a couple of weeks later.) But here, in Wisconsin, it seems we've already sprung forward. We wake up to another stellar day.

Breakfast.






I can't fully take advantage of it because I set aside this day for unpacking my mom's new apartment. I treat myself to a drive along the back roads. It adds a handful of minutes, but it's worth it. I am so much not a fan of interstate highways. Sitting behind trucks and having cars speed by you at twice the speed limit (or so it seems) is sometimes horrible, often boring, and honestly -- just stressful. I prefer having the luxury of an empty road, if only so that I can look out at these landscapes.






My mom's apartment is a large studio. She was in a one bedroom before, but honestly, this place seems more spacious. It could be the result of eliminating 75% of her possessions, or it could be that a studio projects spaciousness. 

By mid afternoon, I'm done!

A brief drive through Sun Prairie shows off this rather charming small satellite town (it's just a half dozen miles to Madison from here). I should stop and take some pictures, but I'm in a hurry to get back, so you get just this, straight out my car window:






Why the rush? Oh, so Ed and I can take in a walk! Just to the county park up the road, but it surely is a lovely and musical walk!






Did I tell you? The warbling sandhill cranes are back!






Yes, I'm a huge fan! These birds offer an enchanting symphonic presentation for us at the farmette nearly every day. (Their sound carries.)





Welcome back, you lovely birds! Do your courtship dances, enjoy our waterways and wetlands. And sing your warbly tunes! Winter's done. Spring is here.

Friday

It's done! Not without adventure, but I surely can say that the bulk of the work of moving my mom (or at least her stuff) to a new place is behind us.

I can sit back now and reflect on the process itself  (hmmm...maybe I should wait until she moves in on Monday...). About all the good people that I worked with -- I mean, really good people, both in county government and in the taxed and stressed but you'd never know it medical services. About my least favorite part of it all. No, not the carrying lifting and loading. Not the hours of time spent on shuffling papers. Hands down, the toughest was going through all of my mom's stuff, every folder, paper and acquired item and deciding what to toss, sell, give away, take. Take note all you aging readers! Tear it up and toss it away. You don't need half of what you think you need.

Breakfast is very early. "Two moving people and a borrowed truck" have a job to do!






We pick up the truck and drive to our storage unit on the outskirts of the city. Loading the truck is tricky. There is just enough room for it all. Well, one of the chairs sort of towers over everything, but still, we're good!






It's a scant ten minute drive from storage to mom's new place. Rural scenery. On a beautiful, sunny day.






Time to unload the truck!

You know gorgeous, I think we lost that chair...

Indeed! It's gone. Fell off along the way. We find it later in a ditch. Shattered. Good thing we stuck to quiet rural roads!

 I'm so very glad that part of the move is behind us.

We haul her stuff to the unit, set up some of the mechanicals and take off. I'll unpack tomorrow. This afternoon, I'm back at the farmette with Snowdrop. 


She is (at first)  a disappointed little girl. The shed cats are out and about and she wants with all her heart to befriend at least one of them. There are barn cats that grow tame with age. We've seen them on nearby farms. The guys here are not quite there yet. Ed and I can pet most of them, but not at our whim. And this little girl is a whole new kettle of fish. They run if she approaches.






We suggest she meets them in their home turf -- the shed. She's willing. She wants to move all her toys into the shed and wait for them here!






She is eventually appeased with one cat gazing curiously at her from a short distance. I tell her that over time, they'll be as used to her as they are to the cheepers who cross their path (and who, by the way, love having Snowdrop in their midst).






In the evening, Ed and I eat take out Chinese food. In a crazy busy day, you need to make room for some slight extravagance. Something that can celebrate the good and healthy in all of us.

Thursday

The wind howled, the trash cans outside toppled, signs telling you to drive carefully (because of the animals) on our long driveway fell off their posts.

Still, it very much feels like early spring.

Breakfast.






Much of my morning is devoted to coordinating my mom's transfer (Monday!). There's the discharge, the transport, the move-in. It's going to be a radical change for her (for the better, I hope!). She has been in a nursing home rehab for nearly three months and she has insisted on isolation.  No visits, no computer, no calls (I'm the exception).  The hope is that next week, she will resurface and resume an engagement with the world. in a supportive environment.


