Wednesday

Ed is on a roll. He has chipped a mountain of logs and branches (and he continues to chip away, even as one machine after the next breaks down, refusing the amount of work he piles onto it). He has mended the siding of the house. He has kept the new trees weeded and mowed. He's talking about putting in a whole in the kitchen wall so that we can vent the oven.

And it seems that when he speeds up, I slow down. My work in the flower fields is laughably slow. My Fitbit is not sending me very many messages of approval. I find excuses to do more work inside the house rather than outside. I mean, I guess it's seasonal, but more likely I'm getting my dose of the great outdoors by watching my buddy here exert himself to the max. Oh, and in case you're wondering, at the moment he is biking his strenuous two hour segment. Me? Maybe I'll take a walk. After I finish my coffee.

The fact is, I'm pretty excited about my trip next week and I am doing a lot of planning for it. Not of the kind where you sit with books and map out your trajectory, but imagining what could go wrong and working out strategies to minimize that possibility. (Today I chased down some rapid result COVID tests at the CVS for when I return. Just to be sure that I reenter cleanly.) Ed has always said that I over-plan my travels (for his tastes anyway). Well maybe, but this, of course, is the joy of a trip. The flights may be cancelled or late or turbulent, the hotel may give you their worst room, your favorite restaurant may be closed for good -- in other words, the reality may suck. But you do not know that heading into the game. You plan for a spectacular trip! You have backup options for when things unravel! You are prepared.

We start the day with clouds...

But still, it's warm out there. Warm enough for breakfast outside.

And by afternoon, the sun is out. Honestly, it does not feel like October. We had heavy snow this month just two years ago! I remember it well: Halloween was snow covered and slippery! Today feels short-sleeved and wonderful. So much so that toward evening, while Ed bikes, I finally, finally head out to the county park for an autumnal stroll. I'll leave you with a photo from the walk, not so much for the fall colors, but for the glow of a warm late October afternoon.

Tuesday

Would you believe it -- I worked on my holiday card today! Hey, to my credit, I am not one of those who recreates Christmas in September. I don't make the kids put on their thick sweaters and take pictures of them with a sled in early fall, just so that I can use a themed set of photos. I scan the year for pictures that say something and I use those. And it takes forever, because I have a lot of photos to glance at and a lot of persons whose representation in my year (and therefore my card) has to be balanced.

Working on a card this early shows you that I have faith in the remaining months of the year: they will not yield great surprises that would derail my efforts at putting out an authentic card. I am forever filled with hope! 

I picked my day for this well: it's a little cool and I am a little reluctant to spend time outside. Still, there is always the morning walk...

(The irises think we have turned into a southern state...)

Breakfast, however, is back in the kitchen.

By the time I'm more or less satisfied with the layout of the card, I have to head out to pick up Snowdrop. That's a relief. I do not want to spend all my waking hours on just one project. I don't know about you, but my days are most satisfactory if I get behind more than just one idea.

Here she is, walking slowly today. Someone's craving a big grandma snack!

(The brothers!)

Evening. The weirdest supper ever: salmon bits with scrambled eggs, stuffed into tortillas, with tomatoes, cheese, and hot sauce.  Tastes way better than it sounds! 

Now, back to editing my earlier efforts. If I get it done by midnight, I can still claim the 15% discount! (Don't you just hate time sensitive discounts...)

 With love...

Monday

You have to shake your head in disbelief when you get your camera back from repair (after a two month absence) and you realize that a whole nob is not functioning. Yesterday both Ed and I watched youtubes late into the night, trying to figure out if it was something in the settings. It was not. This morning I called back Fujifilm repair and sure enough, they tell me it's probably their fault -- in replacing one part they probably disconnected something else.

Well okay, but I'm taking a photographable vacation next week. I mean, you have to laugh.

What to do, what to do... Oh, they'll send me a loaner (if I pay for the shipping). They'll put a priority tag on the repair. In other words, they'll try to help, but it wont really help and so I'll probably keep my sweet but malfunctioning camera for the trip and make do with what it does well and not worry about all that it doesn't do until after I come back.

 

Mondays are nicely slow for me and so I allow myself to think about how to prepare for next week.  I am so filled with all the events that made the last two years what they were! So much distress for so many! So much worry! Months of interruption, and that's if you're lucky. Loss, if you're not so lucky. Months of uncertainty about everything. And of course, for me, the person who lives half her life out of a suitcase or at least thinking about packing the next one, I have had two years of no travel.

