writing as jo(e)

Neighbors

2012-01-27T08:21:00.000-05:00

We've had very little snow so far this season. I've heard a few people say that they like a winter when they don't have to shovel the driveway, but mostly, everyone's complaining. Snow is warmer than rain because you can just brush it off. And besides, snow is way prettier.

Music in my ears

2012-01-26T10:28:00.000-05:00

I’d noticed that my kids listen to music when they run at the gym, and I kept asking them about it, so Boy in Black found an iPod on ebay and bought it for me. “You can fill it with Joni Mitchell and the Mountain Goats,” my daughter said. I am fairly predictable in my musical tastes.

It has taken me a while to get used to the iPod. Whenever a new song begins, I keep expecting the people around me to comment, or start dancing, or sing along. But instead, they just continue along their way, totally ignoring the music, and that’s when I realize that they can’t hear what’s blaring into my ears.

The result is that I feel like I’m watching a movie. I can see people — a man sitting on the floor to catch his breath, two women talking over by the mats, a teenager lifting some dumbbells, a man and a child walking up the stairs — but I’m totally removed from the scene, with just music rushing through my head.

I find myself doing the voice-over narration in my head, making up stories for the characters. I can usually find someone whose body language and facial expressions match whatever song is playing.

That woman in purple is running fast to escape the memories of her childhood, the demons that keep her awake at night. That man in the red shorts slows down as he remembers the boy he used to be, the teenager who jumped from the high cliffs of the gravel pit with his friends, unafraid to take risks. He wonders how he turned into a middle-aged man scared to speak up to his coworkers. The girl in the spandex is smiling because she’s got plans for tonight.

Music fills my time at the gym with an endless stream of stories.

No skating

2012-01-23T21:38:00.000-05:00

We've had such a warm winter so far that the creeks aren't even frozen.

In the locker room

2012-01-22T16:53:00.000-05:00

I could pay for my gym membership just by selling the stuff that people leave behind in the locker room. So far this month, I’ve found a flowered beach towel, a wooden hair brush, a green nalgene bottle, a silver bracelet, a crumpled pair of white socks, a plastic hair thing, a purple t-shirt from a national park, and a bathing suit sized for someone with no appetite.

The most valuable thing I’ve found yet was a smartphone left in a bathroom stall. I didn’t want to just toss it in the Lost & Found box, so I clicked on facebook, found a name and photo, and then went out into the locker room to find her. She was an older woman, of course. Like me, she grew up in the days when telephones were attached to walls and there was no chance of ever leaving them in a public bathroom.

My kids never even use the locker rooms — they wear their workout clothes to the gym (yes, shorts, paired with a winter coat) and just go straight to the workout rooms. “It’s no wonder you always find stuff in the locker room,” my daughter said when I reported the day’s findings. “There are always mothers with little kids. I’m guessing when you come to the gym with a bunch of little kids, you feel lucky if you just manage to leave with the same number of kids you came with.”

It’s true that I sometimes run into herds of little kids in the locker room, but I’m never in a big hurry to actually work out. I’ll play with a toddler while her mother’s getting dressed or hold an infant while her mother uses the bathroom. The warm locker room is a friendly place, filled with half-dressed women who are cramming stuff into gym bags, wrapping towels around little kids, or drying their hair in front of the big mirrors. Despite every stereotype I've ever heard, the locker room smells good — like floral shampoo, warm cotton, perfumed deodorant — and the chaos makes me feel right at home.

Playing in the snow

2012-01-19T19:55:00.000-05:00

When I picked up Little Biker Boy on Sunday, I said, “It’s a beautiful day. We should do something outside.” It’s what I always said to my own kids when they were little.

About six inches of snow had covered the trees and meadows. I drove down a street that deadends at a little creek and parked the car. Little Biker Boy ran over to the creek bank. “Watch out!” he yelled. “I might fall in!”

He stopped before he reached the edge of the creek and looked back at me. “Did I scare you?” he asked hopefully. “Didya think I was gonna fall in?”

I walked along the creek and took photos while he made snowballs and threw them into the water. With the foliage gone on the trees, we were in full sunshine most of the time, and our bodies made shadows on the snow. We explored the creek, a nearby bridge, and the woods.

When we came to the hill formed by the bridge embankment, Little Biker Boy ran to the top and began rolling down, his arms and legs flailing as he tumbled. When I was little, we lived next to a highway embankment, and I remember how much fun we used to have sledding or tumbling down. I didn’t join in — because sadly, as an adult, I get motion sick doing stuff like that — but I stood and watched Little Biker Boy run up, tumble down, run up, tumble down, run up, tumble down, until finally he was shivering and it was time to go buy hot slices of pizza to warm ourselves up.

2012-01-18T16:20:00.000-05:00

As most of my readers probably already know, major internet sites like Wikipedia have gone dark today, a blackout to protest SOPA and PIPA, two bills that would severely limit access to online information. Even my favorite webcomic has joined in.

I decided to protest with a whiteout instead of a blackout because in this part of the world, it’s a more appropriate metaphor. It’s snow and ice that can stop the flow of information, shut down businesses, and freeze progress.

Back to school

2012-01-16T22:35:00.002-05:00

As usual, winter break has gone by quickly. With-a-Why is already back at school, my husband has been back to work for a couple of weeks, many of our extras have gone back to college, and for the rest of us — the semester begins tomorrow morning.

I spent the day cleaning my office and preparing for classes. My daughter did laundry, piling clean clothes in a basket to take back to the apartment. Boy in Black spent the day “bonding” with With-a-Why. (That’s what they call it when they play computer games.)

Shaggy Hair Boy is at the piano, playing jazz. Smiley Girl is lying on the back of the comfy chair that my daughter is sitting in. They are talking and eating chocolate. My husband has his laptop open, planning a trip we’ll be taking in the spring.

The woods are filled with fluffy snow, and the driveway is coated with ice. “Hey, listen,” my husband says, looking up from his computer. I open the window a crack. In blasts some cold winter air. Through the dark night comes the sound of coyotes yipping.

City rooftops

2012-01-16T14:15:00.000-05:00

I always expect to see chimney sweeps. And lamplighters.

Saturday in the park

2012-01-15T12:16:00.000-05:00

On Saturday, after three nights of amazing jazz performancesin dimly lit bars, Shaggy Hair Boy, Brooklyn Friend, and I slept late. By thetime we’d gotten up and made hot tea, the sun was already glinting off thepavements and red brick buildings. The nearby park was filled with city folksenjoying the warm weather. Kids were feeding the ducks, a herd of teenagerswent riding by on bikes, and a young woman sat under an old tree with a book.We found some logs by the water where we could sit in the sun and talk about our plans for Saturday night:a jazz performance by Shaggy Hair Boy’s favorite pianist at a twenty-first century salon.

Dancing on a string

2012-01-14T17:11:00.003-05:00

It was still late afternoon when we walked down the narrow cement steps into Smalls, a basement jazz club. I explained our strategy to Brooklyn Friend. “The pianist we want to hear doesn’t play until 7:30 pm. So we’re going to get there 3 hours early, hang out for the Happy Hour jam session, work our way up every time someone leaves, and by the time he plays, we’ll have the best seats in the house.”

Of course, at Smalls, the best seats in the house are just old wooden kitchen chairs. It’s a small basement room with a long wooden bar, an eclectic bunch of old chairs pulled into rows, some old posters on the wall, and a 100-year-old baby grand piano. Musicians and singers kept coming and going during the jam session, and we changed out seats whenever we could. By the time Ehud Asherie sat down at the piano, we were in the front row, with Shaggy Hair Boy sitting right at the pianist’s elbow.

The jazz pianist was performing with Bob Mover, a much older man who brought with him a bunch of saxophones. They played the old standards, songs I’ve known since childhood, and sometimes the older man would grab the microphone and start singing. “A crooner,” Brooklyn Friend whispered to me. The pianist was amazing, and it was cool to be close enough to watch his hands flying over the keys as he played. We could hear every word the duo said to each other.

When the musicians took a break, a couple in their early 80s came in. I looked up and motioned to them that the two chairs next to me were empty. The man wore a thick black coat with a long red scarf and he threw off the coat as he sat down, knocking right into me. “Kind of a tight fit,” he said, grinning. “But the music here is always worth it.”

Naturally we started talking. Like everyone else we’d met, he was charmed with the idea that I was traveling with my twenty-year-old son. Because Shaggy Hair Boy jams with his grandfather, he can talk knowledgeably about jazz to anyone of that generation, so it wasn’t long before the two of them were talking about music.

Then the duo began playing again. The saxophone player grabbed the microphone and sang “What Kind of Fool am I?” and “Isn’t this a Lovely Day?” The pianist’s hands were only a few feet away from us, and Shaggy Hair Boy watched them intently. When they played “Hey There, You With the Stars in Your Eyes,” the man in the black coat sitting next to me sang all the lyrics. Brooklyn Friend and I looked at each other and smiled.

By the time we were ready to leave Smalls, we’d been there for more than 6 hours. We’d talked to the pianist and the saxophone guy, and I felt saturated with music. The older man in the black coat was giving Shaggy Hair Boy advice as if he were his grandson. “There’s an open jam at Kitano’s on Monday night,” he said. “Just get up your courage and sit down at the piano and play.”

“Okay, I will,” Shaggy Hair Boy said, grinning. As we left, we noticed a long-haired cat sitting on a newel post, looking just like a character out of the Aristocats. The elf-like man who had taken our cover charge was squished into a little shelf by the staircase.

“The music was great,” Brooklyn Friend said to him. “Very poignant.”

“Yes,” he said, nodding in agreement. Then he said. “What does poignant mean?”

Shaggy Hair Boy did take the advice of the old man in the black coat. He looked up the Kitano on google and found that it’s an expensive hotel on Park Avenue with a jazz lounge. He stayed in the city for a few days longer than I did — taking advantage of my sister’s offer to stay in her apartment while she was gone — and on Monday evening I got a text from him saying, “Played Satin Doll at the Kitano.”

Our favorite street performer

2012-01-13T13:03:00.000-05:00

We wondered if the winter weather would keep away ChainLightning, the guy we’ve seen playing piano in Washington Square Park on ourlast two visits to the city. (Our nickname for him comes from the conversationShaggy Hair Boy had with him about Ultimate — it’s the name of the club team heused to play for when he lived in the south.) Our second day in the city, theweather turned warm and sunny, and when we walked over to the park, we heardclassical music coming from the other side of the famous arch.

City streets

2012-01-12T18:13:00.002-05:00

During the first couple days of our trip, Shaggy Hair Boyand I stayed at Urban Sophisticate Sister’s West Village apartment. At night, we wentto jazz clubs, but during the day we wandered the city streets, exploring herneighborhood. The curbs were filled with old Christmas trees, broken wreaths,and leftover piles of pine boughs. Red-haired Niece, who went with us to a jazz club one night, said she thought the piles of discarded trees were sad, but I have to say that they really did make the neighborhood smell nice.

On the train

2012-01-12T10:07:00.000-05:00

When Shaggy Hair Boy and I boarded the train in Snowstorm City, we heeded my father’s advice and sat on the starboard side so that we could see the river. Through our window, we looked at the little towns, the marinas along the river, and the graffiti under the bridges. I can’t read on a train because it will make me motion sick, but I love watching the scenes that roll by outside my window. Most of the little towns were still decorated for Christmas, and the river wasn’t frozen yet.

Luckily, we had obeyed the most important rule of train travel, which is to bring good snacks. Whenever I’m on a train, people around me are always opening sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, or munching potato chips from crinkly bags, and just those noises make me salivate. I’d gotten up early that morning to pack sandwiches, cookies, fruit, and potato chips. I don’t normally eat potato chips, but on a train, it’s important to eat food that comes in noisy package so that everyone around you will be jealous.

We couldn’t help but listen to the conversation of the young woman sitting behind us, who kept talking very excitedly to the young man in the seat next to her. Shaggy Hair Boy rolled his eyes every time the young woman said something weird, which was pretty often. I kept trying to figure out their relationship. At first, I thought she was flirting with someone she just happened to sit next to. Then I decided that they were friends, traveling together. By the end of the trip, I concluded that he must be a cousin. I think if they weren’t related, he would have moved his seat.

Off to the city

2012-01-04T08:32:00.001-05:00

I’ve packed some clothes into a backpack, but I’m not taking my laptop computer. I’m heading to the city that never sleeps, so there’s no way I will have any time to blog.

Shaggy Hair Boy and I are heading into Big City Like No Other for the winter jazzfest. I’ll be back next week.

Fallen

2012-01-03T22:38:00.001-05:00

Many years ago, my father and my oldest son built a fort from trees they'd cut down in our own woods. My father designed the treehouse, and it even had a tower from which Boy in Black hung a yellow, orange, and green flag. I think it was the flag of the Congo, which he'd made for some kind of project at school.

From the kitchen window, I could see the treehouse at the far edge of the backyard, and I could watch the kids when they played in it.

Of course, Boy in Black is in grad school now, and even my youngest child is seventeen. It's been a few years since anyone played in the treehouse. I took the ladder away when I realized the logs had begun to succumb to the relentless eroding weather. More recently, the whole structure has collapsed, to be buried under the winter snow.

All that glorious warmth

2012-01-02T21:47:00.000-05:00

I’ve always preferred getting my exercise by doing something useful, like chopping wood or shoveling snow — or something fun, like hiking or snowshoeing. I’ve never really understood the appeal of working out at a gym. During the first fifty years of my life, I went to the local gym exactly once, even though we’ve had a family membership for years.

But then my kids became obsessed with running on the treadmill at the gym, mostly to keep in shape for playing Ultimate, and my husband increased his visits to the gym because the kids were there. That made me think maybe I should start going to the gym. If the rest of my family were going to spend their evenings running like hamsters in a wheel – well, heck, I might as well do the same.

In addition, we had a miserable December this year, with almost no snow at all. The outside world was dark, cold, and muddy. Most winters, my feet are cold from November until March, but at least a frozen ground keeps my feet from getting wet. This year, we had puddles and cold rain. Exercising indoors seemed suddenly appealing. I began to go to the gym to run with my kids and husband.

Then I helped a friend’s son, Dry Humor, with his essays for grad school applications, all about his experiences as a personal trainer. When we were done with the essays, he said to me, “Let me return the favor, and teach you how to use some of the equipment at the gym.”

Suddenly I had a personal trainer.

I’d always been a bit afraid of the weight room, with all its intimidating equipment, but Dry Humor walked confidently up to each piece. By the end of the hour, I had learned how to exercise muscles I hadn’t thought about since ninth grade biology class. “You might be sore tomorrow,” he said grinning.

And so now, I’ve become someone who goes to the gym. I spend about 45 minutes using different body parts to lift weights, and then I join the rest of the family in the big treadmill room and I run a couple of miles. If I have time, I go to the hot tub or sauna after and soak in the heat.

I think I’ve finally figured out why people – well, at least people in this climate – go to the gym.

