Hungry Little Caterpillars

Last night, while watching "Nature," Mark and I were blown away by the life of the Arctic Wooly Bear Caterpillar (left).  What on earth is such a delicate creature doing in such harsh climes?  During the sliver of summer that visits the Arctic each June, the Wooly Bear Caterpillar is eating every green thing he can cram down his little craw, all with the hope that he might turn into something that can fly away.

By summer's end, though, the little guy hasn't eaten enough to become a moth.  Instead, he finds a spot and curls into a little ball, where we assume he is quietly calling "uncle" to the wintery death that awaits him.   Against all odds, though--his tiny system shut down and frozen--the caterpillar is actually laying in wait.  Even when the temperature dips to minus 100, he lays in wait until the following spring, when he thaws out and starts munching away. . . only to be frozen again six months later.  This goes on for seven years.  Seven years! But one June day--finally!--he's eaten enough to begin his metamorphosis.

Suffice it to say that, in the Holt household, Eric Carle's Hungry Little Caterpillar has taken a back seat to the Arctic Wooly Bear Caterpillar, when it comes to top moths-in-process.

What would happen if we spent a year focused on the small things in our lives?  All those little things wedged between all those Big Things that Demand Capital Letters?  Like the Arctic Wooly Bear Caterpillar, I think we'd find ourselves changed.  More patient.  More focused.  Fortified by these little moments and, perhaps, even braver in the face of the Big Things we will inevitably encounter.

Big Things will always be there--brash and brassy, exhilarating and exhausting.  Awash in air horns and neon lights, Big Things have an obliterating quality to them, as they run their fat fingers along the edges of all the small moments that make up most of our days and nights.

No, this year, I'm going to turn my attention to the Arctic Wooly Bear Caterpillar.  To quiet afternoons spent with a good book.  To the joy of bad dance moves and that one minute each morning when the sky turns into a Creamsicle.  I am going to spend this year among the less-showy parts of my life, wondering at and wandering with the small things that do not holler.

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

My dad, a lifelong journalist, once told me that some weird stuff gets into a newspaper between Christmas and New Years.  He attributed the strange stories to a year-end lull in the news cycle, when nothing much is happening, but the publisher still has all those column inches to fill each day.

Maybe that's why the Journal Star got all "meta" on us today, with an above-the-fold, front-page story whose headline asked "How Did This Paper Get Here?"   (Ironic that the Journal-Star will okay a front-page story about how the paper is made but has yet to report on all the layoffs that recently took place there).  Talk about a slow news day . . . .

That said, having once worked at 926 "P" St. myself, I actually do find it interesting to consider the back story of all those front-page stories, the mechanical-engineering wizardry that goes into producing a newspaper.  When I worked in the Newspaper in Education department (can you call a two-person operation a "department?"), my favorite part of our standard tour was in the production plant, with its incomprehensibly large vats of cyan, yellow, magenta and key (read "black") inks, and the Industrial-Age feel of the web press, as it folded and spindled while not quite mutilating the daily paper.  It was a sight to behold.

. . . but back to the content of those year-end newspapers.

How, exactly, is a newspaper editor in today's world supposed to help readers discern between the newsworthy and the whimsical, when we have a buffoon leading the polls and dominating the headlines?  I would argue that at least some of the readers' confusion lay at the feet of the editors themselves, who too often have supplanted professional discernment (or what we once called journalism's "gatekeeper" duties) with a hunger for clicks and "likes."

My God.  Could you imagine what would happen in education if its leaders took a similar approach?

"Today, students, we will begin our research project, applying critical pedagogy to the belief that Chuck Norris, indeed, once made a Happy Meal cry."

My dad--a funny, wise, bridge-building man who also happened to be a heck of a journalist--died 22 years ago.  In those 22 years, I  have mourned the deaths of too many other wordsmiths whom I admire--Molly Ivans, Charles Kuralt,  Bill Kloefkorn, and Leon Satterfield, among others.

Today, though, I mourn something larger than these fine writers--I mourn the meme-saturated, RIF-frenzied, profit-obsessed machine that is eating journalism.  Like the Samurai from the movie "Brazil," this garbled behemoth burps out end-of-year strangeness all year long.  And we just keep eating it, convinced that it can sustain us.

Feeling App-rehensive

I'd been thinking about buying a Fitbit for a couple of months.  Almost bought one at least a half dozen times.  And then, yesterday, just before leaving to watch "Star Wars," I impulsively hit "add to cart" and put my Amazon Prime membership into "ship" mode.

If I'm to be honest, one of the reasons I wanted a Fitbit was that it came in a snappy slate color. Additionally,  I also was intrigued by its ability to evaluate the quality of my sleep.  As though getting up at 2 a.m. to pee is not informative enough.

And then there's the fact that I already own a pedometer.  Sure, it is bulky and when I clip it on my low-rise underwear, a person might mistake it for a tiny colostomy bag.  But it does its job, dependably clicking each swing of my right leg all day long.

. . . Yeah, but it isn't tidy or slate-colored.  And it lacks bells and whistles which, apparently, hold some sway over me.

Why, then, did I log onto Amazon first thing this morning (well, okay, after lamenting snow storms that will not come to pass) and hope it wasn't too late to cancel my order?   Because Allison, who owns a Fitbit and happened to be spending the night with us, informed me that, if I wanted the device to tell me about my sleep, I'd have to load an app onto my phone and log onto to it every night before going to bed.

I guess I just couldn't imagine spending my last waking moment each night plugging information into my phone.

I'm plugged in enough as it is, without having to worry about my phone.  Especially at night, when the last thing I really want to do is to drift off--midsentence--while reading a great book, waking just long to utter "Good night, Honeyboo" to Mark (hey, no judging!).

There is no app for that.  And, if there is?  Well, I'm not buying it.

Uplifting Snowfall

I cannot follow the path of a single raindrop as it falls from the sky.  But snow on a calm, dark morning?  It is both possible and delightful to watch a single, perfect, meandering snowflake lick the top of the lamp post as it wends its way to the ground in front of me.

This morning's perfect snow is an early Christmas gift, even if a thousand other Lincoln adults will grumble about its inconvenient aftermath--slowed traffic, slick overpasses, the prospect of shoveling.  Even Richard--the Woods Park wanderer who whispers the rosary on his rounds (and shouts out his "HELLO, JANE!" much louder and earlier than I'd care for), even Richard today lamented the snow, wanting safe travels on Christmas Eve.

But what, really, has ever been safe about Christmas?  About childbirth?  About poor people in unsanitary conditions having medical procedures?  Jesus' birth was never about safe travels.   That's why I love the later story of him accepting, essentially, a foot rub with Chanel No. 5. . . a lavish, wasteful, audacious moment in the midst of war-filled, hunger-filled, dangerous times.