And it was so sudden! One week I was ordering a replacement suitcase, changing my flights seats around online, the next week Ed and I shut ourselves in the farmhouse and pretty much stayed there. (I may be the only one who has yet to go inside a grocery store... But on this one at least just call me spoiled. I have no particular trepidation about going shopping at this point.)

Well, I'll be testing the travel waters very soon and that will be possibly the most weird travel experience I will ever have. Nothing like what I will have done in the past.

But for today, we're doing the usual farmette stuff. Morning walks...

(remember when the pines were snow covered?)

Breakfast still outside...

And for me -- well, the gradual gathering of needed stuff for next week. An updated simcard for my WiFi hotspot. A check on all the proper masking -- colorful KN95s and surgicals, a few solid good cloth with filtration for strolling in public spaces. Dusting off shoes that are something other than the clogs or flip flops that I wear around here. And a check of my camera to see which parts still work. Most do. We will survive!

Sunday

Oh I do love some Gopnik early on a Sunday morning! (He's a writer for the New Yorker, one I have liked for a long time, ever since he wrote a book about his experiences living with his then very young family in Paris.) And I love that the New Yorker occasionally sends me articles it thinks I should reread. One came into my mailbox today and pretty quickly I lost myself in Gopnik's reflections about raising prodigies (and now you can read it here!).

As you may have noticed, I do think quite a bit about goal-driven child rearing. You get to reflect about such stuff when you're a grandparent. You've gone through the process already with your own kids. Now is the time to think more broadly. What if you had done this instead of that? What was the purpose of choosing that over something else? Gopnik's essay is beautiful, all the more so because I agree wholeheartedly with his key point (even though I admit that I had a tough time implementing much of it when my own kids were still school aged; not everyone was on board, so it was a bit of an uphill climb). Gopnik quotes the philosopher Alexander Herzen (it should be noted that Herzen lost a child to drowning): “Because children grow up, we think a child’s purpose is to grow up. But a child’s purpose is to be a child. Nature doesn’t disdain what only lives for a day. It pours the whole of itself into each moment. . . . Life’s bounty is in its flow, later is too late.”

At the same time, Gopnik acknowledges (and I do too!) that as parents, we obviously are tasked with teaching behavior: "The trick is accepting limits while insisting on standards. Character may not be malleable, but behavior is. The same parents can raise a dreamy, reflective girl and a driven, competitive one—the job is not to nurse her nature but to help elicit the essential opposite: to help the dreamy one to be a little more driven, the competitive one to be a little more reflective. The one artisanal, teachable thing is outer conduct."

But it's not success at some adult age that should be our focus. Again, reaching into Gopnik: "If kids are happy and absorbed, in the flow, that’s all we can ask of them, in Berlin or in Brooklyn. Nothing works in the long run, but the mistake lies in thinking that the long run is the one that counts"

Childhood matters. In its own right. Every single day of it is meaningful. Just as it is for us, the adults in the room. We, the grandparents may never live to see the professional or artistic or athletic attainment of our grands. It doesn't matter. We know that the happy moments of engagement that come to them when they are young and when the adults in their lives are still allowed a look and have a say in their everyday -- are what matter.

In other news, the day is lovely and thankfully a bit cooler. Though still with a breakfast on the porch...

(My morning walk through farmette lands...)

The rhubarb is spilling out too much on the walkway so I picked it, chopped it and baked it into a cake.

Nice to have around, and, too, nice to serve to the young family...

... for dinner.

her own mind

I guess there is truth to the claim that we are constantly comparing ourselves to others and with social media, we do it more often and to our detriment. And this makes us anxious, edgy and obnoxious. 

It's easy to blame the usual big time players: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. They create the platforms and we get duped into taking part. I can agree with that. 

Still, I myself enjoy checking in on other people. I don't compare -- practically everyone I know on those platforms is younger than me! What's there to compare?? -- but I do find joy in seeing other people do fun things with family and friends. It's the comments that are often silly (to put it mildly). My idea of a perfect world would be if we could keep all the platforms going, but would shut off all comments and possibilities of likes thumbs up and approbations that seem to cause people to spin in a never ending cycle of needing more of it. Don't you think that would be cool? (And no, you don't have to send me a comment telling me that it is a great/dumb idea!)

I thought about this today because, of course, with kids you always want to see a fine development of an independent thinker who has just the right amount of social awareness without being sucked into a people pleasing mentality that has her forever scrambling to fit in. And when I met up for breakfast with my daughter and her girl and the baby of the family...

... it seemed to me that somehow these young people are striking a good balance. 

 

 

 

(Well, I don't know about Sandpiper: he seems awfully fixated on just pleasing Snowdrop!)