It’s not the thought of getting in shape. I didn’t feel particularly out of shape when I began. It’s not the idea of losing weight. I think my weight is fine. It’s not the social element. It turns out that people at the gym don’t talk that much, and mostly they all listen to iPods, running and stretching in their own little worlds. It’s not anything about endorphins or adrenaline or any sense of accomplishment. I never feel anything in particularly rushing through my veins at the end of the workout.

No, the great thing about the gym is that when I’m working out, I’m warm. The exercise drives every bit of chill out of my body. Even my hands and feet are warm. Yes, even my feet. At the gym, I’m warm, warm, warm. I can strip off my clothes, down to bare feet even, and go to the hot tub or sauna. I have no idea why anyone would go to the gym in the summer —that seems just crazy to me — but now when my husband or one of the kids invites me to go along to the gym, I find myself thinking, “Oh, I could be WARM for a whole hour.”

It just might get me through the winter.

Shifting

2011-12-31T17:56:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, I took a long walk with an old friend. (To clarify, it’s the friendship that’s old, not the friend.) Her husband and son, who had driven in from out of state with her, joined us for a hike around Pretty Colour Lake. On a cold winter day, the lake wasn't its usual deep green-blue colour, but a shifting pattern of greys and light blues. “That’s what I love about this lake,” Poet Woman said as we walked. “It’s always different. You never get bored.”

I could say the same about friendship. I’ve been friends with Poet Woman for 20 years, Artist Friend for 10 years, and Kindergarten Friend for 45 years. Most of my friends are people I’ve known for at least a decade. But my friends keep growing and changing, showing different aspects of themselves as the light changes, and our conversations never get boring.

Drummer

2011-12-31T13:37:00.001-05:00

Quick, a long-time extra in our household and an amazing musician, got light-up drumsticks for Christmas.

Eleven

2011-12-29T19:37:00.000-05:00

I was just leaving the house with Little Biker Boy to buy him a birthday present — I’d decided to let him pick out his own present this year — when we discovered that freezing rain had sealed the car shut. I tried every door, but none of them would budge.

“This is terrible!” Little Biker Boy screamed. He ran around and around the car, periodically stopping to kick the metal. Kicking the car did no good whatsoever, especially since he wasn’t even kicking at the doors, but it served to help vent his anger.

Little Biker Boy isn't a patient kid even on his best days, and he’d been having a bad week. Vacations are tough for him. School is a safe place with a consistent routine, filled with teachers and counselors who know how to handle him. A week in his mother’s apartment left him filled with frustration and anger, two emotions he does not handle well.

“Why did you let Shaggy Hair Boy take your car?” he yelled. “Now we can’t go to the store!” He yanked on the door handle, but it didn’t move.

I’ve had frozen car doors before, and I knew we’d get them open eventually. In my old station wagon, I used to just open the hatch in the back and crawl to the front. I tried to think of what I could use to thaw the locks out. A hair dryer and an extension cord might work, if we owned a hair dryer, which we don’t.

The cold wind whipped my hair into my face. I didn’t have the energy to handle both Little Biker Boy and the frozen locks. I brought him back into the warm house.

Boy in Black was already putting on his boots and coat. “I don’t care what you have to do,” I muttered to him. “Just get the doors open.”

It was a bad start to the afternoon, but thankfully, Boy in Black was able to pry open a door and get the car started. Our first stop was the pizza place. “It’s our tradition,” Little Biker Boy said. I kept the car running so that the doors would thaw, while he went in to buy a couple slices of pizza, and we sat in the warm car, eating and talking. Once he’d told me about his week and calmed down, we went to the toy aisle of a big store, where he debated for a long time before choosing a remote control car, some plastic wrestling figures, and a basketball.

By the time we returned to the house, his mood was calmer. I built a fire while he tested his car out in the living room, the hall, and then outside in the yard. It was dark before I said to him, finally, “I have to take you home now.”

He looked out into the driveway hopefully. “Maybe the doors will be frozen shut, and I’ll have to stay here.”

Smells so good

2011-12-28T16:07:00.001-05:00

Red-haired Sister and her two kids are always doing cool craft projects, which means we get nice homemade presents from them, like this lovely holiday wreath they made for my house. Every time I open the front door, I can smell fresh cedar and pine.

Always, music

2011-12-27T08:47:00.001-05:00

In my family, our holiday activities are mostly eating andtalking. And in between, there’s always music.

Ready for Christmas

2011-12-24T13:48:00.000-05:00

The last couple of days, we’ve had a flurry of cooking and cleaning, getting ready for the Christmas holidays. The elderly man who tunes our piano made a special trip to the house on Thursday to make sure our holiday music would be in tune. We’ve made countless trips to the grocery store. When the kids are all home, we go through about three gallons of chocolate milk each day: they consider in the perfect food after a workout. Each day that we get closer to Christmas brings more of our extra kids home from college, so we’ve had a gang in the living room every evening, talking and playing games.

The out-of-town family has arrived, which means text messages from Urban Sophisticate as she does her traditional last-minute Christmas shopping trip with my father. Taekwondo Nephew and Dandelion Niece showed up at my house early this morning, volunteering to be my sous chefs, and helpfully chopped up vegetables while I prepared food for Christmas dinner. My husband and the rest of the gang are busy cleaning, which is a never-ending job in this household. Shaggy Hair Boy, as usual, is at the piano, filling the house with jazz music as we work. My kids all learned early on that the way to get out of doing chores was to play the piano -- I can never bring myself to ask them to stop playing so that they can clean.

My kids had given themselves an athletic challenge — which was to run 100 miles in December. Because my daughter is leaving on a trip the day after Christmas, the goal morphed into running 100 miles before Christmas Eve. With-a-Why had to drop out of the challenge because he strained something in his foot and was forced to rest, but the other three kids were determined to reach their goal, despite the end-of-semester busyness.

Beautiful Smart Wonderful Daughter finished the 100 miles easily —running anywhere from 5 to 10 miles every time she went to the gym. Boy in Black missed some days during a stretch when he was taking finals and grading exams, but then he caught up by running 10 or 12 miles at a time. Shaggy Hair missed some days when he was off visiting his girlfriend, so yesterday he still had 19 miles to go. He went off to the gym early in the day, right after his piano lesson, and said, “I plan to be there for hours.” More than three hours later, he sent everyone in the family a text message: he’d completed his goal.

The weather has been unseasonable warm, but this morning we woke up to snow. That means it’s time to build a fire in the fireplace as we gather to celebrate the holidays.

Cold, with snow

2011-12-24T13:40:00.001-05:00

Holiday music

2011-12-21T16:34:00.000-05:00

Because I never listen to the radio and rarely go into a store with piped-in music, I don't hear the sappy Christmas music that everyone else seems to complain about all November and December. But that doesn’t mean I don’t hear holiday music. In fact, this month has been filled with music, mostly jazz and classical.

The first musical performance we went to this month was held in a castle-like building built more than 100 years ago: it’s the music building on the Snowstorm University campus, but looks like something that belongs at Hogwarts. In an auditorium marked by lovely woodwork, Shaggy Hair Boy accompanied the jazz ensemble on a black grand piano. Because he’s the pianist, he’s the one musician who doesn’t face the audience, which is why it’s lucky he’s got such great hair.

The next weekend, we crowded into a bookstore to hear Shaggy Hair Boy and With-a-Why play a duet, and then the next weekend, they played two piano recitals at the music studio. The families of the other piano students know my two by now, and I often hear people whisper as they get their programs, “Oh, the brothers are going to play!” They know Shaggy Hair Boy for his jazzy numbers, and With-a-Why because he can play songs like Flight of the Bumblebee, which requires playing really fast.

Last Saturday, we went to “Cabaret” night at the local high school. For the first half hour, as people mingled and talked and found their seats, With-a-Why played song after song on the piano. It’s amazing how classical music, nice tablecloths, and dim lighting can transform a high school cafeteria into a cabaret. He sang with the chamber choir, but the evening also featured him playing DeBussy’s Clair de Lune on the piano.

The holiday music season ended yesterday afternoon with the boys playing in a more humble setting: the lobby of the assisted living center where my mother-in-law lives. Although the boys each did a few show-off instrumental pieces, most of their time was spent playing traditional Christmas Carols while my husband took the microphone and got all the old people to sing along with him. My mother-in-law kept turning and saying in a stage whisper, “That’s my son! And my grandsons!”

When the event was over, my husband and I helped move chairs while aides came in to assist some of the residents. But Shaggy Hair Boy stayed at the keyboard, playing songs like “Over the Rainbow” and “Georgia on My Mind.”

“This brings tears to my eyes,” my mother-in-law said to me. I could tell that some of the elderly women sitting near her felt the same way. None of them wanted to move. I’m not sure how long they would have all stayed there — Shaggy Hair Boy playing the old standards, the old folks listening — if the staff didn’t come in to politely tell them that it was almost time for the first dinner shift.

An elderly woman let go of her walker to grab my hand. “Your sons have a passion for music,” she said. “That’s a wonderful gift.” Then she went down the hall, singing under her breath as she pushed the metal walker over the linoleum.

Spitting distance

2011-12-19T14:50:00.000-05:00

When I picked up Little Biker Boy, I could tell he was in a difficult mood. He stomped out of the little apartment where he lives with his mother without saying goodbye to her. Then he began telling me a fictional story about the life he’d had when he lived with his father. “I owned two snowmobiles. No, three snowmobiles, all to myself. And we used to race them.”

I’d planned to bring him home to my house to help decorate our Christmas tree, but I could see right away that his mood wasn’t a good fit for a living room filled musical instruments, boxes of fragile Christmas tree ornaments, and laptop computers balanced on small tables.

So instead, we went to the green bridge.It’s a pedestrian bridge that rises up three floors above the railroad tracks. To climb it, you walk up cage-like tunnels made of metal grates, first one, then another, and then a third. The fourth tunnel goes across the railroad tracks, high enough that even a double-decker train can pass underneath. When you run up and down, the metal shakes and rattles. The scariest part is that you can look down through the metal and get an incredible sensation of height.

Little Biker Boy ran ahead of me, yelling as he went up the metal ramps. He kicked metal grates and they rattled. At the very top, he stopped and looked down. “It’s so scary when you look down,” he said. He and I are both afraid of heights. We walked across cautiously, looking down whenever we wanted a shot of adrenaline. At the very middle we stopped. Five tracks lay beneath us, and when we walked, the metal bridge shook under our feet.

“Look!” Little Biker said. In this distance, we could see the light of an approaching train. It came rumbling and clanking toward us, moving fast through the big train yard and then swerving on the track that led right below our feet.

The whistle blew. Little Biker Boy yelled, but I couldn’t hear anything he was saying. We both jumped up and down on the rattling bridge. It felt like the whole town was shaking. The train whooshed by underneath us, car after car: yellow, orange, brown, red.

Little Biker Boy lay down on the grate and spit. His saliva landed on the top of the train. We could both see the mark as the train passed through. He laughed and stood up again, and we watched as the train kept coming, car after car.

After the train had gone through, we climbed down the other side of the bridge. “I spit on a train!” Little Biker Boy kept saying. That was apparently the accomplishment he needed to shift into a better mood.

Binge cleaning

2011-12-17T07:59:00.000-05:00

It happens every December. I click the little button that allows me to submit my grades and think to myself, “Hurray! I’m done! I can sit back and relax!”

Then I stand up from my desk, look around my house, and think, “Ugh. When was the last time I cleaned this place?”

It’s amazing how things pile up during the semester. Oh, we manage to keep up with some of the day-to-day stuff like washing dishes, doing laundry, and even occasionally cleaning the bathrooms, but still, at the end of a busy semester, the house looks worse than a cheap hotel room occupied by a bunch of Ultimate Frisbee players.

I’m a binge cleaner by nature, and I have to admit, I sort of enjoy the kind of cleaning and purging that’s necessary at the end of the semester. When my kids were little, I’d go through their toys and clothes every December, getting rid of anything that was outgrown, outdated, or broken. I still get a sense of satisfaction when I fill a bag with stuff to take over to the Rescue Mission. I’ve figured out the formula over the years: every bag of stuff that leaves the house will make my home just a bit easier to clean.

At a Christmas party last night, someone said to me, “Do you have your shopping done?”

It seemed to me a very odd question. This isn’t the season for buying stuff. It’s the season for getting rid of stuff — the shirt that doesn’t fit me any more because it shrunk, that board game my kids out grew, and that book that got dropped into the bathtub. It's time to fill up bags with clothes that just hang in our closets and let someone else get some use out of them. It’s the season for sorting through the folders, papers, and books piled on the floor of my office, or the bin of mail and papers on the kitchen table.

It’s time to clean for the family and friends we'll be seeing over the next month. It's time to make space for the new year.

And wild and sweet the words repeat

2011-12-15T18:58:00.001-05:00

Liminal

2011-12-13T21:57:00.000-05:00

The semester is winding down. My older two kids have moved back home for winter break, but none of us are quite in vacation mode yet.

My daughter, sitting by the fire, has her computer open and a stack of papers in her lap. She’s preparing for her thesis proposal defense – something to do with social norms theory and the sexual behavior of college-age women. With-a-Why, at one end of the couch, is writing a paper for his graphic novel class. He’s arguing that Batman represents conservative values while Superman represents liberal values. Boy in Black, who has claimed the other end of the couch, is studying for a physics exam. Smiley Girl is preparing for her dendrology final by flipping through index cards filled with facts about trees. Shaggy Hair Boy is writing a paper about how he considers jazz a sacred music. My husband is checking graphs that show what the stock market is doing, and muttering about a “head and shoulders” pattern.

After a day of long meetings on campus, I came home to make veggie lasagna so that we could all eat together before getting back to work. I’ve got a stack of portfolios in my office, but I need a good night sleep before I tackle them. I’ll start grading them tomorrow.

Made for walking

2011-12-11T20:46:00.001-05:00

For a couple of years now, my piano teacher has been saying she needs to take me shopping. She’s a beautiful woman who is always dressed gorgeously, in carefully chosen clothes and jewelry. I, on the other hand, tend to wear the same pair of jeans over and over again, paired with whatever t-shirt I happened to grab out of the closet. Once when my daughter was trying to tactfully describe the way I dress, Boy in Black said, “You’d never be surprised to find a twig or leaf in Mom’s hair.” Yep. That about sums it up.

Friday afternoon during my piano lesson, Beautiful Piano Teacher told me she’d just bought a pair of boots. She even pulled out her cell phone to show me a picture of them. “They’re warm and comfortable,” she said. “I hate cold feet.”

“I hate cold feet too,” I said. “I should get a pair of boots.”It’s not that I don’t own a pair of boots. I do. They’re insulated hiking boots that have to be laced up every time I put them on. I wear them with jeans all winter long, but they’re fairly clunky and my feet end up sweating, which makes them cold. I liked the idea of a pair of boots that I could just slip on and off, so that my feet won’t sweat when I’m indoors.

“I used to have a pair of regular boots,” I told Beautiful Piano Teacher. “But it was before my daughter was born so it was more than 25 years ago.”

She stood up. “We have to get you a pair of boots. Let’s go.”

“Right now?” I asked. I liked the idea of owning boots, but the thought of shopping for them made me feel queasy. Shopping for boots would be a Herculean task, one I’d need to prepare for with food and drink, perhaps some meditation.