And so, I'll take the snowflakes.  I'll open my mouth in hopes that the perfect, icy geometry may alight on my tongue.  I will give over to my imagination, wondering what part of the universe, whose stories are imprinted in that perfect snowflake that is now a part of me. This beautiful morning,   I'll take the muted quiet that comes with snow, the first pawprints upon sidewalks, the slow descent of frozen precipitation that softens everything--the landscape, the sharp tongues, the divides, the man whose name I refuse to speak (and, no, it's not satan).

This world could use some softening, after all.  And I, for one, will not stand in the way.

Visual AIDS

After a relentless week of work in the library, Friday brought with it a refreshing change--a quiet smallness that filled me.  By afternoon, though,  having recently forgotten how to relax, I roused myself to focus on my "to do" list and settled on the "gather stuff for our 'protest' display" bullet point. My commitment to the project was short-lived, though, because Helen had found a photo of the AIDS quilt, which set me off on a sidebar activity-- searching for evidence that my brother Mike had lived.

What I bumped into was a bit jarring.

Mike died of AIDS-related cancer in January 1996--two months after Allison was born.  And, in my Friday-afternoon search for my brother, I was reminded that Allison wasn't the only youngster back then.  Still too young for kindergarten, the Internet didn't have much to show for itself in 1996. Which meant that Friday's Google search for Michael James Raglin turned up nothing.

. . . as though this vibrant, funny, well-connected soul had never existed.

Lest we think the Internet is the be-all-end-all of storytelling mediums, a bottomless storage bin for human history, my brother stands as proof of its shortcomings.

And so, I made do in the face of my fruitless Google search, going old school instead and telling Helen stories about my brother.  About his artistic bent, his funny laugh, his extensive and eclectic collection of friends.  I talked about how he had lived and how we managed to find a way to carry on after he died.  And she did what no Google search could ever do--she listened and, in her listening, made my brother real again.

Empty Spaces

Halfway up M Street is a house that is more museum than residence.  I've lived in the neighborhood for 11 years and, in all that time, the house has stood empty.  I suspect it has been standing vigil long before I first noticed it.

The only thing that seems to still be functioning in the house is the light timer that clicks on each morning before Finn and I make our way up the sidewalk.  Almost always, I turn my head towards the house, wondering what it was that someone walked away from.  Why has no one come back to let in some fresh air?  What is it they cannot bare to let go of?

Lately, when I walk by, I half expect to see a fox or a family of raccoons sitting on the couch, reading an old Life Magazine or catching some 70s rerun on TV.

Imagining a wild animal taking up residence on M makes me think of the young mouse family that showed up in my birdseed container a few years ago.  What seemed, at first, like nirvana--the perfect place to raise a family, with all that good seed acting as both bedding and breakfast--eventually became their death sentence.  The metal walls around them were too tall, too slick to scurry up. Their bellies swollen with safflower, one day, the mice must have realized that they could never leave.  Thirst replaced hunger and container became coffin.

There is something disturbing about seeing an abandoned building.  It feels at once both intimate and dismissive, as though the very moment of abandonment holds too much mystery and loss to keep it to itself. What seeps out as I pass is some combination of history and fiction,  an unsettling brew whose ingredients I can never quite identify.

In the pre-dawn darkness, I search the front window for clues to the story that sits within, imagining movement and laughter, the smell of coffee wafting up the staircase.  And I know, somehow, that this is one of those stories with a sad, quiet ending.

The Power of a Morning Sky

Yesterday, I almost made the mistake of writing about the morning sky instead of going outside and experiencing it, firsthand.  Fortunately, the room lit up like a Creamsicle,  and it was all I could do not to run to the park in my pajamas.  This photo, taken by my friend Katherine Endacott, is proof that my decision was a good one.

I certainly am not immune to the immense sadness and violence of this world, the incomprehensible weight of Serious Things.  But neither can I turn a blind eye to its beauty, to a sky that is always--always--whispering "Look up.  Look up.  Look UP!"

Where else but in the steadiness of the stars, in the meandering strings of geese stretched across the skies, could I be so clearly reminded of larger things that care not a whit about our problems?

I look up and I am grounded again.

True, the violence still punctures.  The losses accumulate.  The divides grow seemingly wider.

But that sky . . . 

And in those quiet moments, when I give myself over to something that is not made of  bolt, barrel and bravado, I am steeled by the surprising strength of beauty and kindness, ready to face all that is broken, having bathed in the Creamsicle glow of things that are more eternal than violence.

Calling It

The image of a teen girl, smiling and eyes aflutter, sprawled out on her bed with a phone to her ear?  Yeah.  That has never been me.  Maybe it's the shape of my ears, but I've always found phone calls to be an uncomfortable form of communication.

Not last night, though.

For some reason, I was still conscious when my mom called around 9 p.m.  I'd meant to call her a half hour before, but didn't know if it was too late to call (yes, I realize that this is an absurd thought for most people, but I'm pretty sure I am a farm girl long ago transplanted to the city--all "early to bed and early to rise").

Ah, but last night's call--the phone's unsettling disruption of night-time rituals and reading in bed?  It was pretty wonderful.  After I'd determined that there was no medical emergency or mental lapse behind it, I settled in contentedly to the comfortable back-and-forth, verbally walking the ambling path my mom had set out for us.

The topic of our conversation ranged from Thanksgiving-Day reflections ("I had such a nice time being with everyone")  to cumbersome bunions ("What are those things called, anyway?!" we laughed).  Somehow, we also managed to cover past and future trips to Hawaii and how good my brother Steve is at creating entertaining events for the family.

"Ambling" really is the perfect description of our conversation last night.  And, just like an ambling walk outdoors, I found myself wanting to extend the event, to keep shuffling my feet through the colorful family leaves that had gathered around me.

That phone call was a quiet love song magically delivered through wispy copper wiring, its lyrics forgettable to everyone but my mom and me.  Like a bedtime story, carried by the lilt of my mother's surprisingly cogent voice, it lulled me into a happy, warm place.

I'm pretty sure I fell asleep with a smile on my face, my heart filled with love.

I Am (a) Woman

I am a woman.  I am not women.
I am a teacher.  I am not teachers.
I am a mother.  I am not mothers.
I am American.  I am not Americans.

And, in the same vein, I must remember that Donald Trump is a Republican.  He is not Republicans. . . although I kind of think that Trump is actually working for the Clintons.

When the day is done, all I can do is try to own who it is that I am--the decisions I make, the beliefs I hold to, the words I say.  These things are mine, not ours.

God help anyone who expects me to Represent.  

Of course, that doesn't mean I don't try to behave.  Educators, after all, fall in the same precarious category as ministers--when one of us screws up, we all wince.  But that person's act doesn't make me screw-up-by-proxy any more than being born in Syria makes someone a terrorist.

