Friday

It's funny to have an end to the first week of school just one day after it begins. Or maybe it's good for students to get a soft reentry. The change from a light summer schedule with plenty of downtime to a full blown school schedule is huge. I'm sweating just at the thought of it!

Ed and I have frequent discussions about the role that school plays in a child's life. He wasn't a fan of institutional learning as a kid growing up in New York. Too many hours being bored, too early a start to the day. At the same time, he'll be the first to push for an educated populace. Perhaps one that doesn't have to show up at the schoolhouse gates in the wee hours of the morning.

As for those wee hours -- ones when he sleeps and I work outside -- I'm finally back to my normal schedule. European time zones seem of another world.

So, to work: good morning, farmette lands! Oh dear. All those weeds... I pull some. Actually many bucketfuls. Still, all those weeds remain...

(Oh, but those wonderful autumn colors! Dusty green, gold and purple..)

(And fluttering butterflies!)

Never mind -- I haven't the time for much weeding. 

(Breakfast, with Ed's flower choice...)

I'm in between several summer events: call it the Summer of Visits and Trips. My Polish architect friend and her family came and left. Check. Snowdrop and I went and came back. Check. Next week, a whole bunch of Polish friends are arriving, though not yet here, in Madison. I'm going to meet them elsewhere. And then again elsewhere. No checks there yet. And then my daughter has a trip and I have another. Are you dizzy yet???

With all that still before me, the weeds occupy just a tiny corner of my headspace. 

I try to plan, to navigate, to imagine the next month or two. And all this keeps me indoors until it's time to pick up Snowdrop.

At least, this is what she and I think -- that I am to pick up today. It's not my regularly scheduled day, just a filler to make up for all those days next week when I cannot be there for her.

As always, she comes out beaming.

And full of recounts of the horrible things a friend, or at least a girl now in the shadows of friendship, said to her about war and about meanness. Skipping over the war tales, which simply showed that a second grader living in Madison Wisconsin is going to know little about war (unless she has a grandma born in postwar Poland, or someone in her household touched by the drama in the Ukraine), we concentrated on the meanness issue. It's a suppositious question I would think -- is it sometimes okay to be mean. I wonder how you would answer a young child on this one! 

Snowdrop is well schooled by her mom on what to do when someone is mean to you. She tells me right away about your options on how to respond and when to ask for help. Being mean back is not on the chart as an option. She asks me now if I agree and I quickly tell her that I do. Very much so. We don't have to revert to Godwin's law on this one (you know, the rule that if you argue long enough, every discussion will  compare someone else to Hitler). Sure, it's okay to be mean to Hitler. But, in life, we don't really come face to face with Hitler types. With your run of the mill meanies -- you stay with your principles.

She is relieved.

And contemplates life from her perch on the tree...

And rejoices at the beauty of life in her favorite romp in a field of creeping Charlie.

This is when I get a frantic call from her mom: do you know where Snowdrop is? They say at school someone else picked her up!

In the evening, when the little one is home again,  Ed proposes a kayak trip, but I tell him I need a break from these super late outings with super late dinners and super late Ocean posts (how many times have my eyes closed as I typed up an entry? Too many). He suggests an alternative -- tennis.

Oh, tennis! We haven't gone to the courts for several years now! Somehow Covid messed with this for us, though I can't imagine why, since an outdoor activity seems like a fine way to cope with the limitations imposed on us these past years.

It feels so good to be chasing a ball on a cracked court surrounded by tall white pines! We are alive! We gratefully accept the gifts those pines offer us (oh, the scent of pine needles!)!

And then we go home and order pizza. Delivered to our door. Magic! We are tired and therefore so grateful!

With love...

September 1st

Unless you live in France, or perhaps in some other country with a centralized school calendar, you don't necessarily start school on the first day of September. But for me, this date will always trigger thoughts of school beginnings. In my childhood, Polish schools always started on September 1st.

And it so happens that Madison public schools are also starting the new school year on this day. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately from his point of view) Sparrow (who is not yet attending his neighborhood public school) does not return to school until next week and so my "first school morning" visit and obligatory school child's photo is only of Snowdrop. Sparrow is happy to wish her luck and return to his magna tiles play.