“Yep,” she said firmly. “My next lesson cancelled — we have time.”

The next thing you know, we were in her car and heading to the mall. Yes, we were going to the mall on a Friday afternoon just two weeks before Christmas. Beautiful Piano Teacher is a brave woman.

She led me into Baron & Seamstress, an expensive department store. “Don’t worry,” she said. “They’re having a sale.”

It wasn’t the prices that scared me, but rather, the store itself. I’m afraid of department stores. They confuse me. There are always pillars and mirrors and escalators and racks of stuff set up in paths that get me completely lost. The merchandise is set up in a way that seems to me completely random. I much prefer thrift stores, where all the red shirts are put on one rack, or all the jeans in one bin. That method of organization is at least logical.

But Beautiful Piano Teacher has no fear of department stores. In fact, she actually likes to shop. Without hesitation, she marched past racks of shirts and holiday sweaters, swishing past counters of perfume and weird cosmetic gunk, turning this way and that, leading me right to the shoe department. She was right about the sale. Big signs proclaimed the prices. Women were everywhere – grabbing at the boots on the tables, sitting in the chairs to take off their shoes, and tossing boxes aside as they tried the boots on. It’s the kind of scene that made me want to turn and slink out of the store, although escape at that point was impossible since there’s no way I could have ever found my way back to the car.

The confusion didn’t bother Beautiful Piano Teacher at all. She scanned the tables quickly, while I muttered objections. “No heels. No pointy toes. No suede. No weird buckles.”

She found a boot that met my requirements and held it up. “See? It’s lined so they'll be warm. It’s stylish.”

I gave in. “Okay.” Then I looked around. All the chairs were filled, so I figured it might take hours before anyone waited on us. Usually in that situation, I give up and go home. I’m invisible when I’m in a department store — I never get waited on. And more than twenty minutes in a mall makes me lightheaded.

Beautiful Piano Teacher went up to the counter, held up the boot, and called out in her lovely Russian accent: “We need this in size 8.” A salesperson appeared from nowhere.

Within minutes, I was trying on the boots. They were as comfortable as slippers. They were lined with soft, warm material. Beautiful Piano Teacher assured me they were fashionable.

“Even if you wear jeans, they look so much better than the sneakers or hiking boots you usually wear,” she said.We drove back to the studio just in time for her next lesson, and the next day, I tried the boots out. I wore them for hours, and my feet stayed warm and comfortable the whole time.

“It’s a start,” Beautiful Piano Teacher said when I showed up at my sons’ piano recital wearing the boots. “Next time, we will buy you some clothes.”

What I learned this semester

2011-12-09T19:51:00.001-05:00

On the last day of class, I gave each of my first year students an index card and asked them to write one thing they learned during their first semester in college. Then I shuffled the cards and read them aloud.

Apoptosis is programmed cell death.

In my first semester of college, I learned that Dungeons & Dragons is more fun than it sounds.

The average American teenager sends and receives about 80 text messages every day.

How to do stoichiometry.

Eight hours of sleep a night will not happen. Naps are great. So is coffee.

I learned more about the Occupy Wall Street movement, which is awesome.

I learned more about steel than I ever thought possible.

Twenty-four percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 50 have at least one tattoo.

Time management. Finally.

A medium-sized dog has double the environmental impact of driving an SUV for 10,000 miles.

Only 8 percent of the energy in the United States comes from renewable resources.

I learned that there are people here and around the world who think like me about the environment.

I learned how to recognize bad writing.

350 ppm is the safe limit of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We’ve passed that.

I learned that I look decent with a beard.

I learned the importance of stress release and sleep.

I learned that formaldehyde is what makes me feel light-headed while dissecting things.

I learned that I procrastinate way too much, have a horrible work ethic, and am too obsessed with Facebook.

I learned why God created Sunday as the day of rest. It's because Friday and Saturday kicks your butt.

There is a subspecies of drosophila (fruit fly) that has sperm that is 5.8 cm long.

Time management is extremely important.

I learned what dimensional analysis is.

When times get tough, and there’s a right or left in the trail ahead of you, you must go straight through the brush, because nothing is easy.

I learned that the molecular mass of carbon dioxide is 44.01 grams and water is 18.01 grams.

I apparently have an accent of some sort.

I learned how to properly light my hand on fire.

Dining hall food gets old.

This semester I learned the basics on why animals behave the way they do.

Temperature influences turtle gender.

Pulling an all-nighter to study and taking a caffeine pill is not a good combination.

I learned that power naps are the key to survival.

Having a lab partner is a lifelong commitment.

You must let the little things in life that bug you slide because in the end, they don’t really matter.

Chemistry is harder than I thought. I would rather build a real life replica of the Colesium.

I learned how to solve problems with my roommate.

You are not supposed to reduce a fever.

My study habits aren’t good enough.

Monecious means that something has male and female organs.

I learned more in this one semester of college than I did in 12 years of grade school.

How to budget my time.

I learned how to do calculus. Sort of.

The cemetery is a great place to go for a walk and escape the stresses of school.

Science is a lot of hard work.

I learned to accept those who have different political views than I do.

I really learned a lot about different movements and current events going on in the world around us.

The easiest decision is rarely the right one.

Life goes on.

jo(e) athlete

2011-12-07T19:13:00.001-05:00

A few years ago, when a new gym opened near us, my husband joined. He’s gone faithfully, usually three times each week, and that’s kept him in pretty good shape. I went with him once and decided that a regular gym wasn’t really for me. I prefer to exercise outside in the fresh air. I’ve never been one to exercise just for the sake of exercise. I’d rather take classes like karate or belly dancing, snowboarding or skiing, so that I’m learning a skill while I exercise.

But this winter, my Ultimate Frisbee playing kids are using the gym to stay in shape while the Ultimate fields are covered with snow. They coordinate the times by cell phone and travel in two groups – one group coming from campus and one group from my house. They’ve pledged to each run 100 miles in December.

So last night, I drove over to the gym with my husband, who had gotten out of work late. By the time I walked into the big room with the treadmills, their workout was already in full swing. The five kids (Smiley Girl is part of the group) were lined up on five treadmills, all running hard. They were a noticeable group because they were all wearing bright-coloured Ultimate shirts. Shaggy Hair Boy’s hot pink outfit and With-a-Why’s bright purple make them very easy to find.

I took the treadmill next to Boy in Black, which may have been a mistake. He thinks it’s fun to do things like the set the treadmill at top speed so that he can run a five-minute mile. I ran for hours — okay, maybe it wasn’t really that long — and went only two miles.

But still, I congratulated myself. So far I’ve run 2 miles in December. Only 98 more to go! I abandoned my family, who were all still running obsessively. I went to the hot tub for a few minutes, then the sauna. Those, I could get used. Then I changed back into my clothes and found the rest of the family, who were gathering in the lobby.

“Do you think you’re going to make the 100 miles?” I asked my daughter. “December goes by fast.”

She pulled her coat on as we walked toward the door. “Well, today is Day 6, and I’ve already run 30 miles. So I think I’m good.”

Chilly day for a swim

2011-12-05T15:14:00.001-05:00

I stood on the shore of the lake wearing a winter coat over a wool sweater, plus a scarf and mittens, to protect me from the cold December wind that blew across the lake. Volunteers from a local diving club, clad in dry suits that kept them warm, stood waist-deep in the lake, waiting for the event to begin.

“I’m disappointed that it’s not snowing,” said the cheerful woman standing next to me. “That always makes this more fun.”

“Some years they have to break some ice,” said an older man with a camera. “They lucked out this year.”

To my right, hundreds of people gathered under a big white tent. Some teams wore matching t-shirts or crazy hats. Many had stripped down to bathing suits and barefeet. Blond Brother-in-law had on bright green shorts, but I kept losing sight of him in the confusion.

Someone with a microphone began a countdown, and suddenly they all started running — across the muddy ground and straight into the cold lake.

It was one of the craziest fundraisers I’ve ever seen. Folks of all ages were splashing, squealing, and yelling as their bodies hit the icy water. A teenager in a bikini kicked her feet and splashed her friends. Some friends locked arms and ran together. Some dove under to get their hair wet while others were content to run splashing and screaming in a wide arc. Within about ten minutes, more than 300 people had jumped into the lake, all to raise money for the Special Olympics.

The event didn’t last long. Within minutes, people began running back out of the lake, eagerly grabbing dry towels from family and friends who stood on the bank. All around me I could hear excited chatter as folks dried off and began putting layers of clothes back on over their goose pimples. I found Blond Brother-in-law talking to my parents. He was soaking wet, but that didn’t seem to bother him at all. “Nice day for a swim,” he said.

Ceremony

2011-12-03T20:19:00.001-05:00

Beautiful Smart Wonderful Daughter and Sailor Boy went out to buy birthday presents; they called to say that they’d pick up Drama Niece on their way home. Boy-in-Black and Blonde Niece went to the grocery store to buy cookies, granola, fruit, and gallons of chocolate milk. Smiley Girl cleaned the kitchen while Shaggy Hair Boy picked With-a-Why up from his piano lesson. I carried logs in to build a fire. My husband texted to say he'd be home soon.

As everyone began to gather in our living room, I brought out dozens of beeswax candles from the monastery.

“No candles near the laptops!” warned Boy-in-Black. Our living room has so many little tables that it looks like a library or coffee shop, and my kids have strict rules about their computers. Drinks and melting wax are not allowed near the piano or on any little table that holds a laptop.So I pulled over several wooden stools. Soon plates of candles were balanced amongst the bodies and laptops crowded into the living room.

The many little flames combined with the glowing logs in the fireplace lit the faces of the kids as they talked, telling stories and funny anecdotes about the two teenagers whose birthdays we were celebrating: Drama Niece and Smiley Girl.

I’ve known Smiley Girl for more than a year now — she was my student before she started dating Shaggy Hair Boy — and I’ve known Drama Niece her whole life. I well remembered the morning of her birth. “I held you when you were just minutes old,” I said.

“You win at the candle ceremony,” she said. “No one can beat that.”

Of course, if there’s any competition at the candle ceremony, it’s who can come up with the funniest story. Drama Niece, whose pseudonym comes from the amazing theatrical talent she showed during high school plays, won that competition by jumping in with backstory to anecdotes her cousins were telling.

By the time we were done with stories, some of the candles had burned down completely, and the plates I’d set around the room were filled with pools of melting wax. And now Drama Niece and Smiley Girl, born the exact same day, are no longer teenagers, but young women in their twenties.

Always

2011-12-01T10:35:00.001-05:00

One Thanksgiving when I was very small, my grandmother taught me how to serve cranberry sauce out of a can. While I knelt on the kitchen counter and watched, she used the can opener to cut both ends, then pushed the sauce through so that it came out neatly, beautifully red and perfectly molded.

Years later, long after my grandmother had died, my mother decided to make fancy homemade cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving. She spent all kinds of time making it, and admittedly, it tasted good, but I was horrified. “But we always have cranberry sauce that’s shaped like a tin can,” I said to her. “It’s a tradition.”

I’ve never been someone who embraces change.

If there’s someone who likes rituals even more than me, it’s Little Biker Boy, the ten-year-old who used to live down the street. When I picked him up after school, we didn’t even have to discuss where we were going. I drove straight to the pizza place in Traintrack, and he said, “Park in front of the sign, like you always do.”

I handed him the money, because he likes to be the one to pay, and he carried the pizza slices out to the car. While we ate, we talked about his week at school, his new social worker, and his weekend with his older sister. Then we drove around his old neighborhood. “Don’t forget to go down to the railroad track,” he said. “We always do that.”

So we drove down to the end of my road to watch the trains going by. When the train went by going east, I told him stories about Big City Like No Other, and we imagined what the people on the train might do when they get to the city. He knows the details by heart, even though he’s never been to the city.

When a train went by going west, I told him stories about the large midwestern city on the Great Lake. Then we went back to my house, where we sat on the kitchen floor by the heat vent and talked until it was time for me to take him back to his mother’s apartment.

Around the lake

2011-11-30T17:44:00.001-05:00

At Pretty Colour Lakes, the beach is closed and the gorgeous foliage is gone. We haven’t yet had the enough snow to attract the snowshoers and cross-country skiers who will tramp down paths over the winter months. As we walked the trail along the lake, we passed a woman running, a teenager walking a dog, and then an older couple, who were talking as they walked. The cedar trees smell the same no matter what the season.

A parcel in a pear tree

2011-11-28T17:22:00.001-05:00

By the time I arrived home at 4:30 pm, it was already getting dark. I hate the short days we get this time of year. I stopped, as I usually do, at the end of our driveway to pull mail out of a stuffed mailbox. We get a lot of mail, but it’s almost all junk. Hardly anyone writes real letters any more.

When I dumped the pile of envelopes onto the front seat of my car, I noticed a little slip of pink paper. I’ve gotten those slips before, and they usually mean that I need to go to the post office to pick up a package. The slip was covered in fine print, none of which I could read in the fading light, but when I flipped it over, three words were handwritten on the back: parcel in paperbox .

“It's in a paper box?” I thought to myself. That seemed like an odd thing for our mail carrier to note. I assumed that she meant a cardboard box. The books I order usually come just in a manila envelope or post office mailer. Perhaps the note meant someone was sending me a gift.

The word parcel made me think of the packages we used to get this time of year when I was a kid. My grandmother and aunt would send a big cardboard box, and we’d open it to find stacks of wrapped Christmas presents, which we couldn’t open until Christmas Eve. The word also made me remember the book The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew. When Polly Pepper did up a parcel with brown paper and string, the gift always sounded exciting, even if it was something as simple as a gingerbread man.

I glanced at my watch. I’d have to hurry to get to the post office before it closed.

The drive to the post office took me past cornfields that had been razed to yellow-gold stubble, past red barns and old farmhouses, and over a traintrack. It’s a pleasant drive, and the anticipation of a parcel in a paperbox made me smile as I drove.

In the little brick post office, I showed the slip of paper to the woman behind the counter. She looked down at it and then back up at me. “Did you check your paper box?” she asked.

“My … what?” I asked. I’d forgotten such a thing existed. I haven’t had a print newspaper delivered to my house in years. “Do I still have a newspaper box?”

I drove back to my house. Yep, there it was, right next to the mailbox: a yellow plastic box with the name of the local newspaper stamped on the side of it. Inside was a manila envelope that contained a book I’d ordered last week.

Brownies, Laptops, and Twister

2011-11-27T15:57:00.001-05:00

For the first time ever, we had the whole week off forThanksgiving. Some of us – well, pretty much all of us — still had work to do, sothe living room was filled with laptops, books, and papers, but theatmosphere was pretty relaxed. Many of our extra kids, home for the holiday,stopped in. Quick played chess with With-a-Why. Film Guy made brownies. OlderNeighbor Boy told stories about the culinary institute he’s attending. The gangstayed up one night playing Taboo, and then, for reasons beyond myunderstanding, they got out the game Twister, a game that gets really absurdwhen most of the players are over six feet tall.