I don't think some of our U.S. politicians--our governor among them--have any idea how difficult their bigoted spittle makes my job.  When Pete Ricketts says "no" to all Syrian refugees, when Chris Christie shuts the proverbial door on a child, the hot wind of their words reaches the hallways of my school, where whispered threats gather steam.  And this is not the kind of steam you want to give to still-forming human beings.

Unlike me, these politicians are expected to Represent. First, however, they should repent, for their words have done great harm to many people, my students included.

A Solemn Salute

At first, I wasn't even planning on going.  After nearly a week away from work, I figured that it was time to go back to East, to return to the serious business of being a school librarian.  Whatever that means.

Sheesh, I can be such a knucklehead.

Finally--thankfully--I thought of my mom--frail and bent, alone and confused--and I realized that I should skip school and go to Dick's internment this morning.   He was, after all, a father to me and a grandfather to my children for these past 16 years.  Not to mention the wonderful role he played in my mom's life all these years.

So, when we drove out to Lincoln Memorial this morning, my thoughts were: Well, it's good I'm going, because mom will appreciate this.  

Our car eased around a curve, and there they stood, two women in military uniforms.  They were saluting.  Just behind them, a line of men--also in uniform--was standing at attention, guns resting atop their shoulders.

And that's when the tears came.  Finally.

Dick was gone.

All those years ago, a younger Dick was flying a plane over Africa.  And these uniformed strangers were here on a misty, breezy morning, thanking him for his service.

My God.  How could I be nearly 54 years old and have no prior experience with a military honor guard?

It was one of the most powerful, solemn, moving times in my life, framed by serious strangers who vowed to remember.

Gunshots.  Rituals.  A flag unfurled and furled again.  And then, that same flag presented to my mother, delivered with deep-felt thanks for a man who served his country all those years ago.

And to think I almost went to work today.

I am an idiot.  And my stepfather is dead.  And my step siblings move slowly across the uneven landscape,  away from me, from this place and into another.

My mom?  She is small, but her heart is full.

I finger the empty cartridge in my pocket, remembering the sharpness of its cry as it left the rifle 10 minutes before.  And I remember Dick, again wondering why I have never before been to a funeral with an honor guard.

I suspect the answer says more about me than it does about everyone else.

Moss Grande

I have not been sleeping well lately.  Or at least not for very long.  And in the wee hours this morning, when something once again nudged me awake, my mind turned to moss.  As the wind battered our house and sleep left me for good, I closed my eyes and imagined myself wandering the moss forest, surrounded by tiny trees and elaborate structures--patient passageways standing at the ready for life-giving water.

Recounting the moment when she first looked at a snowflake in detail, scientist Robin Wall Kimmerer kicks off her surprisingly beautiful book all about mosses, one part science, one part gentle sermon.  "Gathering Moss" is a wakeup call to take notice of that which has otherwise been ignored.

That theme translates nicely to a school building, where the din of testing and timelines can distract us from the truly important work that we are called to do--namely, connecting with each young life that moves through this space.

In the school library, where the adults are freed up from the grind of the gradebook, we are given a gift--the chance to meet kids where they are, no standards-based strings attached.  Here, in this buffer zone, a refreshing cross section of students gathers, their needs and intentions ranging from the academic to the maternal.  They are, in surprising ways, reminiscent of moss.

Easy to overlook, mosses are rootless, primitive, low-lying plants.  They also are incredibly diverse, with 22,000 species inhabiting virtually every landscape on earth. Mosses, unlike their more sophisticated cousins, have a resilience that is enviable.  While they seem to shut down in the absence of water, they have simply gone quiet.  These mosses then bounce back within minutes when water is reintroduced to them, even after waiting years to slake their thirst.

It is water, then, that educators should seek to provide.  And in the school library, that water takes all kinds of forms.  Just yesterday, a student left the library with a book he'd requested, one we bought just for him.  The same happened last week, proof that their voices, however small, have been heard.  Yet another student came to the library Monday to report that he'd gotten a Learn to Dream scholarship.  I have no doubt that my workmate Helen played a part in this.  It was Helen who'd been watering his primitive ideas about a future he could not quite imagine.  He had the tools and she took the time to notice and encourage them.

Kimmerer, who works and lives in the Appalachian Mountains, talks of finding mosses even in the stripped, brutal landscape of an orphaned iron mine, a long, ugly scar that runs through an otherwise rich landscape.  There, she and her student study a patch of moss that somehow has made its home in a dead zone.  And there, underneath the protective shadows of its tiny, primitive forest, they note that the land seems to be healing, new life emerging from a place of hopelessness.

I am heartened by her find, filled with a renewed commitment to take note of the small things, to honor the quiet, young lives of my students who--like all of us--have a thirst and a deep desire to make a good life for themselves.

Between Things

Yesterday, my mom and I visited my stepfather, Dick, a kind, funny, sharp man who happens to be writing the last chapter of his life.  Over the last year, he and my mom have been separated more than once by medical circumstances.  Each separation has left them filled with longing for the other.  That longing would be sweet if it weren't so wrenching to witness.

And now, in this latest separation, it is hard not to see the whorls of endnotes swirling around them, as my mom cuts up bite-sized pieces of fried egg to feed to the man she loves.  Here in this room that is both comfortable and foreign, two people lucky enough to have found each other struggle with desires that vacillate between companionship and release. While I am glad to be here with them, I also am fully aware that I am the interloper, pulling precious energy away from where it should be--between the two of them.

I listen as Dick tells stories that are both detailed and dream-like, speaking of them as though recalling an event from the night before.   He has always been a terrific storyteller, a man who relishes the nuances.  And--always--there is a well-delivered punchline, an unexpected twist at the end.  This time, it is that he found himself in a room with Laura Bush.

In fact, he was in a room with Sally Shepard Raglin Marshall (names earned and cherished in her 88 years of living) and Jane Raglin Holt (a shorter yet still-appreciated strand of happy evidence).  And it was obvious that this was a time to be cherished, a moment in which to be fully present, even if I was the sore thumb, the reluctant escort, the unsteady stenographer transposing these quiet moments played out in a small room in the middle of everywhere.

YOU are the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

The last time I went trick or treating was in high school (apparently, shame does not come easily to me).  It was 1978 and I'd foolishly chosen to go with the tallest of my friends--Julie Watts.  Towering right around six feet, with a joyful, booming voice, Julie was a terrific, fun friend.  But, because of her height, she also was the very worst person a sixteen year old could chose for a night of pillaging the neighbors' candy supplies.

While we still managed to fill our  pillowcases that night with an impressive array of chocolate-covered booty, we also collected an unenviable pile of cold stares, muttered insults and general disdain. . . as though a teenager needs yet another supply of such things.

Looking back, do I regret that candy-and-laughter-and-shame-filled evening with a fine friend who died too young?