Of course, to get to Snowdrop's house before she leaves for school, I have to get up super early. School or no school, I still have to feed the animals and check in on the plant life here. But this is actually a treat, because these early September mornings are so beautiful! I linger in the flower fields, I walk over to the meadow to pick flowers for the table.

By 7:15 though, I am at Snowdrop's house. 

As every year, the girl questions the necessity of wearing something new and special on this day. But unlike previous years, she shrugs off the inconvenience and discomfort of putting on anything other than shorts and a t-shirt and merely mutters -- I can't wait for the second day of school!

Oh, how this girl has grown and matured!

So long as I am there, I offer to drop the girl off so that the parents can focus on the prework chores at home. Watching the kids walk into the school building is thrilling for me! How long has it been since we've had an almost normal beginning to a school year?

I come back to my daughter's house for a quick visit with rainbow boy...

... and then I stop by a bakery for breakfast treats. Ed and I have a lovely morning meal on the porch.

You probably have not noticed the various melon slices we've been eating here, at the farmette. They're superb, possibly because they come off our own melon vines. The melon plants have been generously producing honeydew and cantaloup monsters for a while now. And today we cut off our first delicious watermelon. Yep, we are swimming in melons.

I do take a break from chores and do a Zoom call with my Florida pal -- she's the one gives me endless confidence as I tackle especially busy weeks. Do you have a person who does this for you? Who assures you it's okay to find shortcuts and to not plunge into everything that is before you? People who do that for you, who slow you down and reassure you that you can take a moment for yourself, are worth millions. Thank you, Diane.

In the afternoon, I am there in a car line, waiting to pick up Snowdrop. And, in happy moods, we come back to the farmhouse. "I had a great day in school! We did no work!" -- was her theme. Everything had a positive ring to it. "I even liked my dress, gaga!"

(A new book had arrived...)

Evening. I had charged Ed with getting flowers at our local market. Me, I pick up our CSA veggies. And then, instead of cooking dinner and going to sleep (sooo tired!), we take the kayaks over to Lake Monona. And immediately to our left, we pick up Wingra Creek.

He takes the lead...

(Hard to believe we are in Madison's center...)

Then I take the lead...

And we come back to our starting point, only now the sun has set...

We return to the farmhouse. I fix us a fish dinner (with plenty of corn) and I have to laugh when I look at my watch toward the end of it: it's 9:30. Just like in Italy! 

Buena notte!

With love...

the day after the return

If ever there is a day that deserves no comment, not story, no photos at all, it's the day after you've come from a beautiful trip. Every chore you do at home on that day feels dull, every step you take is on too familiar a landscape.

At the same time, it feels so wonderful to be home. I don't stress much over travel, except when I am with a child or grandchild. When I come home, the relief from not having had some cataclysmic travel event is huge (here are some personal favorite cataclysmic events from my travel days: a twelve hour flight delay, nonstop rainfall in the mountains with perhaps lightening for emphasis, lost passports, lost suitcases, lost favorite toy of child, stomach bugs, fevers without explanation -- what? You want me to stop? Well fine, but you get the idea!)

At home, I unpack the unused umbrella, the unopened children's Tylenol, the ignored Covid tests, the mostly unnecessary bandaids, the huge quantities of extra masks (because if you get Covid, even after your isolation, you need lots of fresh masks), and I think -- phew! We were lucky.

Not much to wash, sort, and put away today. I did not pack a lot of clothes. We stuck to our small carry-ons and Snowdrop was impressed or at least amused at my daily rinsing and washing. (Swimming requires a midday change of clothing, but hey, it's summer and t-shirts dry very fast.) She'd never seen anyone do hand washing before. 

After a trip to Europe I always wake up super early for a good handful of days. As I turn to the chores waiting for me outside, I think -- hey, the farmette lands look pretty good still. Especially in the very early morning light.

(the second peach tree: still not fully ripe...)

And I have some pleasant surprises! The last day of August gives me the gift of a lily or two or three still.

(Not a lily, but it is the monarch's favorite!)

The rest of the flowers are really in their fall mode already but that's okay. I like them in this stage as well.