Into wine

2011-11-25T15:45:00.001-05:00

When we were little, my father would send us kids outside with a bucket to gather dandelion flowers. Since all the lawns near us would be covered with the bright yellow flowers, it wouldn’t take long to fill a bucket and bring it back to the basement, where my father would make dandelion wine.

He’s recently revived his interest in wine-making, and this summer, he once again made dandelion wine, which he keeps offering to anyone who comes to the house. I think all the grandchildren have had a taste by now of the homemade wine.About a month ago, he said he wanted to make apple wine again, but that it might be difficult because the cider that is sold nowadays often contains preservatives.

“I know where you can get cider that’s got nothing in it,” I said to him. I was thinking of the monastery I visit for retreats. A couple of years ago, the state told the monks they could no longer sell their cider because it’s not pasteurized. Their solution was to put up a sign informing visitors that the cider was free, and they could make a donation if they liked.

So when I went on retreat a few weeks ago, I stopped in the bookstore to chat with Brother Tractor about the cider they were selling. “Nope, we don’t add any chemicals,” he said. “It’s just cider.”

When I brought a few gallons of the cider home, With-a-Why pointed to the monastery label. It said: “Ingredients: apples.”

Yesterday, when I was at my parents’ house for Thanksgiving, my father brought me down into the basement to show me what he’d done with the cider I’d brought home from the monastery. There it was, in two glass bottles, bubbles rising as I watched.“It’s working,” my father said. “Soon we’ll have wine.”

If only I had some tap shoes

2011-11-22T00:06:00.000-05:00

A few days ago, my parents sent out a message over the family email list, announcing a movie night at their house. It’s become a cold weather tradition. Eight of us gathered tonight near the warmth of their wood-burning stove. My mother made popcorn and poured lemonade while my father searched through his collection and pulled out a black-and-white film that featured Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

We congratulated Red-haired Niece on her new job, which starts next week. Beautiful Smart Wonderful Daughter pulled up her shirt to show everyone the row of stitches on her abdomen. “My knife wound,” she said dramatically. That sounds infinitely more badass than the real story, which involves a dermatologist and a biopsy that showed the removed tissue to be benign.

It never matters which movie my father chooses because they tend to be all the same. This movie took place in Europe supposedly, although it looked suspiciously like a set. The women wore gorgeous dresses with swirly skirts that floated through the air when they danced. The plot involved love-at-first sight, a crazy scheme, mistaken identities, absurd gender roles, and corny dialogue, made funnier by the muttered commentary of the young people sitting next to me on the couch. The music and dancing were terrific, and I couldn’t resist dancing as we moved out to the kitchen for tea, cocoa, and homemade cookies.

The music was still going through my head as we put on coats and headed out into the cold rain to drive home.

The whole world is watching

2011-11-20T18:47:00.001-05:00

I have to admit, I’ve been skeptical about the purpose or power of social media. Oh, I admit, I use it. I’ve treated facebook like a big address book, looking up folks when I want to send them an email, and I’ve used the Google+ circles as a way to have conversations with friends. It’s been nice to keep in touch with folks who live far away. I’ve been on twitter for a few years, and I once joked that it’s main purpose seemed to be to let me know which celebrity had died that day. Last semester, a friend sent me an email saying, “Hey, you must have papers to grade. You’ve been on twitter a lot.” So yeah, that too. Twitter can be a fun procrastination tool.

For the first few months I was on twitter, it seemed very much like a big cocktail party. Oh, it was entertaining and sure, there’s a social value to making small talk with folks, but most of what I saw was pretty superficial: folks joking around when they want to procrastinate, friends promoting their online businesses, single friends flirting with other twitter folks in hopes of a hook-up, bloggers linking to their blogs, people venting about relationships, and really funny twitter streams coming from people pretending to be famous dead celebrities.

I’ve watched the way that the younger generation — that is, my students and my household — embrace all the technological ways of communicating. The speed at which they can send text messages stuns me. (I think I’m just I’m too old to master typing with my thumbs on a very tiny keyboard.) I’ve watched how young people are able to use cell phone technology to coordinate a flashmob, gathering impressive numbers to sing and dance a single song. When I’ve talked with my students about social media, I’ve asked the question of whether or not their generation would eventually use those connections, that ability to reach large numbers of people, for something larger and more meaningful than entertainment.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has answered that question for me. In a time when the corporate-owned mainstream media are not always reliable sources of information, my twitter stream has been an invaluable source. When college students at UC Davis, sitting on the sidewalk in a peaceful, non-violent protest were pepper sprayed by a cop at close range, videos were posted on the internet within minutes and the link sped through various social networks. When I wanted to see how a General Assembly at the Occupy Wall Street movement in the city functioned, I clicked on a livestream and watched the entire thing, through the camera of a young man standing right in the crowd. Most of the folks I follow on twitter are people I know in real life — some are former students who are at the protests — so when I see their photos, their comments, their links, and their livestreams, I know something about the source and what bias might be involved. It’s so much more immediate and unfiltered than the days of reading columns in the morning newspaper.

Someone said to me yesterday, “How can the Occupy Wall Street movement survive without one strong leader? They need a Gandhi or a Martin Luther King Jr. A movement won't work without a leader.” But I think they are forgetting the role of the internet in this movement.

It’s true that the Occupy Wall Street movement doesn’t have one charismatic leader, but it’s also true that it’s not a leaderless movement. Watch a livestream of a General Assembly and you will see many strong leaders, who believe in a participatory process. They’re making decisions by consensus, they are trying to give everyone a voice, and they’re working with each other to plan strategies. Many approaches they are taking – the human microphones, the drum circles, the think tanks, the working groups, the general assemblies, the insistence on non-violence, the chanting, the puppets, the marches — are techniques borrowed from the history of activism, but the internet has magnified the scale of participation. They’re using their cell phone and laptops to connect to each other, to broadcast their ideas to the world, and to let anyone with access to a computer to become part of the movement.

The action of the Occupy Wall Street movement – the folks marching in the streets and occupying parks and public spaces in major cities — has been flanked with a whole lot of smart, perceptive writing by folks who are participating from their homes, ideas that have been spread to readers mostly through the internet. “I don’t see any specific solutions,” someone said to me. Well, after just a few hours of reading on the internet, I can see a whole lot of ideas and solutions being proposed.

The internet has changed the face of activism. It’s connecting the activists on the street with the activists who write from their desks. It’s made this country a smaller place. And it has made video footage a powerful tool. I don’t think you need to be the parent of a college student, as I am, to cringe at the video of the cop casually spraying pepper spray at close range into the faces of students sitting on the ground in peaceful assembly.

One of the chants the Occupied Wall Street protestors use is “The whole world is watching.” Indeed, thanks to the internet, they are.

I started to add links to this post, but there are just too many to choose from. I'd advise readers to go to twitter, search #ows and see what's there.

Written in the snow

2011-11-18T09:15:00.001-05:00

A seasonal alternative to sidewalk chalk.

And the world has somehow shifted

2011-11-16T22:31:00.001-05:00

With-a-Why was in second grade when he said to me, “I want to take piano lessons.”

He was a painfully shy child. He did fine in school — it was pretty clear that he was academically gifted — but I don’t think his classroom teacher even knew what his voice sounded like. I tried to imagine this child staying after school to take piano lessons, and I couldn’t imagine him talking to the piano teacher.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “You’d have to sometimes talk to the teacher.”He said nothing. Then he went over to the piano and played Ode to Joy, something he’d learned from watching his older brother.

“I want to learn to play the piano,” he said.

So I signed him up for lessons with the young woman who worked at his school as a music teacher. She was already teaching my two oldest kids, and she said she’d be happy take him on as well. I warned her that he was shy, but she knew that already. She was kind of shy herself so they were a good match.

With-a-Why loved piano right from the start. When his first music teacher moved away, I found another music teacher, but I wondered again if his shyness would be a problem.

“He’s really shy,” I said to the teacher. She was a beautiful, confident woman with a lovely voice. “He doesn’t talk to many people outside the family.”

“I love shy kids,” she said. “You are so lucky to have a shy child.” I knew then that I’d found the right teacher.

Since then With-a-Why has played for many recitals and exams. He plays classical music, mostly, and he’s known for playing superfast, his fingers dancing over the keys.

More recently, his grandfather has convinced to sing in front of people too.When he signed up for choir this year in eleventh grade, the choir director soon discovered his piano playing ability.

At the concert last week, With-a-Why stepped down out of the choir to take his spot at the grand piano and accompany the choir. They were singing “I see the light” from the movie Tangled. What amazed me wasn’t so much his playing – it’s a song he can play easily – but the poise with which he sat down in front of hundreds of people and began playing.

In the crowded auditorium, I watched him – a lanky young man dressed in a dress shirt and black pants, his shoulder-length dark hair hanging down his back and his hands moving confidently over the keys. He’s come a long way from the shy little boy who learned first learned music by standing quietly and watching his siblings at the piano.

Morning walk in southern city

2011-11-15T23:21:00.001-05:00

Sunshine and conversation

2011-11-14T19:39:00.001-05:00

This weekend, I sat on the grass in a southern city, watching brown-and-gold leaves drift down from the trees, savoring the touch of sun on my bare arms and bare feet. The colors seem muted compared to the brilliant fall foliage we get in the northeast, but still, the landscape was more beautiful than I had expected.

The friend I was visiting seemed happy to indulge my wish to be outside, so we spent hours just wandering around parks or sitting on the grass, talking, moving every time the patch of sun moved. City parks are great for people watching, and I couldn’t resist analyzing the people we’d see. The most telling was the young father walking with his toddler son. The little boy had fallen and was crying. The father kept saying to him, “Shake it off! Shake it off!” and never so much as gave the kid a hug.

“Wow,” I said. “I bet he’d act different if that kid was a girl. He’d pick her up and give her a hug.”

“Yeah, it’s easy to see how gender stereotypes get perpetrated,” my friend said. A few minutes later, he pointed to a girl who had fallen while walking on a stone wall. She was immediately surrounded by family, who were giving her all kinds of sympathy.

It felt like summer in the park. Whole families were running around in the grass, often accompanied by barking dogs. Groups of little kids had gathered for football practice, their skinny bodies hidden under shoulder pads and helmets. We could hear the repeated crack of a bat from the batting cages on the other side of the field.

Saturday, we walked along a wide creekbed filled with a fascinating pattern of rocks and water that led to the remains of an old textile mill that burned down during the civil war. Five stories of brick walls rose above the rushing water. We climbed around the rocks, staying out in the middle of the stream to enjoy the sunshine, talking while we wandered around. Too soon the sun disappeared behind the trees, and it was time to hike back to the car before darkness fell. Even in the south, November days are short.

Just a bit more sunshine

2011-11-10T19:20:00.001-05:00

When my kids were little, I’d send them outside to play any time we had sunny autumn weather. “This could be the last nice day,” I’d tell them. I knew that cold rains and then snow would keep them inside soon enough.

This fall, I’ve tried to follow my own advice and spend as much time outside as I could. What’s worked out well is that my weekend trips have been in geographic order, from north to south, so I’ve managed to find that last beautiful day in several different regions.During September, I drove north to Maple Leaf Country for a conference: the weather was warm enough to eat outside with my friends. During October, I went north to the mountains, where the leaves were turning bright yellow and red. Last weekend, I drove south to get to the monastery for a weekend retreat.

Tomorrow, I am flying south to a city where the temperatures are expected to reach the 60s. I’m hoping for one more weekend of sunshine before winter begins.

When the shadows reached me

2011-11-08T23:20:00.001-05:00

My weekend retreat at the monastery included a Saturdayafternoon hike down the steep trail to the river where Nurse Friend and I couldsit in the sun on the flat stones and listen to the rushing water. Close to theground, the air was warm. I rolled my fleece up to use as a pillow and took anap, waking up when the shadows reached me.

In the barnyard

2011-11-08T22:26:00.001-05:00

Morning walk at the monastery

2011-11-07T16:18:00.000-05:00

Saturday morning at the monastery was cold but sunny. I wore my winter coat when I went for a morning walk. Frozen blades of grass crunched under my feet as I walked along the fence towards the sheep barn. The sun began melting the frost on the pastures, but icy spots still remained in the shadow of the barn and in round spots under the crooked trees in the apple orchard.

After wandering through the barnyard and taking photos of sheep, I went into the chapel to get warm. As I walked down the stone steps into the crypt, I heard voices. A class of school kids were gathered in the little back room. Brother Tractor was telling them stories about the early days of the monastery. He came in 1961, the year I was born.

“We wore robes all the time in those days, but we kept ripping them when we were doing farm work. Mine would get caught in the tractor. So we had a meeting and they voted that you could wear pants when you were doing farm work or using a ladder,” he said. He added, “One of the brothers said that I was always carrying a ladder around just so I could wear pants.” The kids laughed.

"Why do you sing and chant?" asked a girl. Brother Tractor said, “Do you like it? The music adds something to prayer that words cannot.”

Once I was warm, I went back outside to wander over to the sheep pasture and walk up the road in the sun. The wind that rose was cold, and it wasn’t long before I was ready to go back to the guest cottage where I’d sit in the sunny window with a cup of hot tea and a book.

Monastery in November

2011-11-06T20:08:00.001-05:00

At the monastery, the monks are preparing for winter. The big barns are filled with stacks of hay. In the lobby of their bookstore, visitors can buy cider made from their apples, candles made from beeswax, and mittens made from wool. The trees in the orchards have been picked clean, and the vegetable garden turned over. The sheep that graze outside the chapel are fat and healthy, with thick wool coats.

Nurse Friend and I arrived on Friday evening just in time for Compline, the last prayer of the day. The bell was already ringing as we hurried through a cold wind and up the stone steps of the chapel. I pulled open the heavy wooden door and stepped into the warm, musty air. That familiar smell of old incense and melting wax always makes me feel at home.

The evening prayer service ended downstairs in the crypt, with the monks in their dark robes standing in a semi-circle around a low stone altar that holds a fourteenth century stone statue of Mary, the room lit by the flickering flames of votive candles that visitors have placed on the altar. When the chanting was done, one monk climbed back up to the ring the bell, and the monks left quietly to return to their living quarters. Nurse Friend and I went back out into the night to go unpack our car and get settled at the little guest cottage where we’d be staying.

Last burst of orange

2011-11-03T09:13:00.000-04:00

before the world turns white and grey.

Music on a Wednesday night

2011-11-02T21:44:00.000-04:00

We don’t often go out during the week, but tonight my husband and I went out on to listen to some jazz. We ate at a wooden table in a restaurant that had old brick walls and big glass windows under curved arches. The room was filled with mostly older folks, although across the room Red-haired Niece and some of her friends had gathered to eat and drink, a tableful of young people amidst the greying heads. Smiley Girl sat with us, eating salad and listening to the music.

Shaggy Hair Boy, of course, was sitting at the keyboard. He’s the pianist for the Snowstorm University Jazz Ensemble. Wearing the black dress shirt that belongs to his older brother, his long curly hair pulled neatly back into a ponytail, his hands danced across the keys while his head moved to the rhythm of the music.