How so? Well, for example, Snowdrop and I were in the car, heading after breakfast to the farmhouse. We were talking about how great libraries are and how cool it is to always have a selection of new books to choose from. The girl said rather wistfully that she could read a lot of words now, but not all. To this I told her that I still had to ask about difficult words (at least the meaning of them) and she asked, surprised -- you have to ask? Don't you know about glossaries, gaga? From this we went onto languages and I reminded her that English was not my first language. Here, she demonstrated her own mind. I know I was learning French, she told me. But I decided to study Hawaiian instead. I'm already picking up a few words!

Hawaiian???

 

 

 

It is true that she has a great grandmother from the islands, but still, talk about learning a language that is not shared by many! (This was my reason for not teaching Polish to my kids: it's only spoken in Poland. You have to want to visit Poland a whole lot to benefit from knowing it.) Still, I very much see in the little one a determination to set her own path in life!

And that's a good thing, don't you think? (You don't have to answer that!)

an October summer

Ed and I went out for a drive today. Oh, there was a goal (Farm and Fleet, plus the chocolate store: we needed to resupply at both!), but it was also rather enjoyable in its own right. We rolled down the windows and let the warm air travel through the car. And Ed commented -- the trees are actually changing color, even in this near 90F (32C) weather.

You don't notice the Fall colors much here at the farmette. Not yet. The greens are morphing into gold, but not very quickly and not very perceptibly. And running around in shorts and short sleeves (even me!) gives you the sense that summer is still with us. What, fall? Oh, sure, soon. You say it's already October?? That cannot be!

Right now, Ed is definitely the busy guy. I'm doing my usual Autumnal slowdown. This morning, after breakfast...

... he watered most of the newly planted trees out back and then set to work to finish the repair of the rotted boards in the corner of the farmhouse. And I reminded him that it was his job to clean the stovetop and that it has looking nasty. So he did that as well.

Me, I'm sort of keeping an eye on things outside, and tending the spaces inside, but I am in no hurry to get things done. Besides, in the afternoon, I've got Snowdrop!

 

(lavender rebloom...)

 

 

I can tell it's Friday. She is extra tired, extra hungry, extra reluctant to spend any time outside.

But happy too. School has been good for both her and Sparrow.

And me, I'm just grateful that a month went by and there were no school closures and no Covid scares. All the tools available to us against the pandemic were, when used together, effective. How good is that!

a never ending discussion

I read a lot about travel. Other people's trips and journeys. Stories that combine personal elements of discovery with movement, with travel to some far away place where the cultural imperatives are different from those back home. And every once in a while I will come across that familiar story of the bad American tourist abroad. She or he will be described as poorly dressed, loud, arrogant. Incapable of uttering a single word in the native language. Demanding service, demanding entry, demanding perks that are typical in America but less abundant elsewhere. Snapping selfies, pushing into already crowded spaces. 

This morning, once again such an essay popped up in the opinion section of the NYTimes. Every time I read these things, I try hard to remember all my encounters with Americans abroad. And maybe I have a knack for avoiding these horrible scenes of poor behavior, but in my experience they are rare. I seem to bump into Americans who are enthusiastic about being wherever the trip has taken them. They are mindful. They snap selfies, but rarely with one of those annoying sticks that puts the camera at a distance and impedes the flow of traffic. 

The problem is, of course, that these days, there are crowds. Crowds of travelers to popular destinations. Venice or Yosemite. Giverney or the Grand Canyon. To say nothing of small islands, disappearing reefs and habitats that can't take the influx of eager visitors. It's not Americans abroad, it's all of us collectively creating crowds, destroying the peace on Barcelona's La Rambla and hiding the Mona Lisa behind heads of over-enthusiastic museum goers. We are all collectively responsible.

What to do? People have been dishing out advice for decades on how to be a better tourist. I have to say, it's stuff that applies to daily life as well. Why limit it to being abroad? Be deliberate in your choices. Be mindful. Be courteous. Listen attentively. Observe. Don't be pushy. Isn't this stuff you want to see around you, in your own neighborhood? Perhaps what's missing in our daily lives (hasn't this become obvious during the pandemic?) is a feeling of social connection, a responsibility to do well by others, to value the collective experience, to make small sacrifices so that others may have a chance at a good outcome. But for goodness sake, don't stop visiting places that are outside your comfort zone. It's far easier to learn humility when you are outnumbered by people who speak a different language, eat strange looking foods, have habits that don't mesh with what you're used to seeing back home. Seems to me that we all may do well with a mega dose of humility every once in a while.