I have appointments, I have a UPS errands, I have glasses adjustments -- this kind of nonsense is typically spread out over weeks and weeks, but I have just a wee window between trips and various activities so I pack it into this day and really, that's just fine. Get it done, move on.

In the afternoon, Ed and I ride over to Stoneman's for the corn. He'd been eating multiple ears a day in my absence (why cook dinner when you have corn...) and now I'm returning to this grand August eating habit. Well, for a few days anyway. With Labor Day we wind down the corn season. Sad but true.

And in the late afternoon, I have two treats: first of all, I go over to the young family's house. 

(Hi, Sparrow!)

(Hey there, Snowdrop!)

(Sandpiper isn't still enough for a photo.)

I was asked to tag along with Snowdrop and her mom to visit her new classroom. They really shuffled the kids around this time and she has none of her best buds in her new room, but Snowdrop is ever the social optimist and she seems not too concerned about this, nor about the fact that there seem to be two boys for every girl (the whole grade is intensely boy heavy). She is excited about what's ahead and that's such a good thing!

I have to say, the amount of work this teacher put into arranging the room for the kids is impressive. Snowdrop is one lucky kid to have someone so dedicated to the job of schooling these second graders.

And finally, toward evening, there's a second treat: Ed and I drag out the kayaks to our nearby lake. Initially I hesitated. Honestly, you can't get excited about paddling in a somewhat soupy lake after dipping oars in a clean body of Alpine water. But, I want the movement. Ed wants the movement. So we paddle. And it's a beautiful evening for it!

Dipping oars into the quiet lake at dusk creates a perfect mood for reflection. I think about traveling with my grandkids. And I think about something that a number of people have asked me -- how is it that I take Snowdrop and not the others on these trips? Will I create equally  splendid trips for the remaining four?

I think about how it's mostly a younger person who would ask that. How people my age know the answer to this question plain and clear, the answer being I don't know. 

For me, to travel alone with a grandchild, five conditions have to be met:

1. I have to be still young and healthy enough to not worry about needing medical care. 

2. I have to be still young and healthy enough to manage the demands of a child.

3. The child has to be independent enough to allow me some down time.

4. The child has to want such a trip very much and not be afraid of missing mommy and daddy

5. The child has to be old enough to manage a travel crisis.

Over time, the kids get older and you'd think, therefore, that it should all eventually work out for us all. The problem is that I, too get older. Hitting seventy next year. And with the added uncertainty of Covid, I was just barely satisfied that the first condition was being met this year. For a while, I toyed with traveling with some random additional person just in case. I did extra boosters and extra check ups on all preexisting conditions, and still I really hesitated. My doc finally convinced me we'd be okay. And we were. And still, I worried.

So, is this fair to the others? 

I think back to Tiziano's words -- my grandma had my father when she was sixteen, my father had me when he was 21. Kids these days are born to older grandparents. Is this fair? I honestly think that that is the wrong question to ask. You make decisions as best as you can. Questioning generational choices (me theirs, they mine) is not going to get you anywhere. Being a parent or a grandparent is tough business. You do the best you can. Most people indeed do the very best they can.

And at home, Ed and I eat corn and cheeper eggs for supper because I am not yet focused on cooking much of anything. That will come, but not today.

I toy with the idea of making a Negroni, but if there is one thing I learned, it's that you cannot recreate Italy (or France or Maine or Morocco) in your own home once you return. So I make a conventional aperitif spritz instead!  I mean, come on, it's still August! 

With cheers, and love...

the return

Early wake up. Lights still twinkling across the lake. Everything is so still. Mountains and water, in their moment of pre-morning peace.

I've done worse: earlier departures, earlier wake-ups. Still, for the little girl, where evenings end late, an early departure can be brutal. I let her sleep until the last minute. I finish packing, do multiple double checks and finally, I nudge her into her clothes, stuff her snuggle animals into her pack and we leave. There was to be a small breakfast, but in the end there was a bit of confusion on where and when and what, so I let it go. We had yesterday's lemon cake and strawberries in the room. Good enough.

The taxi ride to the airport is smooth, fast, no traffic. Less than an hour. Malpensa airport in Milan -- always so crowded, always so rushed, seems actually calm. Lines don't snake. They form, you pass through. You're done.

