leaving Chicago

I am going to make this a reflective day. This means that first of all, things are going well and secondly, I have a little time on my hands. Leading me to think that I am so ready to lay down my gardening shears! My mom keeps telling me -- what a shame this isn't California where you could have your garden year round. Oh horror! This much work, every day, year round? Wisconsin, how I love you for giving us winter! Yep, you heard it here on August 11th, even as I am sitting at an outside table in a cafe in Chicago, loving every second of that breeze, the green plantings to the edge, the feeling of freedom that indoor dining still does not offer. But at the end of the game, I like that the growing season winds down and we have the quiet of winter.

I have a final morning here, at my younger daughter's home, but it's a quick one because kids have school and parents have jobs. Still, a quick one has lovely moments. Plenty of them!

(standing is best!)

(dancing is even better!)

I walk with the threesome to the two kid schools...

(Let's see who is inside that stroller! Hi, Juniper!)

And then the parents go off to do their jobs and I take a stroll in the neighborhood (stopping at Olivia's because that's the only place on the planet where I can get a box of tiny chocolate covered caramels -- excellent bribing material for a kid who needs to hurry up and get into the car, as well as an evening sweet bite when you just need a bitty piece of something).

From there, I go to Floriole's. I love this bakery so much! Just looking at their few pastries makes me happy!

I buy the usual buckwheat cake -- it makes for a wonderful breakfast outside.

This is where I pause to reflect. I'd received a couple of letters from Poland again, at least some of them triggered by the publication of Like a Swallow (you haven't bought it/read it yet? You should!). This book has generated so much good feeling among so many that honestly, I am moved to tears by it. And you know, the reaction has been to write and tell me about it, which is just so generous! We shared a history. We're talking about it now, fifty years later. 

(And to my friend from Australia -- that postcard you sent about LAS? Incredibly beautiful and loved.) 

I was going to drive home immediately after breakfast, but my daughter asked if I was willing to come up to her work and scoot out to lunch with her. Oh, am I ever!

She works at Northwestern U, which is in Evanston, just north of Chicago. I used to come up here for classes when I was a grad student at U of Chicago. I drove my ancient wreck of a car all the way from south of the city to the north, several times a week, because I loved the work of a professor who taught at Northwestern. As I repeated the northern lakeshore route today, it struck me that professionally, the right decision would have been to switch to this university, to write a dissertation under my hero prof  in sociology, and be forever after a sociology person who did participant observation research. But, I fell for a guy and moved with him to Madison and gave up on the whole sociology gig in favor of something practical. Law. For all that went well in my life afterwards, it was the right decision. 

(the lake is ferocious today)

(...this does not stop families from coming to its shore)

I push aside idle rewrites of my life and focus on the wonderful reality of having my girl work here. I love pausing for this brief period, so I could feel this neighborhood once again, now in this very different context.

We go to pick up a lunch at Hewn -- an Evanston bakery, because she knows that's my preferred lunch venue. 

(so many pretty pastries!)

And we have these precious minutes to catch up.

(with a selfie!)

And too soon, it's time for her to return to work and for me to turn on my music for the drive home.

This time, I switch away from my usual playlist and I put on the Beatles. Some time ago, when it was made available on Apple Music, I purchased ALL the Beatles songs. $99 for the whole bunch. And I never listened to them. Oh, maybe I'd turn on one or two favorites, but otherwise I did not go back to it.

Today, however, I am reflective. (Remember? I warned you!) The Beatles is like playing my childhood and teen years right there, through my head and soul, bringing my life from those years to here, to this ride from one young family's home to the other's, to Ed at the farmette. What prompted this? Well, I'm getting ready for a September reunion, or should I say Reenactment (more on that later, in September -- stay tuned, it will be worth it!) and the Beatles are an assist in that direction.

Remarkable how well I remember all the lyrics of all the songs, running from 1962 until 1971 when I returned to the U.S. and suddenly the Beatles didn't matter anymore. But all those Beatle years! My loves, my angst, my numbing adolescent angst that taught me never ever to indulge those feelings of failure and hopelessness again. Years of guitar strumming on the bed before I learned to stop. I got up off that bed and (play: Across the Universe) moved on, leaving Poland, leaving it all to look ahead to something more complicated and therefore better.

This was my drive. I sang along good and loud. A few happy tears were shed. 

I remembered to get off the correct highway exit. 

I pulled over before stepping into farmette territory and wrote this. Then I filled the car with gas and came home to Ed.

From Ed -- gorgeous, ready to go to the market? 

I am. We go. 

I am home, with my heart evenly split between three homes -- two here, one down there, where today the breezes blow, the baked goods glow, the grandgirls smile their radiant happy childhood smiles.

The Sturgeon Supermoon shines brightly over us all tonight.

With so much love...

Chicago

My August trip to Chicago is not long: there today, return tomorrow. I mean, it doesn't even give me a pause in the lily clipping (unfortunately)! But this doesn't make it any less special. I have an evening with my two grand girls before me and I think about that as I step out into the brilliant sunshine.

But first (what did you expect?), cleaning up the flowers...

(last of nymphs and shepherds...)

And breakfast. With Ed.

The drive to Chicago is best done at midday, when medium-low traffic allows for a 2.25 hour coast. With music, it seems more like half that. Once there, I stop by the house to get my instructions for the night (the parents are going out for the first time in ages and ages to a concert). Then I swing by Laura's -- she's my go-to haircut person these days. Honestly, her cutting is great, and her stories are equally wonderful. She can spin a family tale of woe like no-one!