*     *     *

The collective experience. Let me come back to this now, because I was thinking about it as Ed and I drove up once again to the Fitchburg Family Pharmacy this morning, this time to get our flu shots.

I switched to this pharmacy a couple of years ago, liking very much its approach to serving the community. It's the kind of place where the pharmacist will tell you he hopes you'll feel better after you take your medicine. They'll talk to you about your experiences with the booster the next time you stop by. They're just nice people and they are about as close as you can get to having someone local be there with you, sharing a tiny bit of the day in all its small permutations. (I used to get that sense of community at Paul's cafe and then at Finca Coffee shop, but to be close to the people who sell and who come in and buy, you have to stay inside and Covid stopped that dead in the tracks.)

As I write this, I am fully aware of the ridiculousness of our lives at this moment: we get our dose of community by going to the pharmacy to get a flu shot!  But the reality is that we here are not like Ghanaians in Hohoe (so social minded!), or Italians in Parma, or Bretons from Dinan. It's not easy to find groups of people congregating, or even pausing to exchange a few updates from our daily lives. (One curious feature of the new development is that every house has a front porch. And every front porch of an occupied house has at least two outdoor chairs on it. I have walked the neighborhood sidewalks now many many times, in great weather, at all parts of the day and I have never once come across anyone sitting in those chairs. Aspirational symbols of a life not lived.)

*     *     *

It's another beautiful day.

You could never tire of them, even though I know we're nearing the end of this warm spell. September ends, October begins. We're moving ever so slowly toward the cold months. But oh, do I appreciate the pauses of sunshine and warmth! Outdoor weather! Cafe weather, don't you think?

*     *     *

Snowdrop is here this afternoon. We have so many projects that are waiting in the sidelines! But there is no rush. The beauty of after school time is that it moves without a schedule, without must-dos. We read, we play. I take her home.

*     *     *

Evening: the joy is in the quiet, the warm quilt thrown over our laps against the cool air that inevitably comes in each night now.

For now, to my small community of Ocean friends -- good night, with love.

two paths

Do you think you are open to new ideas?

I bet you answered yes. Most people think they are. Most of us believe we are flexible, nonjudgmental, open-minded. With good values that we wish everyone else would emulate! I mean, we have to live with ourselves so we create these images of our thought processes that check off all the important qualities. You and me both.

I do think that as you get older (remember, this is a grandmother writing!), you have a choice: either you cement what's already there, or use your newly acquired free time (assuming that you have newly acquired free time) to take a detour or change course altogether. Not on every position for sure. But at least on some. You can be the stubborn old coot -- you're old, you're entitled. Or you can chip away at some of that cement.

It's hard to shake up stuff in your head if you like your life and want to be left alone to do as you have always done. It's a lot easier for people like me who tend to be restless and who like an occasional infusion of the bizarre. (In other words, people who like to travel.)

This is what I thought about while sitting on my Adirondack chair (having chased off the cats who love it as much as I do) on a beautiful Wednesday afternoon on this nearly last day of September. It is truly a splendid day. From the get-go.

(You rarely see pictures of Tuxie; she is very beautiful, very sweet, and very shy. She doesn't make friends easily. She's very different from the rest.)

I'd come across an article in the New Yorker about a film, a documentary, that seeks to challenge the idea that we should treat immigrants as fitting into a binary: family or felons. I was fascinated by this, one, because I am an immigrant and two, because if asked, I'd have probably agreed with the need to create classes of people along some "good" or "bad" axis. Why accept the bad dudes when there are plenty of deserving "good" ones who want to come here, right?

But the article, or rather the film it described, raised questions about this. Here was something to chip away at in my old brain. And suddenly the groceries were melting by the front door and I was ignoring them because my thoughts were spinning back to my daughters' high school years: I had marveled then at how some kids, but not all kids, who did dumb stuff got second chances in life. They escaped quite handily being ruined by their misdeeds.

I also thought about younger girls, say Snowdrop's age, who are very focused on making and keeping friends. Sure, we want to see them develop social skills of a certain acceptable type. Because otherwise, will they be liked? So, yes, on the one hand, we want our kids to be socially skilled and conforming to some model of what we imagine is a good kid. But there's a flip side. And I thought about it the other day as I watched a show on TV. I am a sucker for biographical stuff and so it's no surprise that I like the PBS show "Finding Your Roots." I cannot tell you how many times on that show grown and famous men would talk about how they were misbehaved in school or at home and everyone on the show would laugh and chortle and I got the sense that this was something to be proud of. (I don't mean bringing weapons to school or beating the daylights out of your friend, but small stuff -- the kind that a child might do to test boundaries.) So here we are again, excusing some, but only some, for stuff that we find inexcusable in others.