At the airport she just wants to rest. We eat an inconsequential breakfast, more like a snack, and she stretches out.

Just before it is time to go to the gate, Snowdrop asks:

Gaga, you know how we passed this ice cream shop on the way to the gate?

Oh no. She's not going to ask for ice cream! We had indeed passed a Gelateria in the extremely long string of airport shops just past security, seemingly miles away. We should be boarding soon. 

Please?

I look at this earnest little face that has put up with all the inconveniences of travel, with my requests for a photo, and my insistence on airport mask wearing even when most around her are mask free, and who has not always had that ice cream cone handed to her (we did not have a Gelateria within walking distance to our hotel) during this trip.

You really want to walk all the way back?

Yes.

*.    *     *

The flight takes off for Paris just a little late. 

There are no storms at the moment, but it's raining and the skies are saturated with ominous clouds. How can I not feel humbled! All the time we were in Italy, we were spared bad weather even as we are leaving now on this wet day. How good it was to have been spared this for all that we did!

Yes, all that we did. For Snowdrop, that sense of fullness isn't so obvious. Her days feel full even if she stays home and plays with the neighborhood kids. But, I tick off all she learned on our trip: how to climb a mountain. How to swim down the length of the pool and back again. How to paddle a kayak. How tired legs in a hot garden can still get you to where you need to go. How to eat big breakfasts and not mind a long wait for your food to arrive at dinnertime. She also received confirmation for what she already knew (unfortunately): that there isn't an eatery in Italy that wont serve her a plateful of noodles and a big bowl of freshly grated Parmesan at the side. In other countries, she is forced to try new things. In Italy, she begs long and hard for her favorite pasta and usually I shrug my shoulders and think -- eh, she could do worse than this for a meal.

*.    *     *

The transfer in Paris is smooth. Can you believe it? Smooth! 

Five minute wait for passport control, no need to reinspect luggage (and by the.way, in Milan, they no longer require you to take out anything -- not liquids, not tablets, not shoes), just one smooth walk over to our new terminal.

It prompts her to express great love for this airport and I smile at that because I love Paris to pieces, but Paris airport usually requires more than an extra ounce of patience. Today, no patience is required.

And because I am feeling like I want to cap this week with something easy and good, I reach into my bag of saved up miles and ask for an upgrade for the long flight back. 

Oh, but madame, this is a problem. The plane is full. The good seats -- they are not next to each other.

I shrug my shoulders and am about to walk away, but this Air France gentleman does not give up easily: let me page the passenger who is occupying the seat your granddaughter could get. Maybe he'll switch. 

I smile.

Dont raise your hopes. Passengers these days, they can be so difficult.

This gentleman isn't difficult. But of course I'll switch! 

Honestly, so many people are ferociously mean and grumpy and self serving. But so many more are generous and kind and cheerful. At least this has been our experience this whole week.

*.    *     *

The flight to Detroit is long, but we arrive on time. We have only carryons, so we skip the wait for luggage  (international passengers have to clear their luggage at their first port of entry into the US). The girl is tired, but very excited to be seeing her family soon.

Last leg: the flight to Madison.

Her whole family comes to the airport. They go home, I drive to the farmette, deeply satisfied. This was perhaps the trip where we may have had major hiccups and I worried about all of them.  Covid could have really messed with us. She may have been forced to skip the first days of school were she to get sick. We may have been stuck at a place with a price that I would not have wanted to pay for extra days.  Bad weather would have completely derailed most of my hopes for the week. The airports could have had us waiting for hours, the flights may have been cancelled. But none of this happened. Our challenges were of the best kind: scale a mountain. Swim. Learn to love a different culture.

Big smile as I pull into the farmette driveway.

With so much love...

Lago d'Orta

It's our last full day by the lake. It very much feels like the end of a long vacation run for Snowdrop and frankly, I think she is very ready to return to school routines. That's likely true for a lot of kids her age. (Her "first day of school" is on Thursday. My other grandkids have varying "first days": Primrose starts a new school today, Juniper and Sparrow will continue in their same places where they will have been all summer, Sandpiper starts his school career at the end of next month.) 