(In this neighborhood, like in so many other Chicago ones, the corner houses have the uniquely rounded bay towers...)

When I get back to my daughter's home, the girls have just come in from school. Does Juniper even remember me from a month ago? I hope so, because it's who she gets tonight!

Bye mom, get going already! You're late for your concert!

(Thank goodness for the Australian show Bluey -- just long enough to run a couple of episodes for Primrose while I settle the babe for bed.)

Since I love to see kids laugh at funny stories, I broke down and bought a couple of Pilkey books for Primrose. Predictably, she laughed and laughed. (The dinosaur series is a little less potty mouth than books in his other series.) 

And so ended my evening with the awesome twosome.

It's good to see them healthy and happy. Parents too!

With so much love...

Tuesday

An enormously slow morning, where I am more tired than someone who had just run a marathon. With good reason. I expected it and sure enough, here I am, dragging my feet. Even though the day is splendidly beautiful! And the flowers are still popping up (though in smaller numbers). And the summer is unusually calm. It's the result of preventive measures that I'm taking before the very busy weeks ahead. Plod along today so that I can be energetic tomorrow. Makes sense, doesn't it?

It still takes me an hour and a half to clean the garden and I'm not even picking weeds. I've a little given up on such stuff. Remember how exactly perfect the flower fields were in spring? Ha ha! That was then. In August, I am happy let go and let nature do its thing.

Still, the lily beds are reasonably neat. Snip snip...

Oh, and I walk over to the new orchard -- I have just enough energy for that! -- to take a look at the meadow. We expanded it considerably this year and it is beautiful!

Breakfast -- alone, on the sunny side of the porch. In addition to being tired, I'm a bit chilly so I move to where there is a warm spot. Can you believe it?? How ever did we come so quickly to pre-fall weather?

Ed is at a board meeting. Quarterly, monthly, yearly -- whatever it is, it's always in the morning and so he is Zooming away in the sheep shed and I'm thinking a nap would be awfully nice.

Except that I have a little girl to pick up at Space Art Camp.

("we had to make it out of scraps of paper!")

(at the farmette, on the secret path)

I return her home a bit early today and that's a good thing because Ed and I neglected to get absentee ballots, so we have to move ourselves to our polling place to vote.

The reward? A lunch at Paul's Coffee Shop (which is just across the street).

We were hanging loose, not in a rush to leave, not intending to stay much longer when we ran into a friend. Someone we used to talk to regularly when our visits to Paul's were frequent. Almost daily. We caught up today. Turns out that he belongs to a cadre of people who is completely depressed, angered, and demoralized by the political process. You can't really argue much with his long list of reasons for this, but at the same time, you have to wonder how you can get yourself out of bed each morning with so little to love about the day before you. Or is it that some people thrive in their field of negative energy? We like this friend and we listened to him for a good while, but afterwards, I was happy to return to my garden and my own thoughts which run in a very different direction.

And there is absolutely nothing else that I want to do today. Nothing. Not walk, not work, not even read. Maybe a nap? Yes, a nap. To pick up some oomph in time for dinner. (Frittata with August veggies!)

Monday

The green bucket, used as a rain gauge, tells me we've had at least two inches of rain in the past two days. That is perfect. We can stop now. For a while.

The flower fields are letting out their last exhale of blooms. I see that the ones I snip and the ones that are currently flowering are the tail end of the season. It's been such a long and robust summer run for them! The flower field along the secret path was new last year and so this is the first season of full grown plants. I'd say it's currently my most healthy set of flowers, in that everything is in its adolescent splendor -- full of energy and youthful optimism. It really makes you smile to watch the flowers outperform each other there.

The lily field by the porch has been strong too, but I really must address some of the older clumps in it. And unfortunately, that work should be done now, while I see what's there and working and what needs a divide or replacement. Of course, the very last thing I want to do now is dig up a flower field. Most likely, I'll just make educated guesses next spring. This has been my modus operandi all along: work with whatever grabs me at the moment. Monet would be appalled.

It's still gray outside, but I do my work, and we eat outside, still enjoying the summer vibe in the air.

(And on the ground...)

And then it gets a little hectic. I pick up Snowdrop from the last of her summer camps -- this one is "art and outer space." Yes, all in one!

We come back to the farmette...

(fraises de bois)

... and after lunch, she and I read the next in the series of books that she likes and I tolerate (Pilkey's stuff, which can be funny if a bit oddballish.) We do art, she plays. And tries as always, unsuccessfully as always, to annoy Ed. (He is never ever annoyed by her.)

Late afternoon -- we're back on the tennis courts! As we walk in the park toward the courts, we both comment how cool it is. I put on a sweater. We look toward the left field where last winter she learned how to skate. Could it be that we're starting to turn away from summer? Are we ready for that step? I'm wishing I had a warmer wrap as I sit and watch her play. My summer blood isn't primed for the burst of cool air.

I take out my laptop and I catch up on mail. I had just received a very sweet email from an old friend in Poland and all I could think was how correct that NYTimes article was a few weeks back when the author urged us to exchange more pleasantries over texts and emails. They matter. Sending positive stuff matters. It seems obvious and yet we take care of the needed correspondence and neglect that which is unexpected and without obvious purpose! 

At the end of her lesson, her teacher says: she is persistent!

I return her home. Where her brother just wants to be with mommy.

And now it's evening. I swing by Walgreens, all the way in McFarland, to take care of one important errand, then I am back home.

So, a little bit of a nutty day, with beautiful elements throughout. I suppose that describes a good many of farmette days, don't you think?

With love...