Not so much.

As I type this--a smattering of emptied candy wrappers collecting at my feet--I think of the human riches I've collected in this life.  Kind and funny and generous people who, like candy gathered on a crisp fall evening, fill me with wonder and joy, minus the empty calories.

More than once, I've told my own children that they really only need one or two good friends in their lives.  Usually, this advice has come on the tail of disappointment.  But the timing of my advice has nothing to do with its truth, which holds steady through all seasons, all circumstances.

Human kindness is the real treasure of this life, and we should seek it out and give it away with the same joy that possesses the toddling Luke Skywalker who greets us on our doorsteps each Halloween.

Disappearing Acts

My, oh my, but the early mornings have grown darker lately.  And quieter, too.  These days, on my 6 a.m. walks with Finn, I can actually make out the individual voices--the legs, I suppose--of our neighborhood crickets.   That's because so many of their exoskeletal cousins have cried "uncle" under the cooling canopy of mid-October skies.

Like the crickets, so, too, have my friends Mary Kay and Andrea gone silent.  And now, Pam, my friend's sister whose voice was swallowed up last week, sucked into the cosmos and dispersed among as-yet unnamed planets that are whirring above my head, humming like crickets gone home.

The older I get, the more juxtaposed my life seems to become.

In our school's library, for instance, I am as happy as I have ever been as an educator--lighter and looser and freer, unless students happen to be making out near Children's Lit or eating Doritos at the computer.  But, still. . . I feel as though I have found both feet on the ground, and each one of them is comfortably--rebelliously--clothed in a snappy, message-filled sock of joy.  Yet, how do I explain my joy as I stand in the long shadows of my friends' deaths?

And this morning, as my friend Ken and I headed to my car to attend yet another funeral?  Here, too, I was juxtaposed between worlds, telling Ken about my weekend plans.  How I'd be muddy and happy and lost in the reedy banks of the Platte River, just north of Gibbon, sounding a bit like an America song, all "plants and rocks and birds and things."

Ken, whom I've known and loved since I was a young teen, had no idea that I was a Master Naturalist (yes, it needs to be capitalized).  And, while Ken struggled to avoid going  all "adolescent teen" on me--in which he'd imagine a naturalist as some sort of dumpy nude on a half-hidden river in California--I tried to let him know how much these two-and-a-half years as a Master Naturalist have meant to me, immersing me in the great outdoors,  St. John's Worts and all.

Maybe, at age 53, I'm finally "getting" life and all of its ironic twists and turns.  Maybe I'm finally realizing that it's all just one hot mess filled up with good and bad, joy and grief, acquisition and loss, and that my job is to cull a mostly contented existence from it all, to find the joy in the midst of these disappearing acts.

. . . to wander the banks of an old, wide river and bend low, taking in all of its tiny lives before they move on to the next big thing.

45 Minutes in a Hammock

My brother Jack, a sports-psychology professor at Indiana, is chock full of interesting stories about elite athletes.  He also has a bit of an obsession with zombies, but that is another story.  One of the most interesting things he has researched is what happens to time when an elite athlete is competing. Apparently, time slows waaaay down for these special athletes, allowing the baseball player to see the pitched ball in slow motion or the swimmer to see the wall in great detail.

I am fascinated by the idea of changing the feel of time.  But I am hardly an elite athlete, so I have to find other ways to make time feel different.

That's why I spent 45 minutes in a hammock yesterday. You remember yesterday--that quintessential October afternoon when the sky was deep blue and the breeze was still warm with the breath of late summer.

Supine and looking skyward (when I wasn't nodding off), with Finn at my feet, I rocked my way into an alternate universe, one in which the air was sweet and my mind could not for the life of it remember if I was 9 or 53.  There, with a wall of reddening Boston Ivy on my side, I watched life pass me by--buzzed by a low-flying flock of red-winged blackbirds; tickled by handfuls of yellow locust leaves; dizzied by the wormy paramecium swimming their way across my eyeballs.

Set against the fuzzy soundtrack of neighbor kids playing up the street, I found myself transported to a cool summer day in the '70s, my toes testing the chilly waters at East Hills Swimming Pool.  There, beneath the strange, gangly arms of my neighbor's wisteria, I wondered and wandered my way through seasons and years and strange half dreams, my feet literally not touching the ground.

It was a time warp of Rocky Horror proportions, only woozy and wonderful.

I will never be an elite athlete.  I will never see the stitched seams of a baseball as it whirrs its way towards me.  But I can make time slow down, right there in a hammock in a back yard on Woods Avenue, with my mind opened to the possibilities of what was and what might be.  And I'd recommend it to anyone with a little time on her hands and a hankering to change the feel of that time as it slips through her fingers.

Time on a hammock is always time well spent.

Split Personalities

The internet is teeming with tests.  If I wanted to, I could take a new test every ten minutes or so, and finally figure out who it is that I am.

The problem with all of those personality tests, though, is that they boil us down to four letters (ENTJ!) or an animal (otter!) or, most recently, a color (orange is my new black!), and we find ourselves trying to retrofit our awkward pieces into those awfully tight spaces.

Take...me, for example.  If you're short on time, just study the "information" between the parentheses and you'll know what you need to know about me.  I get a boost of energy from crowds, am comfortable trusting my intuition, am not terribly mushy and, uh, am represented by a color that really shines in October!

. . . or so these expert-approved tests tell me.

How to explain, then, my regular need for solitude?  And where is nature in all of this?  I don't think any of these tests explores our relationship with the out of doors.

"Out of doors."  There's a phrase that begs a turn or two.  We have become, I'm afraid, a society that prefers our doors closed, thank you.  As a result, we've got a toxic group of people in Washington, many of whom refuse to see what or who it is that sits on the other side of their own doors.  So, instead, they keep those doors closed, because it is simpler, less ambiguous, and what is expected from their most vocal (and monied) constituents.

The story goes that the journalistic term "deadline" came from the Civil War, when troops were thinned to the point of needing to find new ways to keep the captured enemy contained.  Placed in slap-dash structures (most often, behind fences or stockades), prisoners were shown a line in the dirt--the deadline--and told that, if they crossed it, they'd be dead.

Nearly 150 years later, we still tell people to stay inside their lines, to behave accordingly, to be who it is we expect them to be, the implicit threat of exclusion or derision or removal of support always hanging in the air.

We haven't come very far, have we?

There is an "us versus them" mentality that comes with all of these labels, a strange willingness to buy into the standardized formula rather than muddle into the mess of getting to really know people--ourselves included.

I'm ready for a liberation, for a skeleton key that opens all the doors.  I'm ready for someone to insist that we let in some fresh air, that we mix it all up until we look like a toddler's finger painting--messy and feral and pure again.