Perhaps because we are at the end of vacation, we are not so ambitious today. Storms passed through at night, but the day begins for us with sunshine and just a few puffy clouds. Still, it is hot! I'm thinking we should just stick close to home and explore the community in which we live.

But first, breakfast -- our last one on this lovely spot by the lake. 

As usual, she arranges her foods just so, then devours them all, one by one, until only croissant crumbs are left.

And now for our local walk.

Our small hotel (it has a total of 18 little apartments) is actually not in Orta San Guilio proper -- it's in a community (for lack of a better word) called Pettenasco. This is where we have eaten all our dinners. This is where we go to the ferry stop if we want to catch the boat into Orta town. But apart from that -- apart from dinners and boats, we know little about this place. Does it have beach access? A grocery store? Anything else of note? We set out to explore it a little.

Again, aimless walking is not a Snowdrop favorite, but she goes along with it, especially since the alternative is a more ambitious excursion. She does not want a more ambitious excursion!

We hug the shore path. It's not especially beautiful -- it's sort of like walking a back alley in Chicago -- you see everyone's rear. That part which they don't prettify for the public. An occasional campground adds to the casual feel of this path. 

But, the vegetation is lovely and the glimpses of the lake remind you what's really at play here. 

And eventually, we get to a point where a stream, the Torrente Pescone, runs into Lago Orta and this is indeed interesting because you have the meeting of a cold current and a warmer lake, shallow here, at least at the edges.

We wade a little, but not much. Snowdrop tosses rocks, I take a look around us.

You see families and older couples in fold-up chairs, or sitting on colorful towels, faces to the waterfront for that last bit of summer loveliness.

It's a tableau out of a painting. An idle moment at the water's edge. Leisure on a strip of tired grass.

We turn in from here. I'm in search of a cafe that's on my phone map. She is anything but happy with that choice. It is getting to be quite hot and there's too little shade on these asphalt quiet roads. Still, I coax her forward and though the cafe turns out to be closed, it's appended to this community's supermarket. We don't have masks, so I'm reluctant to go into its depth, but Snowdrop does find one of those machines that spits out junk and insists that this piece of junk is exactly what she needs in life. Okay. I'm not going to stand in the way of bliss over a 2 Euro piece of nonsense. I have the coin, I try to push it in. No luck. She is crestfallen! Cant we try again? Please???

I ask the sales clerk why the damn thing wont spit out the stupid toy. She shrugs her shoulders: not our machines, not my problem. Hmmm... what if I put in single Euro coins, one after the other?  

Bingo! She gets a squishy hedgehog which she plays with for less than two minutes, but claims to love with a lifelong passion.

One more stop. 

No, not at the church. She dislikes the ringing of the bells (at noon now, they are going strong). I tell her if she lived here she would get used to it, but I don't push for a visit. I'll stick with admiring the tower.

Instead, we go to a fruit and veggie grocer and here we strike fruit gold. Peaches and strawberries to die for. An orange, tomatoes, some Nutella cookies. Will we finish it all before tomorrow?

We eat lunch in our room. I ask the kitchen for something light for me -- I get thin slices of veal in a tuna sauce. I'm told it's "typical" of the region.

And finally we go back to the pool. I have to say, I'll miss this little body of swimmable for her water. There isn't a smell of chlorine and of course, the views are compelling. I have nothing against our community pools back home, but they are loud. This one exudes serenity. And of course, Snowdrop has improved her swimming by leaps and bounds by having so much space and time to push herself a little more every day.

And very quickly it is evening. I'm given a Negroni. She reads books about Olympian gods, I pack. 

And now we are ready for our last meal.

(me of her...)

(she of me...)

We eat dinner. here, at the Bistrot. She gets her steak frites, I order an exquisite fish dish...

And the sun has long set and the meal was TV celebrity host worthy and the whole stay here was, from this grandma's perspective and perhaps from that of the little girl -- incredible. 

We have a long return tomorrow and of course, there is the threat of bad weather that could well disrupt everything. I didn't worry about weather for this week and I'm not going to fret about it for tomorrow. We will get home somehow. I'm sure of it.

With so much love...