In the afternoon, I pick up the kids and bring them to the farmette. Showers come and go, the walkways are mushy and muddy -- all typical early spring stuff, all wonderful!











It's dance day of course.












And then I'm back at home. Late, but satisfied that all that needed to be done today was taken care of. Tomorrow, Ed and I will don our mover hats. "Two people and borrowed truck." Best part? We move for free!

sun salutations

It's wickedly beautiful outside again! A constant reminder of how splendid early spring can be! I don't think anyone cares that it's still just a handful of degrees above freezing. Sunshine dazzles. The spirits lift, the step grows more bouncy.

We've had a string of such days. Two takeaways from good weather: it's a prod to get you moving more (not by car, on your feet!) and it's a reminder to take dreary days in stride. They do not have a hold on your life. Eventually, the sunshine will pull you out of yourself once again.

Breakfast, ready and lovely.






An appointment follows, but after that Ed and I have a window and this time we don't dally: to the county park!






The walk is grand and not too slippery.






Hey, would you believe it? Even as the ice fishers still throw down their lines...






... someone else is taking advantage of the thawing ice!






Neither activity looks appealing to me! And as if to demonstrate the uncertainties with walking on ice, I step on a patch, out there in the park meadows, it shatters in its thinness, I fall and end up completely wet. Icy wet. This kind of mishap is way more funny on sunny days!


The kids are equally spirited today. Snowdrop still chooses indoor play (were he given a vote, I'm sure Sparrow would pick the option of "whatever my sister wants!"), but there is always a pause outside now, to take stock, to appreciate the disappearing snow cover, to salute the sun.











For a few minutes anyway. The great bulk of our time is in the farmhouse.





Ed plays volley ball tonight and so I forgo the movie watching in favor of a quiet evening. Time to think a little about grandparenting, about parenting, about the children in our lives. I track with great attention the growth of three right now and give as much care as I can to all of them. So you could say that I've tended to five kids in my life. Does that make me almost an expert?

Your approach to family life changes as you get older. On the one hand you are more limited of course (you are not in charge of their lives, and besides, your physical stamina diminishes somewhat), on the other hand time gives you a better understanding of where you need to tread carefully and where you can relax. On balance, are grandparents less anxious about their grandkids? I think so. There is a broadening of our perspective. And the realization that few people have tried and true answers and so why not lose the angst? Why not accept one's uncertainties and vulnerabilities and enjoy the flawed but wonderful run through life?

Spring. It came early this year. And I am so glad!

Tuesday

Well that was a first! Typically, I write portions of an Ocean post throughout the day, as time permits. In the evening, I work on the photos, with one eye toward a movie Ed will have selected. I finish it all off and, if my eyes stay open long enough, I do a final edit. Then I publish.

Last night, Ed and I plunged into a discussion of sailing when I was in the last throes of wakefulness. As he then sidestepped into a phone call with his sailing friends, I retired for the night, forgetting to do the final edit, forgetting to publish, forgetting pretty much everything except that the world felt complicated and the simplicity of sleep was suddenly very appealing.

That has never happened before.

I woke up still in the thick of a hundred messes and complications, but honestly, it's like the ugly carpet you put off replacing -- once you've been stomping on it for days on end, you forget that it's even there. You get used to most everything in life, except, perhaps, a tragic loss. I have no tragic losses to knock me down now and so I bounce around, a little bit dazed by how much is at play, all swirling around me (retired people tend to favor predictability), not unlike the snowflakes coming down on the farmette lands.






Yeah, snowflakes. Not that we mind. These are the snows that quickly melt. The early signs of spring have not forsaken us! Yet.





What's so confusing and discombobulating? Well, everything that should follow a known and familiar path is a little twisted right now. Adjustments must be made!

Take the cats. I think there are some skirmishes between the little ones and the shed cats. This means that Calico and Cutie are even more jittery than usual. Feeding them is a challenge.

Then there's Ed's sailing. He has another trip forthcoming and he is trying hard to convince me to join up with him for at least some portion of the journey. I love going places with him so very much, but I explain to him that sailing even on so called gentle waterways (say a river) is, to me, like getting on a long and bumpy flight, where you feel miserable and squashed and bored the entire time. At least the flight takes you to someplace you want to be. The sailboat trip is it! At the end of it, you simply return home.