It wasn’t quite the same as the Big City Like No Other jazz clubs: the restaurant could have used some thick velvet curtains to improve the acoustics. But the young music students sounded pretty terrific, and the crowd clapped like crazy after they played their last number.

Shaggy Hair Boy plays the piano several times every day, so I hear his music all the time, and I often fall asleep at night to the sound of his playing. But it was fun to watch him play with the ensemble, to an audience of people who love music. It still comes as a shock to see him up in front and realize that my little boy has transformed into a poised, confident young man.

Or perhaps an owl

2011-11-01T20:58:00.000-04:00

I had a busy day — a breakfast meeting, an appointment with a student, three 80-minute classes in a row, and then another meeting. I never even had time to turn on the computer in my office and check my email. It was getting dark by the time I got home, changed into sweatpants, built a fire, and made myself a cup of tea.

When I finally grabbed my laptop and checked my inbox, I saw an email from this morning, a friend asking if I wanted to go to lunch tomorrow. I started to reply to the email, but then I stopped halfway through writing the message when I realized that the address was her work email. I knew she was already home from work, and I wasn’t sure if she would check her work email from home. But I needed to plan my day for tomorrow.

I went over to her facebook page: it looked like she’d been online earlier. I found her on my cellphone with the plan to send her a text. I squinted at the first three digits of her phone number and realized that it was a local number, which meant a landline. I checked twitter, and thought about sending a direct message, but I wasn’t sure how often she checks twitter. I checked google chat, but she wasn’t online.

Then I had a brilliant idea. I picked up the telephone and dialed her number. Suddenly, I heard her voice and we were talking directly! It took us less a minute to make lunch plans.

And I didn’t have to type anything.

And the days get shorter

2011-11-01T19:30:00.001-04:00

Quiet Saturday

2011-10-30T21:58:00.000-04:00

“I’ve got to grade papers all day,” I told my family. I stacked the piles on my desk, made myself a cup of hot tea, and pulled my chair up.

Then my phone rang. It was Biker Boy, the little boy who used to live down the street from me. He needed a Halloween costume. “Before Monday,” he said. “That’s when we have the party at school.”

When I picked him up, I put his bike in the car and we came back to the house. “We’ll go get a costume in awhile,” I told him. “But first, you go out and ride your bike while I grade some papers.”He’d been looking forward to bike riding, so he was content to ride around the neighborhood while I worked.

By the time he came back into the house, his face was red with cold and my household had begun to stire. I made him a cup of hot cocoa, which kept him still long enough for me to grade one more paper. Then he ran over to With-a-Why’s chess set.“Can we play chess?” he asked. “I know how!”

I gave Shaggy Hair Boy a pleading look, and he walked over to the chess set. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll play.”I slipped back into my office and graded a few more papers, hoping that the game would keep Little Biker Boy occupied for a while. I could hear the clink of dishes in the kitchen as Smiley Girl took over the chore that Shaggy Hair Boy had been just about to start.

When I checked on Little Biker Boy again, he seemed to be playing chess quite happily. The pieces were in an odd arrangement, unlike any chess game I’ve ever seen. “It’s more like checkers with some extra rules,” Shaggy Hair Boy said to me. He flipped his ponytail back and shrugged.

“I’m winning,” said Little Biker Boy smugly. The game kept him quiet long enough for me to grade two more papers. Smiley Girl finished cleaning the kitchen.

Then I figured I’d better take Biker Boy out before his good behavior got used up. I deserted the stack of papers, and we went out into the cold October wind to find him a Halloween costume.

Frosted

2011-10-28T19:46:00.000-04:00

First snow

2011-10-27T20:56:00.000-04:00

“Snow?! We’re expecting snow?” blurted the young woman as she came into the classroom. “That’s crazy!”

She sat down next to a student in a bright fleece, who looked at her curiously. “We always get some snow before Halloween," he said. He shrugged and looked back down at his book. "It won't stick, ground's too warm."

In late October, it’s easy to tell the out-of-state students from the local kids.

The first snowflakes of the season drifted past our classroom windows this afternoon. The last few days have been dark and rainy — a steady, cold rain — so many of us are eager to see the snow arrive. I’d rather walk across a frozen surface than slosh through puddles and mud. Snow is bright and cheerful, and actually warmer than rain because it doesn’t leave you sopping wet.

“I can’t wait for the real snow to arrive,” said Long Blonde Hair. “We’re going to build snowforts on the quad.”

She’s come to the right school.

Busy

2011-10-26T20:58:00.001-04:00

Let's take a look

2011-10-24T19:35:00.000-04:00

“I’m not supposed to tell you,” said Little Biker Boy, the ten-year-old who used to live down the street from me. But then he confided in me anyhow, as he usually does.

“My bike is broken,” he said. He kept trying to explain the problem, but he was so upset that his words made no sense. He’s a child who gets frustrated and angry easily, and he becomes inarticulate when that happens.

“My mother’s angry. She says it’s my fault,” he said. “The bike – there was a chain guard – and I adjusted the thing – and it skips – and now when I – and it’s broken – and my mother’s angry.”

“Hang on for a minute,” I asked him. “Finish your sandwich, and we’ll talk about it.”

I have no expertise when it comes to fixing bikes, but I tried to think of who could help. My husband and Boy in Black, both pretty mechanical, were out of town. Snowboarding Neighbor Boy, who used to fix everyone’s bikes and would be the first person I’d call, is off at school learning the culinary arts. Then I thought of my father. He spent his childhood and teenage years riding a bicycle everywhere, and he’s good at fixing stuff.

“Let’s go get your bike,” I said to Little Biker Boy. “We’ll put it in the trunk of the car and take it to my parents’ house.”

Getting the bike out of his mother’s apartment was difficult. His mother was angry. “It’s his fault the bike is broken,” she screamed. “I told him not to touch it. He adjusted the handlebars. He loosened the back tire and now it’s broken. I told him not to touch it.”

I said little to her, but put the kid and the bike in my car, and quietly drove away. Then I tried to calm Little Biker Boy down on the way to my parents’ house.

“It’s not your fault,” I kept assuring him. “Adjusting the handlebars, tightening the chain, playing around with the bike – that’s how kids learn about bikes. You were just acting like a normal kid with a bike. Youdid nothing wrong.”

My parents know Little Biker Boy — and his background. My mother gave him a hug as we came through the front door. Little Biker Boy went running through the house to find my father. “Can you look at my bike?” heasked, and then went into an incoherent explanation of what was wrong with it.

“Bring it around to the backyard,” my father said. “I’ll get my tools.”

“When I pedal – that thing in the back – and then it skips – and it’s broken – and I wasn’t even going fast –” Little Biker Boy began yelling.

“I’ll meet you in the backyard,” my father said and went down into the basement to get his tools.

Yellow leaves were drifting to the ground in the backyard. My father turned the bike upside and looked at it carefully, while Little Biker Boy kept running around, kicking things and yelling. Every once in a while, myfather was able to get his attention, but then he’d start moving again, agitated. My mother talked to him calmly, and in return, he kept telling her crazy stories. “I used to have 50 bikes when I lived with my Dad,” he said. “I went on television and did tricks with the bikes.”

My father examined the bike and then told me exactly what was wrong with it: “See this gear here? It’s not working correctly. It’s already worn. That’s making the bike skip.” He gave his final verdict: “I can’t fix it. You ought to take it back to the store. You still have the receipt?”

With the bike back in the trunk of my car, we drove to my house. “Why are we going to your house? We need to get my bike fixed!” Little Biker Boy kept saying.

“I need to get the receipt,” I explained for the fourth time. “To prove that I bought the bike.”

“They don’t need a receipt,” Little Biker Boy argued. “I know this store. They will fix the bike for thirty-five dollars.” I have no idea where he came up with that price.

“Little Biker Boy’s here!” I called as I entered the house. My kids know what that means, and I could hear Shaggy Hair Boy quickly putting away laptop computers. When Little Biker Boy is in a frustrated mood, it’s best to keepsensitive electronic equipment safely out of his reach.

I convinced Little Biker Boy to run around outside the house a little bit — just to let off some of his energy and anxiety — and then with the receipt in hand, I drove the bike to the store where we’d bought it lastmonth.

“Hey, I remember you,” said the burly guy who had put the bike together for us. Little Biker Boy is hard to forget. I told Burly Guy what my father had said about the bike.

“You’re the third person to bring back one of these bikes,” Burly Guy said. “There’s something wrong with them.” He convinced the manager to give us a new bike in exchange for the broken one. Little BikerBoy was so excited by this news that he ran over and hugged Burly Guy.

We picked out the new bike, and Burly Guy showed Little Biker Boy how to adjust the handlebars, tighten the chain, stuff like that. He repeated what I had said. “No, you didn’t break that bike. It was amanufacturing defect. It wasn’t your fault.”

We stopped at my parents’ house to test out the bike. They live on a deadend street, and they both came out in the fall sunshine to watch as Little Biker Boy pedaled up and down the road, yelling with excitementas he went. “A kid like that needs a bike,” my father said as we watched. I nodded in agreement.

Weekend at home

2011-10-23T19:50:00.000-04:00

For the first time since August, my weekend calendar was empty. And my house was mostly empty too. My husband had gone to visit his out-of-state sister for the weekend, Boy in Black had taken my car to an Ultimatetournament, and Beautiful Smart Wonderful Daughter had gone to Bison City with Sailor Boy and Blonde Niece to visit Film Guy and Sparkly Eyes.

Saturday morning, I slept late and went to an eye doctor’s appointment, where I asked several complete strangers to vote on which glasses I should buy. (I hate picking out frames. It’s even more painful than thelittle machine that blasts puffs of air into my eyes.)

On the way home, I stopped at a thrift store, where I bought several low wooden tables for the living room. I drove home with my trunk open because it turns out that the tables didn’t quite fit into the car. With-a-Why,Shaggy Hair Boy, and Smiley Girl were awake by the time I arrived home, which meant that there was piano music as I made squash soup.

“I am not doing any work today,” I announced as I was cutting up onions. “I am going to just relax and do nothing.”

“We can watch an episode of Arrested Development,” With-a-Why offered, pulling the wooden table that held his laptop closer to the couch. “It’s weird. You’ll like it.”

Shaggy Hair Boy and Smiley Girl cuddled on one end of the couch (they are boyfriend and girlfriend – have I mentioned that yet on this blog?) while With-a-Why showed me a couple of episodes of a bizarre but cleverly written television show. Then Skater Boy and Thinking Girl arrived, and we all talked about how it would be cool to knock down the wall of the boys’ bedroom.

“The upstairs could be one big room just like the downstairs is,” Shaggy Hair Boy said. “That would be great!”

When I was growing up, my father was always knocking done walls, building new walls, and changing the inside of our house, so the idea seemed reasonable to me. I pointed out that the first step to knocking down thewall would be to empty the room. “You mean CLEAN the room?” asked With-a-Why. “I’m out.”

Shaggy Hair Boy decided that sending absent family members text messages that made it sound like he was knocking the wall down might be just as much fun and far less work than actually doing the job. “A photo wouldbe even better,” said Skater Boy, and soon they were out in the garage looking for the sledge hammer.

Raindrops on roses

2011-10-21T22:48:00.002-04:00

All week, I’ve practiced the newest piece of piano music I’mlearning, the song “My Favorite Things” from the Sound of Music. I made sure to practice every single day. But when I played the song for Beautiful Piano Teacher at my lesson today, it still sounded pretty awful. My right hand knows the song, but I kept pausing between measures to see what my left hand was doing.

My piano teacher was all supportive and encouraging — really, she’s the most patient person on earth — and she kept telling me not to compare myself to my piano-playing sons. But still, it drives me crazy that my playing is so slow and torturous. Putting my right hand and left hand together still makes my head explode.

“This is so frustrating,” I said to With-a-Why this afternoon as I sat back down at the piano. “I practiced every single day this week. And it still doesn’t sound the way it does when you play. That’s so unfair.”

“Yeah, that’s really unfair,” he said. He switched his voice to a higher pitch in imitation of me. “I’ve been playing this song every day for a whole week, and I’m not as good as someone whose been playing for nine years.”

I conceded that he did have a point. But still, it feels like I’m learning really slowly.

“It’s not like I think I will ever play as well as you or Shaggy Hair Boy,” I said.

“Why not?” he asked. “You won’t catch up with us, but someday you could play as well as I can now.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said. “It just takes practice.”

He shook his hair out of his face. “Really, you ought to set your goals higher.”

Pumpkin heads unite!

2011-10-19T21:36:00.001-04:00

When my parents and I drove past the elementary school in a small mountain town, we could see a bunch of little kids clustered just inside the door, waiting for their bus to arrive. The front lawn was decorated with their seasonal art project.

Birthday celebration

2011-10-18T22:29:00.001-04:00

It’s a busy time of the semester, but we all took a break last week to celebrate With-a-Why’s birthday. I made a couple of apple pies, and the older kids stopped on their way home to buy shortcake, strawberries, and whipped cream.

Skater Boy has a birthday two days before With-a-Why so the celebration was for him as well. The candle ceremony would wait until Saturday, but we did what we do for any occasion — talked and ate. Philosophical Boy, who is in his first year of college, had just come home for fall break and we all exclaimed over how long his hair had grown. I sipped hot tea as I listened to the conversations around the kitchen table.

“Hey, remember that pianist you went to hear last year?” Philosophical Boy said.

“Dick Hyman?” asked With-a-Why. He glanced over at Boy in Black, who smirked.

“Yeah, he was at my school,” said Philosophical Boy. He mumbled something about a sextet -- clarinet, piano, and strings. That last bit of information was too much for Boy in Black.

“A sextet?” he asked. “I mean, seriously? If your name was Dick Hyman wouldn’t you make one person leave to make it a quintet? Or maybe add a person?”

Shaggy Hair Boy laughed and cut himself another piece of pie. I put another log on the fire. First Extra stretched out on the couch, talking to my daughter, who had brought home a laundry basket of dirty clothes. Thinking Girl was talking about the work she had do, while Smiley Girl was nodding in agreement. We all had work we were supposed to be doing.

“And With-a-Why has school tomorrow,” my husband pointed out. But still, it was after midnight before the older kids left and we all went to bed.

With-a-Why, my youngest, is seventeen years old now. And Skater Boy, the kid we’ve known since he used to come up our driveway in a big wheel, is now twenty. It's still hard for me to believe.

Bear cub

2011-10-17T22:35:00.000-04:00

The woods in the rain

2011-10-16T21:21:00.001-04:00

On our annual trip to the mountains, my father pointed outplaces he remembered from the 1950s, when he worked at mountain resorts as amusician every summer. The resortswere always on lakes; every winding road we took led us to yet anotherbeautiful lake.

We stayed Friday night in an old inn owned and operated by acouple who live right next door with their small children. We ate dinner by awindow that overlooked the lake, with the sky getting dark as we ate. Afterdinner, we pulled comfy chair up to the fire that crackled in the old stonefireplace. My father entertained the owners with stories about his days in themountains as a musician while I found the guestbook and read aloud some of theentries.

On Saturday, we hiked around a lake where my husband and Icamped when our kids were little. “See that island in the middle?” I told myparents. “We canoed out there so the kids could climb up and jump off the rock.That was a very big deal for the kids.”