I think it's long past the time for people to once again trust their own guts--rather than the polls or the experts or the personality quizzes--and start meeting each other where they are, lines in the sand be damned.

Bird-Brained Ideas

More than once last night, when no one but the college drunks and the third-shifters were supposed to be up, I was awakened by a cardinal's frantic twitter.  There, in my bed, cool sheets holding me, I went all "mother" when I heard its staccato call, imagining a stealthy cat or hungry owl causing its fearful uttering.

It is disturbing to hear a voice out of context, calling out in the wrong time frame.

But then I considered that the cardinal might just be talking in its sleep. Which led me to wonder where all the neighborhood birds were right then, and what their sleeping arrangements looked like.  If I had super night-vision eyes, would I have seen their small forms dotting the trees, like pine cones?  Surely, there aren't enough nests for them all.  Surely, some stood stoic and silent,  iron grips on slender branches, willing themselves to sleep, despite the drag racers on O Street.

It is amazing how many things I rub shoulders with each day, and yet know so little about.  And most of those things have their roots in the natural world--the almonds I pop in my mouth yet cannot fathom growing, the cricket choir whose legs I've never seen singing, the chimney swifts that seem always to be flying.

Fortunately, this abundance of ignorance only seems to feed my sense of wonder.  In these google-saturated times when answers (right or wrong) are just two clicks away, I find comfort in the not knowing.  Instead of insisting on understanding, sometimes I am delighted to know that I don't really know all that much.  I am that cheap date who stares gape-jawed at the fistful of flowers whose names I cannot recall.

I am the neighbor, half asleep, imagining what it is that cardinals dream of.

Sunday Circulars

The circular nature of life--its arcing tendency to bend towards what we once knew--seems sharpened by this crisp, almost-fall morning.  At this early hour,  in this comfortable room in my house, I feel as if I am looking back on my life, remembering my parents as younger, more vibrant people; stunned that my own now-grown children were once diapered and stumbling; smiling as I can almost see the wilder, less-formed version of who I am today.

And I recall last week's visit with my mom and stepdad. The hesitance I felt as I pulled into the parking space, knowing that I would lie to them.  Or at least not come completely clean.  My circle--or at least some earlier segments of my circle--now merging with theirs, these lifelines absorbing and swapping stories with seeming indiscretion.

Suddenly, I am the parent.  And they are the people I want to protect.

Which is why I have not yet mentioned to them the July 25th death of my dear friend Mary Kay  nor do I intend to share with them the loss of another fine friend--Andrea--whose premature death last week broke my heart again.  These are not the stories to feed to aged souls, I tell myself.  These are not facts that can be absorbed through the dementia-laced fog of a beloved mother whose daily living is now framed by nurses' visits and three-times-a-day low-sodium menu selections.

There, in the parking lot in front of a building filled with people whose edges are fuzzying, then, I make my peace with my sins of omission.  And I know somehow, that--many years ago, when my own days were played out with young friends running through grass-filled fields--my parents made a similar peace with their decision not to tell me everything.

Such are the demands of living these concentric circles of our lives.

For My Friend, Andrea

Andrea Kabourek was a warrior.  An eyes-on-the-prize, cancer-be-damned warrior.  So what’s a middling, “uncle”-muttering person like me doing, talking about her? I’m here to tell you that, underneath all of those parachutes and running shoes, tucked behind the shark cage and bravado, Andrea Kabourek was just a really fine friend to people, myself included.

Granted, there were times when I questioned the ways in which Andrea expressed her friendship to me...usually, those times fell in October, when I host the annual East HIgh party, or December, on my birthday.  She was a horrible prankster in my life.  A wonderful, horrible prankster who once filled my house with hundreds of yearbook mugshots--some of which I am still finding 7 years later.  She rearranged my furniture, sent me strange notes on official letterhead, posted formative and summative assignments in my bathroom and bedroom. Andrea even made me wear a onesie to school on my 50th birthday. . .

There are not many people who can make me wear a onesie to school.  In fact, I’m pretty sure Andrea was the only one who could.

While Andrea always seemed to be in the center of things, she was not a team of one.  She had, it turns out, an incredible group of people holding her up and rooting her on--from her high-school and college coaches who nudged speed and strength out of her to her always-present family, who worked feverishly to keep her happily on this earth.  As stubborn and independent as she was, Andrea Kabourek needed her family and her friends, her coaches and her students just as much as we needed her, I think.

Andrea was not particularly religious, but I think she would have called East High her “thin” place--a Celtic term for those special places where this world and the next intertwine. She loved this school and its people fiercely.  And we loved her back.  

But it’s not a terribly brave or daring thing to have loved Andrea Kabourek.  Loving her is easy.

There is, it turns out, a much more difficult task for all of us today.  Today, the heartbreaking question becomes:  What do we do now?  How do we find our way without her?  

I am not a runner but I think Andrea the competitor would tell us that we get out of bed and put on our shoes and move through this day--each day-- with our eyes--and our hearts--wide open, grabbing fistfuls of this life and living it, heartache be damned.

Today, then, in this thin place that is East High, as my friend Ken said so well, we draw strength from each other, leaning in to this mystical thinness, a place where, as Andrea had shown us so many times before, anything is possible.

An Extra Dash of Seasoning

I love the turning over of seasons, especially the shovel's blade of fall cutting into hardened summer soil.  There is so much hope and relief and quiet excitement packed into the flipping of a calendar's page.  Even the thought of the first football Saturday quickens my heart, which says a lot, considering how many years it's been since I've attended a game.

Early September is packed with signs of change--the sun's arc slowly flattening, Casiopea nudging its way westward in the night sky, the crickets' steady evensong now more opus than undercurrent.  Even the neighbor's Linden tree has begun to pull out its fall wardrobe.

Yes, a person could view such things as sure signs of the gloom that awaits us three months from now--the flat, cold steel of winter--but I have no time for such pessimists.

Today, at least, I will fill up on monarchs and swallowtails, and praise the praying mantises and yellow-tinged leaves that punctuate my walks.  For now, I hum along to the crickets' choir, glad for the relentlessness of their leggy instruments, unconcerned about winter's silence that inevitably awaits me.

Harvest Time

Scan Facebook for two minutes and you realize what the farmers have known for thousands of years--now is time for the harvest, to reap what has been sown all these long years.  Our urban fields, though, are scattered with half-filled corrugated boxes and curled photographs collecting dust in the corner.  Our crop--our children--now boxed up and heading to their respective silos to see what they are worth.

Back at the ranch?  Well, at first, we stare giddily at these newly available acres of land, giving over to our imaginations.  For now, at least, mine shall lie fallow, resting quietly after all those years of Cover Girl, clutter and clothing.