My own travels are still in place for spring, but it is true that I study carefully the data on the spread of the coronavirus. If things get even more complicated, I'll have to cancel the whole thing. And no, I did not buy travel insurance. I did the purchases in early January when we were all as innocent as the first petals of spring flowers that rise up above the half frozen soil.

As for my mom -- well, we're proceeding full speed ahead with the move in a couple of days. I have to put some order into the chaos of this. I have the weekend to work on it.


So let's dispense with the generalities. How about today? Was it gloriously spring-like despite the snowfall? Maybe. I watched the day unfold through sleepy eyes. Ed had a very early appointment and so we ate breakfast right about at dawn. (My very sleepy co-conspirator.)






Then the clouds rolled in, the snows fell, the clouds moved on. A good day for farmhouse work!

In the afternoon, the kids were here of course. 

We read (or rather re-read) many Katie Morag books.











Too, there's the art...






And there are the stories.





And dances and prances and a million glances. All good, all loving and kind.

In the evening, I stirfry a bunch of veggies into my sizzling shrimp.

There ought to be a proverb for this type of day: don't measure your snowfall by the number of snowflakes that come down. Or something comparable.

Now, back to the movie, the photos, then on to a quick edit and a click for publish. So predictable, so nice.

Monday

Sunny, busy, early spring-like, so busy.

Well aren't we all!

For me, there is an acceleration of mom stuff. I want to have her in her new place early next week. That's ambitious, but doable.

But first, breakfast.






Then I get busy. Lists, phone calls to various sources and resources -- all this before a meeting with my mom and a staff member of the new facility -- uff! Good time management is a skill worth having, even in your retirement.

But there is still time left for a walk. And here, Ed and I take advantage of the new development's network of quiet roads. This is one good consequence of losing farmland to a massive new buildup next door: we now do not have to get in the car to go somewhere for a safe walk. We've got the the newly emerging neighborhood right by the farmette land. And it's not all parceled lots and mushrooming new houses. There are still pretty landscapes to behold. Like the one across the road from us.






This is when the sun really takes hold, chasing away all remaining clouds and giving us brilliant spring light. The kind you can only dream about in December.

And in that dazzling sunshine, I then set out to pick up Snowdrop and Sparrow at school.










It surely had to have been the best part of the day!

And yes, I fell asleep tuckered out, forgetting to click "publish." When was the last time that happened? Never!

transformative!

Days like this one are rare gifts, straight from the storage bins of beautiful earthly surprises. May it be duly noted that today, we move on. The winter crazies are finished. Oh, Ed will remind me that we may still get a snowstorm in a week or two or three, but it doesn't matter. We have crossed the border into spring territory. We are safe from the biting, gripping, threatening clutch of winter.

I open many windows at the farmhouse to breathe in the fresh air.

(Ed closes them behind my back: to him, bringing in cold air while you still have your thermostat set to warm air makes no sense. He was not raised in Poland, where the command to "wywietrzyc" a house, a classroom, any interior -- meaning to let fresh in and chase stale air out -- is as common as washing your undies on a regular basis.)

Breakfast. Almost celebratory!






The forecast calls for sunshine only in the morning and so we seize the moment! It's already 40F (4.5C). Good enough!

No, better than good: it is transformative!

We go to the Brooklyn Wildlife Area -- our favorite place for short hikes (though we enter at a different point, so we're not really boring old repetitive people!).






There is still plenty of snow around us, but it is wet snow. Walkable snow. None of this slippery ice stuff I worried about.






The sun rays play tag with forest trees, the breeze is gentle and kind.

We reach the first bench perched on a low hill and we pause there for a few minutes, faces upturned, as if on a mountain top in a fabulous ski resort, only without the people, without the fuss...






We continue along toward our favorite bench, you know, the one with the beautiful view toward the wetlands, the farmlands -- all of it bursting with that magical feel of spring.






It is the most perfect first hike, celebrating the coming of spring.











The rest of the day pales by comparison. We trim crab apple trees. I open windows, Ed closes them. Dinner is just the two of us -- kids are with other grandparents today. I do hope they, indeed, everyone in Wisconsin, had a chance to take a big whiff of that heavenly earthy early March air! Sublime!