Each year our pilgrimage includes a stop at KindergartenFriend’s summer home. Usually, the place is closed so we just walk on the lawnand dock, with me telling stories about the times I visited as a kid, more thanforty years ago. This year, we were greeted warmly at the door by KindergartenFriend, her mother, her husband, her two kids, and three little dogs who yippedand barked at our heels. They’d come up for the weekend.

It was raining outside by then, but the main room has highceilings and huge windows, so the place was filled with light. “You can see thelake from here,” my father said admiringly. He and my mother hadn’t been insidethe vacation home before, so Kindergarten Friend gave them a tour, with metagging along to point out cool stuff, like the wood carvings she had done onthe newel post. We’ve been friends so long that I feel like I can take creditfor how creative she is.

We drove home along a road that followed the south shore ofa lake. “We used to come here in the middle of the night, after we got off thestand,” my father said. “You’d see whole herds of deer sometimes.” Some of thetrees were already bare, but the beech trees glowed orange and gold against thedark green conifers as we followed the winding road, making our way home.

End of the season

2011-10-15T18:48:00.000-04:00

The docks are empty. Deer run through the deserted campgrounds. We saw loons on the quiet lake. The cosy mountain inn where we stayed is about to close for the season, opening again in January to host the snowmobiling crowd. The mountain museum closes tomorrow for the winter.

On our annual trip to the mountains, my parents and I drove through orange and gold foliage that shone against green conifers. Everywhere, we saw camps boarded up for the winter, stacks of firewood near year-round homes, and boats pulled up out of the water. Winter is coming.

Water nymph

2011-10-12T19:28:00.000-04:00

My friends know by now that I’ve got this blogging tradition: when I go off on trips, I try to return with a naked photo. My readers expect it.

I keep telling my friends that the naked photo tradition is a serious project that leads to in-depth discussions about the body. At academic conferences, the mere mention of naked photos leads to all kinds of feminist critique of the dominant culture. My friends are willing to jump into that conversation, but they can’t resist teasing me about the project. “You have to admit,” one friend said to me frankly. “It’s a little weird.”

They kept reminding me of an unfortunate incident that happened a few years back. We had climbed to the top of a mountain, and three of us posed naked for what I thought would be a lovely silhouette shot. I’d given my camera to Dark Curly Hair because she didn’t want to pose. She snapped a few pictures, we put our clothes back on, and we walked back down the mountain.

Then I looked at the photo.

In the picture, the three of us are standing in yoga poses, dark silhouettes against a blue sky, other mountains in the distance. It was a lovely shot, except for one thing. A single ray of sunshine, like the hand of God, was shining directly on my butt, which glowed almost supernaturally.

My friends thought it was hilarious. I never posted the photo on my blog, but the image is apparently imprinted indelibly in their minds because they’ve never forgotten it. We’ve had many sensitive discussions about body image, but always somehow the conversation always turns to the infamous white butt shot.

“Do you still have the picture? Or did you delete it?” asked Makes Bread.

I’ll never tell.

And I’ve learned my lessons about trying to take group shots of naked women. It’s too difficult. Trying to get a group shot of women who are laughing and joking around, and paying no attention to the photographer – well,it’s worse than trying to take a holiday photo of four kids. They just won’t sit still.

So instead I asked just one friend to pose. She is the oldest of the group, an elder really, so it seemed right. We stepped off a hiking trail that meandered along a stream, and she stripped off her clothes.

“Shake your hair out,” I kept saying. She’s got really long gorgeous hair, part dark and part silver, and I wanted to catch the way the sun glinted off the silky strands. But when we looked at the photos, the unposed shot — theone in which she was undoing her hair as she walked down to the stream — was our favorite.

Quilt Artist as a water nymph.

(Readers who want to know the history of the nakedphoto tradition can check it out hereand hereand hereand hereand hereand hereand hereand here and here and hereand hereand hereand hereand hereand hereand hereand hereand hereand hereand hereand hereand hereand hereand hereand hereand hereand hereand hereand hereand hereandhere and here andhere and here and here and hereand here. )

Telling our stories

2011-10-11T22:02:00.000-04:00

During our annual weekend inthe mountains, my friends and I are good about giving each other space. QuiltArtist will go out to the deck to write in her journal. Makes Bread will find achair by the lake and settle into it with a book. Signing Woman will grab herbinoculars and look for birds. I’ll go off for a walk with my camera.

But it’s definitely not a silentretreat. Our main activity is talking. Even when we’re hiking to a waterfall,or walking a trail, or stripping down to swim in the lake, we get into the kindof deep conversations you can have with friends who know you well.

Saturday afternoon, Beautiful Hairand I decided to find a patch of sun by the lake where we could relax and talk.As the sun moved, we kept moving our blanket, keeping our bodies in the warmth, knowing that it might be months before we’d once again feelthe sun on our skin. Gradually, our friends joined us, the conversationcontinuing as the shadows deepened, until finally it was time to go indoors forhot bowls of homemade soup and a crackling fire.

Photo taken by Beautiful Hair.

Off to the mountains

2011-10-07T10:46:00.000-04:00

Nights are getting cooler and leaves are beginning to look yellow around the edges. It's October. I spent all last weekend grading papers (seriously, I did nothing but grade papers) so this weekend, I deserve something more relaxing. I'm heading to the mountains with a bunch of women friends for our annual retreat.

We're traveling to the beautiful old summer place owned by Signing Woman's family. The lodge has a fireplace, a full kitchen, and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the lake. It's near hiking trails and a labyrinth. Most importantly, it's got the kind of peaceful atmosphere usually found in monasteries and retreat places. I'll be back next week, renewed and refreshed.

Forget about your worries and your strife

2011-10-06T09:21:00.000-04:00

Since Shaggy Hair Boy has classes during the day and doeshis schoolwork in the evening, it’s often fairly late at night when he sitsdown at the piano. Most nights, I fall asleep to the sound of jazz music reverberatingup the stairwell. Since my father and his friends used to jam together when Iwas a kid, I learned long ago to sleep in the midst of music.

The other night, my husband woke me. “Listen,” he said. “Howcan you possibly sleep through that?”

I sat up in bed. It did sound like a wild party going onbelow. But when I listened closely, it was really just two voices, Shaggy HairBoy and With-a-Why. They’d found a book of Disney music and decided to do somerecording. When I walked downstairs to get a glass of water, they were both atthe piano. Shaggy Hair Boy’s hands were moving fast and he was laughing whilehe played. With-a-Why was standingat his side, his uncombed hair hanging in his face, singing into the microphone.

“They’re having fun,” I said to my husband as I got back into bed. “They’rebonding.”

I fell back to sleep right away — I can sleep throughanything — but the next time I woke up, I noticed that my husband was gone.He’s a light sleeper compared to me. The raucous singing and laughter was stillcoming up the stairwell. I could make out the words from the Jungle Book: “Thebare necessities of life!”

This time, I recognized my husband’s voice.

I looked at the clock. It was 3 am. I came down the stairs tosit on the couch and watch the performance. Shaggy Hair Boy’s hands were stillmoving like crazy, half following the music and half improvising. My husband andWith-a-Why both leaned to sing into the microphone, making up words wheneverthey didn’t know them.

Family bonding in the middle of the night.

The scary Jesus barn

2011-10-03T22:07:00.000-04:00

During the roadtrip I took with Artist Friend this summer, we drove through the midwest: lots of flat farm country. When we passed a scary Jesus barn, I insisted he stop so I could take a photo. I'd never seen anything quite like it.

Trapped

2011-10-02T20:47:00.000-04:00

I was sitting at my desk this morning, grading papers, whenI heard a thumping noise. The sound came from upstairs. I took a bite ofchocolate and another sip of hot tea. Then I moved to the next paper. When I’mgrading, I try to ignore the sounds of the household.

The thuds continued. I figured it was probably Boy-in-Blackdoing his exercises. He’s got this whole routine he does before he takes ashower. When he jumps rope, it’s pretty loud. I graded another paper. Then Iheard Boy-in-Black’s voice, yelling from the living room in an exasperated way, “Hey, what the fuckare you doing up there?”

There was no answer from upstairs. But the noise continued,loud bangs as if someone was kicking the wall. I stepped out of my office andlooked into the living room. Boy-in-Black was on the couch, doing something onhis computer, a laptop that’s bigger than most people’s desktop computers. Itlooks like something you’d see on a spaceship. Shaggy Hair Boy and Smiley Girlwere squeezed together on the red chair; they both looked sleepy.

I went back into my office and graded another paper.

The thumping noise continued. It sounded a bit like someonehammering. I glanced out the window but my husband’s vehicle wasn’t in thedriveway, which meant he wasn’t even home. I graded another paper.

It was my daughter who finally went upstairs to see what thethumping noise was. I heard her yell from the top of the stairs. “Hey!With-a-Why is locked in the bathroom!”

What? That got us all up from our chairs.

We crowded around the locked bathroom door. “Why didn’t youyell something?” I asked through the door.

“I did,” he said. “You must not have heard me. I’ve beenbanging on the door forever.”

I grabbed a screwdriver to start removing the door handle.

“I can’t believe we all just ignored it,” ShaggyHair Boy said.

“Why didn’t you use Morse code?” I asked With-a-Why when he finally emerged from the bathroom.. “Why did we botherlearning it?”

He looked at me. “Like any of you would havepaid attention?”

"The thumps were too rhythmical," said my daughter. "They didn't sound frantic. But then I thought, I wonder why he's kicking the door like that."

“I better I could yell loud enough to make you all comerunning,” said Shaggy Hair Boy. So we tried it. We locked him in the bathroomand all went back downstairs. Then he let out a high-pitched scream that madeit sound like one of the cats had put her claws into his throat.

Yep. We would have responded to that.

Piano music and apple pie

2011-09-30T16:42:00.000-04:00

“When are you going to start making pies again?”With-a-Why asked last week. Local apples are ripe, and temperatures are coolenough to use the oven. More importantly, my older kids have been living intheir apartment near campus, and homemade pie will give them an incentive tostop home.

So Wednesday I bought apples on my way home from work, andthen I rolled out crusts while I talked to With-a-Why. He was supposed to becleaning the living room, but instead, he began playing the piano, which is howhe avoids his chores. He plays so beautifully that I can never ask him to stopfor something as mundane as cleaning. I’d rather hear classical music than thevacuum cleaner, no matter how messy the living room is.

“Hey, send everyone a text to tell them I’m making pies,” I calledout. My fingers were sticky with flour and shortening.

“Already did,” he said without even looking up from thepiano.

By the time I pulled the pies from the oven, the housesmelled like cinnamon and apple. I put the pies on the kitchen table andflipped a laundry basket over them to protect them from the cats as theycooled.

My husband arrived first; he’d been at the gym, working out.My daughter was next, her hair pulled in a ponytail in the manner of a gradstudent who has too much work to do. Then came Boy-in-Black, looking like hehadn’t had much sleep. “I spent all day grading physics exams,” he said. ShaggyHair Boy and Smiley Girl were chatting happily with each other as they came in.Those two never seem to run out of things to talk about.

“I know we’ve got vanilla ice cream,” With-a-Why said as herooted through the freezer. It’s crowded with quart-size bags of frozentomatoes.

It’s a busy time of year for all of us. But we sat aroundthe table, drinking hot tea and eating warm pie, talking as if we had all thetime in the world. “Almost as good as Grandma’s pie,” Shaggy Hair Boy said tome, teasingly, and he moved to the piano, where he began playing jazz, themusic weaving in and out of our conversation.

Intersection

2011-09-28T13:58:00.000-04:00

At the traffic light, I glanced in myrear view mirror. Behind me, a rusty blue pickup truck had come to a stop. Iremembered the vehicle from the gas station I’d stopped at just a few minutes before.Mostly, I remembered the proliferation of bumper stickers that suggested thatthe owner had very different political views than I did.

As I waited for the light to turn green, a burlyman stepped out of the truck. He approached my car. He was walking right downthe yellow line, in the middle of the road, which didn’t make sense. I rolleddown my window apprehensively.

But he didn’t come up to my window. Instead, he leaned overas if to open my backdoor. He didn’t even look my way.

I heard a click.

Suddenly I realized what he was doing. He’d screwed on thecap to my gas tank. I guess I’d left it dangling after filling up at thestation.

I leaned out and said, “Thank you!”

He looked up and grinned, then gave a wave as he jumped backinto his truck. The light turned green.

Naked Thought

2011-09-26T19:34:00.000-04:00

The naked man in my hotel room climbed up onto the stuffed chair and looked out at the clock tower we could see in the distance.

“That’s perfect,” I said. “You look like a sculpture.”

“I had Rodin in mind,” he said. The thinker pose fit his personality: I’d only known him for less than 48 hours, but already I’d noticed that he was someone who listened closely, made careful observations, and thought deeply about topics before speaking up in a conversation.

I snapped a few photos of his silhouette and then looked again through my viewfinder. Wait, something was weird about that silhouette.

“You didn’t take your socks off!”

He looked back over his shoulder and then down at his feet. “Oh, I didn’t think you’d see my feet.”

“You have to be totally naked,” I explained. “That’s part of the experience.” So he reached down and obligingly stripped off the socks, then settled back to tell me the story about the tattoo on his shoulder.

Yes, the naked photo tradition has continued. My conference friends have gotten used the tradition. When I bumped into Vegetarian Guy With Cool Tattoos in the elevator between sessions, the first thing he asked was, "Have you found a victim yet?"

This conference was interdisciplinary — a mix of scientists, artists, writers, and literature professors — and almost all of my colleagues had something to say about the naked photo project. (Yes, somehow it has become a “project.”) We’ve all studied the body in some way, whether we’ve sketched it, or learned anatomy, or looked at sexual symbolism in literature. In fact, the art show at the museum where some of the sessions were held included interactive exhibits in which the viewer’s body became part of the artwork she was viewing.

One thing I’ve discovered through this project is that everyone has stories about their body. Ask a naked man about his tattoo, and he’ll tell you what was happening when he got that tattoo, often when he was at a transformational stage of his life. Ask a woman about the scar on her belly, and you’ll hear a story. That’s still the valuable part of this project: not the photographs, but the stories that people tell me when we talk about the project. The stories don’t end up on my blog because they aren’t my stories to tell.

On Saturday night, conference attendees gathered for a dance. After three days of intent discussions and serious presentations, it’s always fun to watch everyone strip off their blazers and gyrate to the music. As I looked around the room of sweaty conference folks, I thought not about the intellectual ideas they’d brought to the conference, typed into laptops or scribbled onto yellow pads of paper, but the stories written onto their bodies.

(Readers who want to know the history of the naked photo tradition can check it out here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here. )

Talking between the talks

2011-09-24T08:12:00.000-04:00

After a month of classes, long weekend events with students,and all the busyness of fall semester, it feels good to sneak away for anacademic conference in Country to the North. I’ve been enjoying the conferencelife: going to sessions, listening to talks, and eating meals with colleagues.Yesterday morning at an animal studies session, a group of us got into such anintense conversation during the question and answer period that we went to a nearby coffeehouse to talk some more. Artist Friend and I were actually continuing an argument that we'd started at a conference last June, but now other conference friends chimed in with their perspectives. We sat in comfy chairs in front of the fireplace, balancing mugs of coffee and tea on our laps, all of us talking at once. The best part of any conference is the space between thesessions, where we have time for long, in-depth discussions.