In the midst of all of this disarray, what I also have discovered is what no one has had the decency to tell me--or perhaps I wasn't listening.  Beyond selling off the kid crop, I'm also spending heaps of my time tinkering with a whole host of other challenges, from sputtering appliances to my own version of Creeping Charlie, not to mention the death and decline of people I really love.

Frankly this whole "circle of life" thing has outgrown its cuteness. . . . which is why, earlier this week,  I reached for the soothing salve of Joni Mitchell.  Long neglected on my music shelf, Joni still manages to pack a punch where I have needed it most.  In my early-morning drives to work, she has become the warm compress I place upon the sorrow and exhaustion that have inexplicably pooled in my calves.

Slowly, Joni's lilting (and, as Mark would say, generally annoying) voice has jarred loose some of the difficult detritus that has built up within me, and, while she occasionally leaves me dewy-eyed, I am grateful for the relief.

I'm not sure how much longer I will let Joni accompany me to school.  She is, after all, kind of a downer.  But she's also a heck of a writer--something I'd forgotten over the years.  And there is something to be said about the power of a minor chord.

For now,  it makes sense that albums titled "The Hissing Lawns of Summer" and "For the Roses" fill these post-harvest days of mine while the sun anchors itself ever closer to the horizon, the morning shadows sleepily stretching across newly-harvested fields.

And me?  My thoughts begin to turn to the ungerminated seeds that beckon a new planting season, a handful of fresh ideas anxious to break through.

Is It Any Wonder?

Early morning at Woods Park has its usual suspects, some of whom have real names, while others go by more descriptive terms:  "Man with Slight Limp," "Lady Who Calls for Opus the Bird,"  "Woman With Dog Named Thor, Who Wonders Why He's So Aggressive". . . .  Richard (his actual name) is a steady presence, always in khakis, usually carrying a coffee mug, and sometimes plugged into a radio.  And he always comes prepared with a story.  Or two.  Or three.

This morning, as Finn and I crossed 33rd Street, I was stunned by all the leaves in the street.  Specifically, all the leaves in the middle lane.  I stood there at the intersection, scanning 33rd for any sign of a wayward leaf resting in another lane, and could find none.  The sight left me a little breathless.

I bumped into Richard shortly after crossing into the park and pointed out to him the crazy "leaf" gathering.  He immediately began to offer an explanation.  "When cars drive by--really, it's just like what happens with snow--but the. . . "  And I quit listening.  See, I wasn't pointing out the sight so that he might explain it.  Really, I just wanted someone with whom I could feel wonder.

After we parted ways, I started to think about what he'd done, and how often I--as a teacher--had done the very same thing.  How many times do our students just want to be heard?  Or just want someone else with whom they can feel wonder?

We teachers can't seem to help ourselves--we just like to answer things, even when there is no question that has been posed.  We are, by nature, elucidators, explainers, enlighteners.

Annoying.

When the kids come back this Wednesday, I hope I remember my early-morning encounter with all those leaves in the middle lane and how magical it seemed to me.  And I hope I remember how unnecessary Richard's explanation was.  How it missed the point--and the moment--entirely.

I hope I remember to just listen and let them wonder a little.

Google-Mapping My Life

If there were some sort of personal satellite hovering above us, recording the paths of our lives, I suspect the images it would send back to us would be far more crosshatched than we'd have ever guessed.    Our lives are rife with crossroads, yet only a handful of those intersections tend to grab our attention.

Much like our famously underutilized brains, maybe it turns out that we only use 10 percent of our eyesight, missing most things that are right before our eyes.

For whatever reason these days, my eyes seem to be spying more intersections than usual.

Life and death, work and play, childhood and adulthood, inside and out--all these seemingly opposite things keep meeting up at the corner of Jane and Holt with surprisingly regularity, and I'm not always sure where to turn my attention.

One moment, it is on son Eric, who heads to Southeast High School Monday to learn what it means to be a teacher.  How can this even be possible, I wonder to myself, only to follow the question with another.  How could it not?

Heading down the road to the next intersection, I find myself considering daughter Allison, whose own life is rife with transitions, both physical (she moves to an apartment on Friday) and academic (she begins her new Film major in two weeks).  My reaction to both stands pretty firmly in "Yipee!"  but there are moments when I wonder if the price I pay for a more picked-up house is the yawning absence of that funny, strange spirit.

At work, my map is filled with all kinds of new roads--some more paved than others.  Navigating them, I see new faces and new job responsibilities,  as well as a formerly-favorite road now closed off to me as others begin driving down it.

Running my fingers along the larger map before me, I notice darker intersections that I'd rather pass over, ones filled with friends' cancer and death and the general decline of my parents' health.  Despite my inclinations, I click on "Street View" and try to face these with greater attention to detail.  They are, I know, the intersections that benefit from a closer view, even if I'd rather avert my eyes.

Sometimes, I feel like I've just entered Los Angeles at peak drive time, the sun in my eyes and my mind overcome by fear of the unknown.  Everything is fast and unfamiliar and just a little bit scary.  Eyes on the road, I tell myself.  And no radio or cell phone, please.  I need to concentrate.

Maybe this is why I start each day with a meandering walk through a neighborhood I know so well.  At this early-morning hour, my path is virtually absent of other  humans, and I happily roll down my proverbial window, letting in the fresh air and the monk-like whirr of cricket song.  These walks are the travels that sustain me, the ones that allow me to face the more-difficult intersections that await me, whether or not I choose to notice them.

The Turn of a Page

With my annual "educator" gig staring me in the face, it makes sense that I've gotten a bit reflective in these waning days of summer.  And, like seemingly every other 21st-century, first-world woman lucky enough to be able to pay her bills and put a little extra aside each month, I am tempted to be critical of the reflection that is staring back at me.

How on earth is it possible, I ask myself, to still consider my summer "a happy success" despite attending my dear friend's funeral just last week? 

Surely, there must be some sort of moral crack running through my core.

Whatever my justification is for this quiet joy that runs through me, I think the greater lie for me would be to say that this has been a bad summer.  Because it hasn't.

Even this past month--a month weighted down by the wrenching evidence of life's circular tendencies--I have come away heartened.  Consider Bev and Janese and Carol and JoAnn and Mark and Mike and Rob and Brenden and Kim and Mary and Kelly and Renee and neighbors too numerous to name. . . .  Frankly, I have spent time with too many good people in otherwise sterile hospital rooms to believe that joy and love can be snuffed out by the writing of that final chapter.

Yesterday, as we left Pioneers Park, Eric and I pulled the car over to check on a soft-shelled turtle hunched motionless in the middle of the road.  Clumps of still-red blood pooling at its side told us why he'd grown so still.    Moments before, we had celebrated the discovery of a fat, very much alive Monarch caterpillar and its red-beetle neighbor hidden underneath a milkweed leaf.

Everywhere there is evidence that life is full and messy, cyclical and miraculous.  Everywhere, there are stories of revolution and renewal.  Of lives filled up and lives spilled out again.