 

Beautiful day. Made even better because I had the time to think differently about something, with the help of people who are smart enough to shed new light on old ideas for me.

attitude

Attitude counts for so much! Sure, there are people whose lives have been rocked to the core by the pandemic or by other horrific tragedy. I'm not thinking about them at the moment. They can have the worst attitude on the planet as far as I'm concerned.  So let's leave out these heartbreaking examples of loss and sacrifice. My mind is on the rest of us who have days with the usual share of ups and downs (and yes, in the last 18 months -- more downs than ups): I'm thinking that so much can be improved with a flip of the attitude switch. 

I love Ed for his attitude toward life, toward people, animals, nature. Toward his own day, toward our time together. Acceptance, peace, compassion, good will. None of the pig headed judgments, belligerence, self-pity -- attitudinal traits that make me recoil.

With this in mind, I look out, see that brilliant sunshine, feel the scented air, admire the autumnal resilience in a garden, and especially this garden, and get to work. I have flipped a switch on my attitude toward weeds.

(After breakfast, of course. Beard is gone for now!)

Ed is shredding branches over by the wood pile. Patiently, feeding one heavy limb at a time into the small chipping machine. It is far more difficult and far less pleasant to shred branches than it is to dig up weeds. And really, it doesn't matter if he never gets to the bottom of the huge pile, nor if I never get the last weed out of the flower fields. The day is beautiful, we are tending the land. Joyously...

(the new orchard meadow)

... until it is time for me to pick up Snowdrop at school. Wait, I am that early? I can make a cafe stop!

Now to school, where I get in the car line, take out my book and wait. For her:

 

 

 

Not many photos today. I concentrated on taking care of the girl's finger that got slammed in the car door and so the camera stayed mostly idle. (Nothing that a towel wrap, a bowl of fruit and many chapters of a book couldn't fix!)

One exception:

Gaga, you can take a photo of me playing with the ponies? They are at a fair!

Evening: Out comes the hoodie again. I bring home takeout fish tacos. Ed says it reminds him of our picnics. It's a sign of the seasonal shift to recognize that it's too cold and dark now to think about a picnic. One foot stuck in summer, but the other has solidly crossed over into fall.

stories

There are people out there who, from early childhood, feel the need to tell stories. Spoken or written -- it hardly matters. It's what you are driven to do. (With or without talent for it. You want to use words to paint a picture.)

In my own family, I am told that my grandfather had that yearning. Then it skipped a generation, and then it hit me. And my kids? Well, one of my daughters was a story spinner at an early age and then she channeled it into other gifts and venues. The stories stopped. Until Snowdrop came along. (It could be that some of the other grandkids are story spinners too. Primrose may lean in that direction and Sandpiper looks like he may have it in him!) The girl needs time and space to listen to stories, both written and told, and to tell stories.

But my point is that not everyone lives to tell a story and not every story told is worth telling, even as it is absolutely true that there is that urge within some of us to put thoughts into words. It's just the way we see the world -- in numerous stories playing out there, waiting to be told.

*     *     *

A brilliant, warm, sunny day. Need I say anything more?

(breakfast: hmmmm, he needs a beard trim...)

(one of our two meadows...)

(the VF -- venerable farmhouse)

(a walk, in the company of sandhills...)

*     *     *

Some of my friends are traveling again. Indeed, some have been scooting across the country and back since the vaccinations first came along, and a few have even crossed the ocean. For me, it is abundantly clear that planning something for later is still iffy. There may be surges, there may be variants, there may again be waning efficacy. However, in the short term, the picture is much clearer: going places is always riskier than staying home, but you can maximize your chances of a safe trip by way of vaccination, powerfully protective masks for the journey, and safe behaviors once at your destination, which should be one of low infection rates and decreasing community spread.

Just sayin'...

*     *     *

 

Evening: I'm thinking autumnal evenings are the best. They have the right amount of an earlier dimming of light, with cooler air (shorts during the day, but a sweatshirt after dusk), but not yet cold air. I haven't brought out the candles. That, for me, is a winter thing (you need props in winter, you really do!). But I'm getting hungry for winter soups and hot chilis. I've purchased hot chocolate and marshmallows for the kids (though they've discovered the loot and have munched down the mini mallows considerably, even as hot chocolate weather is still a ways off). 

End of September, beginning of October -- it's a beautiful time to travel, but I was thinking today that it is also a beautiful time to stay home.