New bike!

2011-09-21T23:17:00.002-04:00

“I am so excited!” Little Biker Boy kept saying, as heyanked my arm and hurried me through the store. “I keep thinking this is adream. I'm worried I'm gonna wake up.”

We walked through to the back of the store, where the racksof bicycles were. Within seconds, Biker Boy had picked out the bike hewanted.

“See? It’s got pegs!” he yelled, pointing to the wheels.“It’s a Mongoose. That’s the one!”

Tall Salesperson adjusted the seat while Biker Boy jumped upand down next to the bike, talking fast. “Can you move the handlebars too? CanI have that little tool? Can you take the tags off? Can I try it now?”

“I’m going to teach you how to adjust the seat,” said TallSalesperson. He knelt down on the floor and patiently showed Biker Boy how toadjust the seat and the handlebars.

“I love bikes!” said Biker Boy.

“Me too,” said Tall Salesperson. “I put this one togetheryesterday.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” said Biker Boy as he rodethe bicycle across the linoleum. He turned at the end of the aisle, circled back,and stopped to throw his arms around me. “I love you! I love this bike!”

I felt embarrassed by his gratitude. All I had done wasdrive him to the store to buy a bike I could easily afford. My husband and Ihad stopped at the store the day before, and we found out we wouldn’t even haveto assemble the bike. We just had to walk in and buy it. Biker Boy’s gratitudewas way out of proportion to the effort I’d put into the gift, but it was funto see how enthusiastic he was. Tall Salesperson smiled at me as we watchedLittle Biker Boy ride in circles.

We paid for the bike and drove to a nearby park, where BikerBoy tested the bike out. He pedaled across the pavement as fast as he could,then circled back.

His last bike had been orange. He’d found the bike in ourgarage a couple of years ago — it had belonged to my son Shaggy Hair Boy when he wasyounger — and he’d adopted it. He and the orange bike had been inseparableuntil a few weeks ago when it was stolen from his front yard.

The new bike was blue and black, and it was just the rightsize. “This bike has to get used to me,” Biker said. “Just like my old bike wasused to me.” He grinned at me and pedaled off again, yelling with excitement ashe went.

Tasty

2011-09-20T19:55:00.000-04:00

Last year when we took our first year students on an all-dayretreat, we spent part of the day discussing Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a book inwhich a family tries to live for a whole year eating only food raised within100 miles of their home. This year’s summer reading, the book Eaarth by Bill McKibben, included asection about eating local foods.

The owner of the retreat center listened carefully to ourdiscussions about eating locally. Then last March, he bought two piglets. Allspring and summer, the pigs ate the scraps of food leftover from the groupsthat come to do a ropes course at the retreat place. The staff posted photos of the pigs on facebook. Then just before our scheduled retreat, the pigs were slaughtered, smoked, andturned into pulled pork.

The dinner included salad made with homegrown tomatoes andlocal lettuce as well as apples and cider from a local farm. We ate salt potatoes,which is a local delicacy. The potatoes were local, but the salt probablywasn’t. At one time, our area was famous for producing salt, but I think now wewould need a time machine to get some.

The retreat place fed about 300 students, faculty, andstaff, and they did it mostly from local foods. “That was impressive,” said astudent in class today. “Now we have to figure out how to live like that allthe time.”

Learning by rope

2011-09-18T22:55:00.000-04:00

I spent yesterday in the woods, getting high with my students. It’s a Small Green tradition.

Every fall, we take our first year students to a ropes course, where the “high” elements include climbing up into the trees and jumping off platforms, and the “low” elements include teamwork challenges. I love the adrenaline that shoots through my veins when I have to climb 50 feet up the side of a tree and dangle from a single rope. I am terrified of heights, which makes the high ropes course that much more fun.

During the teamwork challenges, I get to know my students. I see who likes to take charge, who is good at listening, and who is the most diplomatic. My favorite low ropes element this year was a big rope web hanging in the trees, about a foot above my head. For our challenge, we had to get every person up through openings in the ropes, but we could only use each opening once. To make it even more difficult, the facilitator blindfolded some of us.

When I’m doing the low ropes course, I just do whatever my students tell me. So when Long Island Accent told me I was to try for one of the highest openings, I stood still and let two students lift me up. Once I was high enough, I grabbed the hands of another student who guided me in. Another student grabbed the belt loops of my jeans to make sure I didn’t tumble down the large hole in the middle of the web. I flopped in awkwardly, like a fish in the bottom of a boat.

Once I was safely in, I quite liked the rope web. It was like a huge hammock that could hold 20 people at once. I enjoyed just hanging out with my students, cheering them on as they ascended one at a time.

That's a student in the top photo. Below is the low ropes element that they call the Eagle's Nest.

Just me and my radio

2011-09-16T20:15:00.000-04:00

As soon as Little Biker Boy got into my car, he reached overto begin fiddling with the buttons on the radio. I’d been listening to a CD that my father had burned forme, and the song “Ain’t Misbehaving” filled the car. Biker Boy rolled his eyes,and immediately began hitting buttons to turn it off.

“Wait,” I said to him. “Listen to a couple of the songs onthat CD.”

He listened for about 6 seconds, then reached to turn itoff. “I don’t like that kind of music,” he said. “I listen to rap.”

“I know, but just listen, and then I’ll tell you why,” Isaid. He sighed deeply and leaned back in his seat.

After about 10 more seconds, he reached to fiddle with thebuttons again. “Why do I gotta listen to this?”

“You know the people on it,” I said.

“No, I don’t,” he said. He folded his arms. “I don’t likethis kind of music.”

“They live in my house,” I said. He straightened up,suddenly interested, and looked at me sideways.

“See if you can guess who they are,” I said.

“The piano – that’s Shaggy Hair Boy!” he said. He grinned.

“Yep. Now listen to the guy singing. He sounds like agrown-up, but he’s really just a very shy teenager,” I said.

“With-a-Why?” he asked. “That’s him singing?”

“Yep,” I said. “And the clarinet is my father. You’ve methim before.”

He turned up the volume. “THEY’RE ON THE RADIO.”

“Not exactly. It’s just a CD they recorded,” I explained.

“That is sooo cool,” he said. “Do you think they can put meon there?”

“You mean … record you singing?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “I mean, put me in the song.”

He began swaying back and forth in his seat, and startedrapping in a deep voice: “Yo Biker Boy, this song’s about you.”

And for the rest of the car ride, he made up his own wordsto go along with the jazz standards my father and sons had recorded.

Evidence

2011-09-14T22:01:00.000-04:00

The snakes I found in my garage last week were pretty small.I figured that shoving them out with a shovel (gently, of course) was probably enough to scare themaway. By this afternoon, I’d already forgotten about the snakes when I went outin bare feet to throw some bottles into the recycling bin.

That’s when I noticed a snakeskin, several feet long, drapedalong the back wall. A larger snake has been using the rough cinderblocks in mygarage to moult.

I can’t blame the snake, really. The back wall of the garagefaces east and absorbs the morning sunlight. It’s probably a lovely place toshed your skin.

When I went back into the kitchen, I grabbed the nearestcat, Rogue, and put her out to the garage. She walked lazily around and showedno interest in the snakeskin.

“Why did you put Rogue in the garage?” With-a-Why asked fromhis spot on the couch, where he was doing homework.

“I thought maybe a cat would scare away the snakes,” I said.“But she doesn’t seem to get it.”

“Well, I didn’t get it,” he said, “so I doubt she did.”

I grabbed another cat, the grey male cat we call Trouble,and put him in the garage as well. He, too, just walked around lazily and thenasked to come back in.

I guess I could leave the cats out there until they startpeeing on stuff. Then at least the garage would smell like cat.

On second thought, maybe I’ll just wait for the coldweather, when the snakes are likely to leave on their own.

With sprinkles

2011-09-13T22:28:00.000-04:00

“How about we go for ice cream?” Little Biker Boy asked whenI picked him up. The evening was warm enough for short sleeves, and theice cream shop in Traintrack Village was still open for the season. As soon aswe bought the cones, he said, “Hey, can we go for a walk? I don’t have to behome until 8 o’clock.”

A walk seemed like a good idea. Little Biker Boy had had abad day at school, and when I’d picked up him, he’d been sullen and angry. Thefresh air might help his mood.

Church bells began tolling as we walked down the streettowards a big church built from grey stones. I motioned for him to sit down onthe steps. He looked up at the stained glass windows apprehensively. “Can wesit here?” he asked nervously.

I shrugged. “Sure. It’s my church. Or at least, it used tobe. I was baptized here. My parents brought me here every Sunday when I was akid. I’ve been here hundreds, no, thousands of times.”

As the music chimed, I couldn’t help but think back to thetimes I’d stood on these steps, waiting to enter. On the day of my FirstCommunion, I wore a filmy white dress that to this day is the prettiest dressI’ve ever owned. I was only seven, but I can still close my eyes and picturethat dress. On the evening of my eighth grade graduation, I stood on thosesteps with Kindergarten Friend and Outdoor Girl, the three of us nervous andexcited about leaving our little elementary school. I stood on those same stepsthe morning of my wedding, surrounded by my sisters. On the morning of her wedding, I gave Kindergarten Frienda hug on those steps, just before preceding her downthe aisle.

“I never been in a church,” said Biker Boy.

We climbed up to see if the doors were unlocked, but theyweren’t. So we continued on to the familiar brick building on the next block.The door near the gym was propped open, and a whole group of middle-aged womenwere gathered inside, singing.

“Some kind of choir practice,” I said to Biker Boy. “Just bequiet as we walk through.”

As we walked through the school and then around it, I toldhim stories about my childhood. “That’s where my second grade classroom was.The teacher was this nun who liked to dance so every afternoon, we’d push backall the desks, and she’d teach us how to dance.”

I think the stories of my quiet, sheltered childhood wouldbore most people, but Little Biker Boy listened eagerly. Then we sat down onthe steps near the gym where we could hear singing. It wasn’t a song, really,but some kind of practice. The women all kept singing the same syllable over andover.

“It sounds cool,” Biker Boy whispered. He snuggled upagainst me.

It was getting dark as we walked back to the car. As wedrove out of the village, Biker Boy said, “Hey, look!”

In the field on the edge of the village, firefighters hadgathered for what looked to be some kind of training session. They were allwearing protective gear, and they had a hose out. We stopped to watch for a fewminutes.

“I’m going to be a fireman someday,” Little Biker Boy said.

“I think you’d be good at that,” I said. “If my house wereon fire, I’d feel very safe knowing that you could come rescue me.”

By the time we drove home, the roads were dark, and thealmost-full moon had risen in front of us.

The snake in my garage

2011-09-12T18:05:00.000-04:00

The other day, I stepped into my garage in bare feet and stepped right onto a little garter snake. I jumped and screamed. I know that a garter snake will do me no harm, but still, that’s my instinctive reaction.

As the snake wriggled away from me, unharmed, I grabbed a snow shovel to gently nudge it out the door. The door, I think, was what had attracted the snake in the first place: the bottom edge is frayed black rubber that gets nice and warm on sunny days, the perfect place for a snake to snuggle.I figured it was an unusual happening, and I’d scared the snake off.

But then two days later, I went out to the garage to find my cleats, and the snake was there again, wriggling across the floor just below the steps. So this weekend, when I was on a field trip with students and colleagues, I asked their advice on how to discourage snakes from coming into my home. I knew that at least one of the students at the picnic table had taken herpetology.

“Maybe if I could find a scent they hate,” I said. “Do snakes smell?”

“Yes,” said Herpetology Student, “that’s what they’re doing when they flick out their tongues.”

“You’d think they’d smell our cats,” I said. “But then again, I’ve got 6 cats, and we still get mice in the garage.”

“A garter snake will eat the mice,” said Herpetology Student. “You ought to keep it around.”

“Yeah, why would you want to get rid of the snake?” asked another student. I looked at him.

He grinned. “No, really. Learn to embrace the snakes!”

Just then Chemistry Lab Guy walked over to join the conversation.“Any ideas about how to discourage snakes from coming into my garage?” I asked.

He answered immediately. “You need a mongoose.”

Yes, of course.

Ten years later

2011-09-12T10:17:00.000-04:00

I don’t watch television or listen to the radio, so I didn’t watch or listen to any of the media coverage of the tenth anniversary of 9/11. I spenta lazy morning with my husband: we both decided we deserved to sleep late. Thenhe went off to church while I settled into the comfy chair with my laptop to dosome writing. In the afternoon, I mowed the backyard, read a book, and wrotesome emails. In the evening, I went to a play with my youngest son, With-a-Why.When we returned, I read over a paper that Shaggy Hair Boy was writing for his history of music class. I called Boy in Black on the phone to hear that his clubUltimate team had won at sectionals. Then my husband and I settled down towatch an old episode of the Big Bang Theory on his laptop before bedtime.

It was an ordinary Sunday. But I found myself thinking aboutmy students from Big City Like No Other, both the students who were in myclasses ten years ago and my present students who were only kids when theterrorist attack happened. Many of the students that I wrote about in this postare on facebook, and before I went to bed, I checked on them, to read what theywere thinking and doing on this anniversary. It was a relief to read so manyordinary statuses, to see them playing with their young children or doinghousehold chores, going on with their lives.

Casual Wednesdays

2011-09-09T09:20:00.000-04:00

Boy in Black is a serious Ultimate Frisbee player. You mighteven call him a fanatic. Even in early summer when he was sleeping all daybecause he was recovering from mono, and in the middle of the summer when hewas doing research and still recovering from mono, and in late summer when hewas spending big chunks of time studying for his qualifying exams, he stillkept playing Ultimate.

Boy in Black has this weird ability, or perhaps compulsion,to pull everyone around him into whatever he’s passionate about. So that meanshis siblings played Ultimate this summer. And all of our extras. And onWednesdays, even his parents.

Other nights of the week, he’d play Ultimate with a leagueor club team, and old folks like us would be spectators, but he declaredWednesdays to be the evening for Casual Ultimate. Everyone was welcome to play,no matter the age or skill level. My husband and I both played. Our extrasplayed. Boy in Black invited pretty much everyone he knew. And most of themshowed up.

I was thankful, actually, that so many of the young men ofthe household have girlfriends now. It’s a bit ridiculous for me to be playingon the same team with my 6’3” Ultimate fanatic son. It’s makes a little moresense if I’m asked to guard a 5’ woman who has never played Ultimate before.Then I’ve got at least a chance.

We gathered on the empty field behind the old elementaryschool, right next to the cemetery, and Boy in Black set the boundaries withorange cones. He brought everything we needed, including extra white shirts andbottles of water for everyone. He marked his own water bottle with a rubberband because no one wanted to come in contact with mono-contaminated saliva.