Perhaps the explanation to this contentment that runs through me, then, is that I have been lucky enough to have taken notice of these things, to have moved into and through these moments of joy and aching, to have lived them as fully as I could, eyes and ears and heart wide open. 

A Nod to My Friend, Mary Kay

Ten years ago, it was a dog and geography that brought Mary Kay Kreikemeier and me together. And, really, it was only the geography that we shared, although--for years to come--Mary Kay would go on to provide treats and poop bags to my family pets.  

You can imagine why, after that first driveway meeting with Mary Kay, I forever altered the route of my daily dog walks.  Who among us would pass up a chance to spend a little time with Mary Kay?  Under her spell, I became like a child, forever hungry to play with my neighborhood friend, never once considering that my unending knocks on her side door might be intrusive.

That's because Mary Kay always opened the door to me.  

True, there were times when I walked through that door and thought I was on the set of Little House on the Prairie--her kitchen counters covered in freshly-sealed jars of homemade salsa or just-out-of-the-oven fruit pies.  And always in quantities that boggled the mind.  

The fact that she always let me in, though?  That  was Mary Kay's magic--this ability to open doors and meet us where we were. And even though there were a thousand things that Mary Kay had mastered that I would never do particularly well, if at all--mothering and baking and living in Africa and volunteering and driving a bus come to mind--I never felt unworthy around her.  She just made me feel more...me.  


Mary Kay Kreikemeier's arrow always pointed outward, towards those people and things and ideas that she enthusiastically encountered.  She was a tender of fires, stoking her kids' passions, helping an elderly neighbor find a new dog, picking the perfect book for a young reader.  And we are all better for having had Mary Kay stoke the fires in our  lives.

I think that this rare quality of hers is one reason her kids walk on such solid ground.

As I ponder how to make my way through this life without my regular “Mary Kay” fixes,  I am heartened by the reverberating influences of that life lived so large.  How many of her family members and friends, for instance, have I come to know and love in this last chapter of her life?   And I know that, because of Mary Kay, I will open my own door for someone who has wandered my way. . . .although I may not let them in the kitchen.

I love you, my dear friend.  And I do not doubt that—right now—you are standing on your heavenly driveway—fresh-baked kolaches in hand--greeting a group of celestial neighbors and happily meeting them right where they are.

People, Places and Things...My Kind of Nouns

Barbra Streisand, who (ironically) has a lifelong case of stage fright, had it right.  People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.  That's certainly how I felt about my Fourth of July yesterday.   And, if I may throw in a tenuous reference to an observation C.S. Lewis made about the genius of Catholic parishes, there is something pretty wonderful about finding joy in the people you have no say in choosing--your family and your neighbors. 

Beyond savoring the smoked ribs and the surprisingly long-lasting Blue Angel fountain ($1.29 from Crazy Cracker), it was the people who made this Fourth especially enjoyable for me, and I have daughter Allison to thank for getting that ball rolling.  Her suggestion to bring together the Holts and the Raglins (unlike, say, gathering the Capulets and Montagues or the Jets and the Sharks) was a great one, in part, because everyone plays so well together.

While Martha Stewart might choke on a palate-cleansing spoonful of sorbet to hear me admit this (and, really, would it be such a bad thing for her to choke just a little?), my one gift as a host comes wrapped in a proverbial brown paper bag--I keep it simple.  Mostly, I keep it simple because I lack the skills to do otherwise.  But I tell myself that if the point is to gather and to enjoy that time together, a simple approach (you bring something, I bring something, then we sit down, eat and talk about it) really is the best approach.

. . . and having family members who truly enjoy each other guarantees that things will always work out well in the end.  Of course, good food, decent weather, paper plates, and a friendly Ladder Golf competition (with  prizes!) didn't hurt our chances either!

The neighborly followup was equally low-key and enjoyable.  It is amazing, the magnetic power of a city-owned sidewalk.  Drawn to it like moths to flame, as the sun set, we each made our way to the others, with promise of cold drinks, simple snacks,  and just enough fireworks and glowing punks to guarantee a short show. 

I'd be hard pressed to choose better folks than the ones I gathered with last night.

Long into their lives, I think that my children will hold dear this image of folding chairs and friendly banter, punctuated by short bursts of Crayola-flecked fountains and whirling dervishes, the happy embrace of good people come together and a warm summer's night holding us all close.   

A Joyful Noise

Eight simple steps.  That's what the lady said we'd be learning last night at my inaugural foray into the  surprisingly athletic world of belly dancing.  I'm not usually one to correct people's math, but there is no way that there were only eight steps.  And they certainly weren't simple.

But this is my "Just Say Yes" summer,  so all those mashed-up moves and mixed-up numbers didn't matter in the end.  I was there to dance and that's what I would do, however badly.

The soundtrack to my summer has been one of joyful noise and I can't quite shake that happy tune from my head.  Opening myself up to the innocuous "whatever" has enriched and delighted and stretched me in ways both silly and significant.  From mid-morning movies to Chicago subway rides, cicada searches to belly dancing and late-night sky hunts, this season has been punctuated by moments seized.

Do something slightly out of your routine, though,  and you quickly discover an interesting mix of truth and misconception.  For instance, I have often told myself that I am open-minded and curious about my world.  And, to a certain extent, those things are true.  But I am also a stubborn creature of habit, a lover of early-to-bed routine and uncluttered schedules (or, better yet, no schedule whatsoever). Those ingrained habits sometimes speak louder than my own misconceived notions of self.

I know this because friends have a way of pointing out the obvious, which is why I have been getting a lot of ribbing lately.  Tease me long enough about staying up late or donning form-fitting gypsy clothes, though,  and the scales will eventually start falling from my eyes.

Tease away, I say!  This is my summer of joyful noise, after all, and your words tell me that "Just Say Yes" just may be the most perfect motto ever.

This simple mantra certainly has served me well, even if I'm still a lousy dancer.

I Feel the Earth(worms) Move Under My Feet

On a half dozen summer nights in our married life, Mark and I have sat on our front steps, heads bent low as we watch the ground undulate while earthworms turn the soil.  It is an amazing thing to see (and hear!) all that life churning underfoot.

Most of us would assume such flimsy creatures couldn't do that kind of hard work.

This morning, on my wet walk through Woods Park, I was again reminded of the fortitude of the earthworm. Lacking the grace and magnitude of the Sandhills Crane migration, it was still a sight to see--thousands upon thousands of worms wending their way across newly-sprung stream beds, making it nearly impossible not to step on them.  Some, swimming diligently through inches-deep pools, made me wonder how long an earthworm can hold its breath, and what it is inside of them that makes their will to live so strong.