The games were filled with joking and teasing, but alsoserious instruction. Boy in Black and First Extra were very patient aboutexplaining rules or strategies. During the last few games of the summer, I wasusually guarding Thinking Girl, and we’d help each other out, even though wewere on opposite teams. “That was a turn-over. You’re going in that directionnow,” she’d say when she’d see me heading up the field the wrong way.

My tendency to get into conversations with the person I’msupposed to be guarding means that I’m not a very competitive player, but stillthe games were fun.

It was always dark by the time we returned to the house.Some of the players would take navy showers, while others rummaged through thekitchen for food and drink. Boy in Black always took the time to stretch, lyingon the floor while discussing the game with First Extra or Shaggy Hair Boy. Myhusband and I would go to bed, but the young people would stay up to play cardsor computer games, carefree on a summer night.

That's Shaggy Hair Boy in the photo.

And the seasons change

2011-09-07T16:16:00.000-04:00

It’s raining. I’m wearing long pants, a fleece, and my fuzzysocks. Students on campus have stopped talking about their summer vacations andstarted complaining about how much work they have to do. They’ve started makingplans for apple picking and pumpkin carving.

Beautiful Smart Wonderful Daughter and Boy in Black movedback to the apartment near campus that they share with First Extra. The publicschools opened again yesterday, and With-a-Why began eleventh grade. I'm thinking about making an apple pie.

Summer’s over.

Haircut

2011-09-05T22:37:00.001-04:00

On Saturday, the weather at camp was warm enough for swimming. On Sunday, it was cool enough for a hike. But the most exciting thing we did over the weekend was watch Red-haired Niece cut Boy in Black’s hair.

Boy in Black has had long — or at least longish — hair since sixth grade. He doesn’t let it get real long, like my other two sons, but keeps it off his shoulders by cutting it himself. Every couple of months, he’ll go into the bathroom with a pair of scissors and chop some off. He ties it out of his face with a pink bandana when he’s playing Ultimate.

Friday night, he was about to cut his hair when Drama Niece offered to do it for him. He shrugged and handed her the scissors.

For the record, I loved the haircut she gave him. She added layers, which made it look thick and curly. All that lovely wavy hair made him look younger, like he was back in high school, and emphasized his big brown eyes with their long black lashes.

Everyone else thought the haircut was hysterically funny. And even I will admit that the curls didn’t match his personality. Or his 6’3” athletic frame.

“I’ve been thinking about buzzing it anyhow,” Boy in Black said. “It would be easier.”

Red-haired Niece volunteered to do the job. Beautiful Smart Wonderful Daughter sent a text to Film Guy, who told them where they could buy the right kind of razor. “It shouldn’t be too hard to use,” she said. “I know people who have gotten drunk and shaved their heads, and it usually looks okay.”

Once Boy in Black had made the decision, the group wasted no time. Red-haired Niece yanked the shaver out of the box, glanced at the directions, and declared that she was ready. She draped a beach towel over Boy in Black. Schoolteacher Niece grabbed the mirror out of my parent’s cabin and held it up. The rest of us pulled lawn chairs over to watch.

“It’s going to look so great,” Red-haired Niece kept saying. “I can just imagine the women on campus when they see you now.” She started right in, happily cutting off long locks and tossing them to the ground. She did the back and sides first, leaving a bunch of hair in his face, before dramatically finishing.

The crowd kept chiming in. “You look like Suburban Nephew now,” and “You look like Jack from LOST.” We all kept teasing him about his movie star features, but it’s true: he’s ridiculously good-looking.

My parents gave the new haircut their seal of approval. Boy in Black went down to the dock, stripped off his shirt, and stuck his head in the water to rinse it off. When he stood up, he rubbed his head with his hands and grinned. “It feels cool.”

Boy in Black's new silhouette. I took this photo while he and With-a-Why were battling with their light sabers.

Off to camp

2011-09-03T08:41:00.000-04:00

It’s Labor Day weekend, the official end of the summer, and that means that we’re heading up to my parents’ camp for one last weekend. I’m hoping it will be warm enough to swim, but if not, we’ll go hiking or play bocce or sit by the campfire.

I’ve only been back to work for a week, but the first week of classes was long, filled with the excitement of seeing students who have returned after the summer and the tedium of meetings where administrative tasks get done. My campus office was painted and carpeted this summer, which means I returned to find all of my belongings — including every single book from my shelves — packed in cardboard boxes. It’s been a week of unpacking and getting ready for the school year to come.

So yeah, I feel I deserve a long weekend.

Blog gone weird

2011-08-31T20:09:00.002-04:00

Apparently, the new blogger interface has caused my blog to freak out. Hopefully, I'll get it back to looking normal soon.

Update: Yesterday, my blog looked like some kind of odd, abstract painting, with blocks of texts and images lying on top of each other, and most of the text unreadable. I have to admit that it kind of freaked me out to see my blog in pieces, like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz ripped to shreds by flying monkeys. I sent panicky text messages to Scrivener, who logged on and used his mad computer skills to rescue the header that Dr. MMMmmmm designed for me six years ago.

Now that I'm used to it, the new blogger interface is fairly easy to use, so I've been playing around with the new blogger templates. If the colours and shapes keep changing, it's not your imagination. Feel free to chime in with your opinion on what the blog should look like.

Mossy

2011-08-31T19:47:00.001-04:00

When we hiked through a rainforest in the Pacific Northwest, I couldn’t help but admire the mosses. Soft green covered every stump, every broken branch. The fantastic shapes of the forest made me feel like I was in a science fiction novel.

Old mountain inn

2011-08-29T20:18:00.000-04:00

After a week of eating mostly hiking food — sandwiches, fruit, anything that could be easily carried — we decided one night to find a restaurant. A teenage girl at the bunkhouse gave us directions to an old inn built close to the winding mountain road.

The wooden-paneled dining room was filled with warm light. The waitress brought us a fresh loaf of homemade bread, which we began devouring even before we ordered our meals. The smell of spaghetti sauce and seafood wafted over from the other tables.

I looked around the room and spoke quietly to my husband. “See that group of eight in the corner? They are different ages and different backgrounds, definitely not related to each other. And it’s pretty clear from their body language that they don’t know each other very well.”

My husband took a glance over his shoulder. “I think they all signed up a weekend hiking expedition. This is their get-to-know-you dinner.”

I glanced at their footwear and nodded in agreement. Then I looked over to the young couple seated by the big mural, who were reaching across the table to hold hands. “How about them? What’s their story?”

My husband smiled. “A romantic comedy, for sure.”

The next day when we came in for breakfast, a group of women were sitting at the table where the hiking group had been.

I looked them over as I ate my potatoes. “The woman with duct tape on her finger is older than I am, but the other women are more like college age.”

“That’s easy,” my husband said. “Wedding party. The woman at the end was just saying something about the color of their dresses. The duct tape woman is the mother of the bride.”

His guess was right. When I began talking to Duct Tape Woman, she said, “I hurt my finger putting up wedding decorations.” She laughed and waggled a finger wrapped in bright purple duct tape. “We didn’t have any band-aids so we had to make due. I think we’re fifty miles from the nearest drugstore.”

“That’s going to look GREAT in the photos,” the young woman next to her teased.

I rooted through my camera bag and pulled out some band-aids. Duct Tape Finger took them gratefully. It turns out that the women had traveled from the northeast for this wedding. The burly man at the next table, who had taken off a leather jacket to reveal detailed tattoos on both arms, turned out to be a local. When the mother of the bride started fretting about ominous clouds, he jumped into the conversation.

“Could change any minute,” he said. “That’s how it is here.”

We’d spent so much time alone all week, hiking and driving and walking on beaches, that the extrovert in me couldn’t resist chatting with pretty much anyone who came in the restaurant. I drank three cups of herbal tea before I was ready to head out the door and start the day.

Snow in August

2011-08-28T11:52:00.000-04:00

Driving into the mountains of the Pacific Northwest meant driving up winding roads into the clouds. The cool grey mist felt wonderful as we hiked. After the ridiculously hot summer we had at home, it felt a bit surreal to be walking on snow. Some of the trails were still closed from the record amount of snow the mountains got this year.

Sometimes the clouds would shift, and we’d catch a glimpse of the famous glaciers we’d come to see. Other times, the swirling fog kept us in our own private world, able to see only the trail and the trees nearest us.

Across the water

2011-08-27T17:31:00.001-04:00

During our vacation, we traveled almost every day, sometimes into the mountains, and sometimes down along the coast, making a big circle in an attempt to get to cool beaches and scenic hiking trails. My husband had planned the trip, using google maps and online sites.

On the first day of the trip, he glanced at the printout directions and said, “This doesn’t make sense. We’re going less than fifty miles, but it says it’s going to take us hours.”

He looked at the map again. That dotted line that looked like a bridge? Turns out it was a ferry crossing.

So that’s how we began the trip. We waited for about half an hour in a long line of cars, then drove onto a ferryboat. Once we’d parked, we climbed up onto the deck, with a crowd of people who were excitedly clambering for spots at the rail.

From the highest deck, I could see across an expanse of blueness. I looked back to the little town beach, with its rocks and driftwood, and then at the green islands in the distance. Wind came whipping across the deck, bringing the smell of salt and dead fish. Seagulls screeched and swooped down, looking for scraps of food.

The engines purred into action beneath me. The boat moved slowly away from land. I went off to explore, checking out every deck. Two kids on the boat were running from place to place and yelling to each other in excitement. The wind was pretty cold, so most people went inside, but I didn’t want to risk motion sickness. Soon I saw our destination across the water: a little town piled on the side of a hill, with a big dock in front for the ferry. That’s how the vacation began.

Close enough to feel the mist

2011-08-25T20:22:00.001-04:00

The unbearably hot summer we had gave me a new appreciation for waterfalls. We’ve got quite a few lovely waterfalls here in the northeast, but we also spent a lot of time standing in the misty spray of waterfalls when we were vacationing in the northwest.

Driftwood

2011-08-23T11:19:00.000-04:00

The driftwood we saw was incredible: whole trees, big trees, washed up on shore, bleached by the sun, their roots forming play structures that made me remember what it was like to be a little kid.

Stroll

2011-08-22T19:22:00.000-04:00

On our morning walk, we passed an older couple who were strolling along, talking quietly to each other, stopping now and then to admire the patterns the receding surf had left on the wet sand.

Sand beneath my toes

2011-08-21T19:44:00.000-04:00

Yes, we took long walks on the beach. Because married life is just like those personal ads. Well, okay, maybe it's not, but on vacation, we get to pretend.

I kept taking pictures of the huge rocks that jutted out of the waves. I loved how dramatic they looked. The other cool thing was the nature of the light on the west coast, so different than what I’m used to on the east coast. I’ve often heard about the sunsets on the Pacific, but what I liked even better was how the early morning light came shining at an angle, turning wet sand everywhere blue, blue, blue.

Rock, sand, and ocean waves

2011-08-20T11:19:00.000-04:00

After hiking for about 20 minutes through mossy trees and big ferns, we noticed that the path was going downhill sharply. “Listen,” my husband said. Above the sound of my own breathing, I could hear the familiar sound of ocean waves.

I’d known we were walking to a beach, so the stretch of sand didn’t surprise me. But I was startled by piles of driftwood we had to climb over just to get to the beach: long logs and whole trees, most too heavy to move. I wished immediately that I was eight, and I had a whole summer of lazy time to build forts on the beach.

The sand was just normal sand, like I’m used to on beaches on the east coast, but beyond the waves were the most incredible rocks. I’m not even sure if I should call them rocks: they were more like tall chunks of cliff that some giant had broken off from the mainland and plunked into the ocean. I’d read that native people in the area had buried ancestors atop some of these rocks, but I can’t imagine how they possibly got the bodies up there.

The only other people on the beach were a group of young people who reminded me of my own kids. They’d set up three tents amidst the driftwood, and they were climbing around on the logs, calling out jokes that made unoriginal use of the word “wood.” Two of them had waded out to the nearest of the cliff islands, and they looked intent on climbing it.

The sand was soft under my feet as I walked out to the cliff island, but the rocks closest to it were covered with barnacles, and I had to search out smooth spots to stand on. The boys clambered up the side of the rock, but they didn’t make it very far. The boy in the white t-shirt climbed to the first ledge and then jumped back down into the water.

He looked at me, grinning. “That hurt like hell. I wouldn’t recommend that to anyone without shoes.”

Harbor wildlife

2011-08-18T17:10:00.000-04:00

In a port town along the coast, my husband and I went out early to walk along the docks and look at the ships anchored in the harbor. As I was scrambling about on the rocks, trying to get a closer look at some harbor seals who were lounging about on the moorings, my husband nudged me. “Look! Right below your feet.”

A raccoon peered up at me. He didn’t seem afraid, but looked at us curiously. Then he picked up a dead fish he was eating and scampered off underneath the rocks.

Lost and gone forever

2011-08-18T16:46:00.000-04:00

I’m an obsessive reader, which means when I’m walking through a marina, I walk up and down the docks and read the name of every single boat. Sometime I hate the names: they seem corny or sexist or just plain stupid. But I was charmed by many of the names painted onto the fishing vessels in this small coastal town. I had the song Oh my darling Clementine stuck in my head for the rest of the morning.

By the sea

2011-08-17T13:38:00.001-04:00

We’d slept with the windows open, and all night, the waves of the Pacific Ocean crashed and sang in my dreams. Because our bodies were on east coast time, we both woke up at about 5 am, when the sky was still dark. My husband needed to work for a couple of hours before his vacation officially started. Well, mostly, he needed find a place with internet access so that he could watch the stock market crash. He went off to find the one place in the little town where he could get the iPad to work, while I grabbed my camera and put on sandals for an early morning walk.

I went out along a beach that was filled with driftwood: not little pieces of driftwood like we find up at camp, but huge trees, bleached white and too big to move. We were staying on the land of the Quileute people, who have fished here for thousands of years. I walked to their little marina, looking out at the huge rock that towers over the village. Ancestors are buried on that rock, and local legend says that spirits live there still.

I passed the one restaurant, the tribal school, and the community center. Across from the docks were some clapboard houses and some trailers. The last fishing boat was just leaving. A black dog stood in the middle of the road and watched me as I walked past.

The rocks of the breakwater were striped white with bird poop. I clambered around, my sneakers slipping, as I tried to get a good photo. When I gave up and sat still, I saw movement in the water. A harbor seal! He pushed up to look at me, and I noticed four more faces. The seals swam up to the edge of the rock, then disappeared under the water again.

The sky was getting lighter, but the sun was still hidden behind clouds. I watched a boat come into the harbor, a little one moving very slowly. Two men yanked the motor off on the dock and began taking it apart. I heard a car crunch along the gravel road and a car door slam. Then I had that feeling I get when I’m being watched. I looked back behind me and saw a man bent over a tripod. I sat still so as not to ruin his picture: he probably needed a human silhouette to show the size of the rock. When I walked back past him, he smiled and said, “Oh, you’ve found the perfect spot.”

The black dog watched me again as I walked back behind the restaurant and over another breakwater to the beach. The wind had risen so I found a place to sit on the sand, tucked behind the bleached roots of a tree that had floated in during high tide.