I am usually a sucker for an earthworm stuck on a sidewalk, but it quickly became obvious to me this morning that it would take a village to nudge all of these creatures to higher, drier ground.  And, really, where is the drier ground these days?

Even Woods Park's resident Mallard couple seemed flummoxed by all that water, their usually grassy home now a pool of not-quite Olympic proportions.

This morning, it is as though the saturated earth has finally belched up its insides, no more room at the inn, thank you.  And all those subterranean residents are scrambling for their lives, dodging dog paws and soaked sneakers along the way, while the walkers curse the rains for their inconvenience.

The Mother Lode

I am 35 years younger than my mom.  I can't quite shake that fact, especially when I try to get up off the floor after a game of Yahtzee or wonder what on earth I should feed my family this week, and then try to imagine myself doing either of these things for another 35 years.  

Sometimes, I don't give my mom enough credit for those 35 years she has on me.  She has, after all, lived a lot more life than I have.  She has experienced things that I cannot yet fathom, including burying two children and outliving my father.  She has also survived Spam casseroles and Richard Nixon,  breast cancer and the Internet.   And she's done it in much classier style than I ever will.

These facts stand in stark contrast to the impatience I have felt towards my mom in the last few months.

While my mom shrinks physically, it seems that I am shrinking emotionally, right alongside her.  As her memory switches between lucidity and invisible ink, my siblings and I find ourselves being assigned new roles--cab driver, personal shopper, exhausted parent--despite our longing for revising our old roles again.  As Yogi Berra once said, though, nostalgia ain't what it used to be.  And fond memories aren't particularly helpful as my family navigates these new and difficult waters.

Really, what my mom could use from me right now is a good foot rub.  That used to be one of my unofficial roles as a Raglin child, rubbing my parents' feet.   As I close my eyes and imagine rubbing my 88-year-old mother's knobby, gnarled feet, a wave of compassion comes over me.  I press my imaginary thumb gently into the sole of her foot, working small circles around it, while the rest of my hand cradles her toes.

My heart slows and softens, just thinking about giving her a foot rub.  And--somehow--the mere thought of this simple, loving act makes more room in my heart for Sally Raglin, my mother of 53 years.  The woman who needs her kids a little more these days.  And--right now, at least--I think that I just might be up for the extra work.

Morning Has Broken

This morning, I dilly dallied in bed until nearly 6:15, comfortable with a single sheet on top of me and Finn stretched out at my feet.  Laying there, I was remembering the short battle Mark and I had had last night, the one in which I was ablaze with sweat, longing to turn on the air conditioner, which meant that we'd have to shut the windows.  I won.  But I realized this morning, as Mark had pointed out last night, that I had actually lost, because my longing for freon-tinged air had cut us off from everything that was outdoors.

What's a little sweat among beings, after all, if it means we remain connected?

I sought to rectify my last evening's mistake by heading straight out the door this morning, skipping even my daily constitution in return for early-morning wanderlust with dog on lead.  It was the right thing to do.  Which walking always seems to be.  Especially when done outdoors.

Walking has done more good for me than just about anything.  This simple, grounded, daily act of moving atop and through and next to everything that I happen to encounter has made my life both smaller and larger at the same time.  Rich in its purposelessness, it is a paradox that I am happy to have.

Maybe that's why I'm so quick to transition to "summer" mode each year--because I know that there are great rewards in waking up with no "to do" list, no papers to grade, no meetings to endure.  Summer, for me, then, is the calendrical equal of walking--a meandering season in which things just happen.  Or don't.  And I am deeply content to live with these question marks planted among the cherry tomatoes out back.

I realized the other day that, in all of my 53 years on this earth, only one has included an 8-to-5 summer of "proper" adult living.  It's probably not a coincidence that that year was the only one in which a pervasive heaviness sat upon my weary shoulders.

Like the 17-year cicadas that just now are shaking off the rich loam of their worn-out beds, I emerge giddy and bleary-eyed each summer morning to a world both changed and constant, a whirring song erupting from inside of me.  And walking is the act that shakes off my old shell, letting something new and shiny emerge in its place.

It is with relief, then, that I turn off the thermostat this morning, and raise the windows that locked me in last night, welcoming the outside in.

Saying "Uncle" and Liking It

Don't tell the kids, but I quit J.K. Rowling today.  I know, I know.  What kind of librarian am I? In my defense, though, it wasn't Harry Potter I walked away from.  No, it was all these petty, annoying people in  quaint Pagford, England.  My God, how I longed for a wand or a magic spell!

Almost 250 pages into "Casual Vacancy" and I still hadn't found a one of them I'd like to eat dinner with. Well, there was one--an impoverished, mouthy teenaged girl--but I could tell that hers was a doomed life.  And so, I walked, but not until I read the last chapter, at Mark's bidding.  Suffice it to say that I was right about the girl.

Maybe it's because it's called free time, but I find that I'm almost never willing to spend it with annoying people.  Or foul people.  Even though I can be both, and sometimes at the same time.  It's no surprise, then, that my judgment hasn't always been sterling.  In fact, there are times when I try really hard to like someone or something, because I know so many other people love that person or thing--but, ultimately, I just can't do it.

Take Woody Allen, for instance. I went through a long phase, in the mid 80s, of telling myself that I loved his films.  During those years, I giggled and harrumphed and chortled my snooty, pseudo-intellectual, urban-chic way through a dozen VHS tapes of his droll, New York stories.  Invariably, I ended up laughing louder than I should have, given my dark secret of finding most of them really just annoying.  Nowadays, when I see a mousy little man with thick, black glasses, I impulsively want to rip them off his face and tell him to get over himself.

I'm a slow learner, though, considering that here I am, 30 years later, still trying to talk myself into popular things.  Right now, for instance, I really want to like "Veep."  I mean, I have always thought Julia Louis-Dreyfus was funny, so you can imagine how excited I was to discover that "Veep" is now on Netflix!

Mark and I settled down on the couch the other night to dive into this series, already giggling before the intro had even finished.  Three thousand "f" words later, (it's a 30-minute show!), I found myself wondering if the script writers really wrote down all those "f" bombs or if they were just the result of lazy improvisation.  Either way, I'm having trouble talking myself into another "Veep" marathon.

Other people and things I want to like more than I do?  Maybe you should sit down.

•Tomatoes.  I'm from the Ronald Reagan camp when it comes to tomatoes, preferring mine in squeeze-bottle form, although I keep planting--and eating--them.

•Edamame.  The first clue that people are trying too hard to like them?  They've given them a new name.  My God, people.  They are SOYBEANS.  As in TVP!  And, while it's true I've got a bag of them in the freezer right now, it's also true that the bag is three years old.  And sealed.

•Apple Watches.  I haven't worn a watch since my parents brought me back one from Ireland in the early 70s.  And I can't read the type in a phonebook, so I don't know why I'd want a computer the size of a postage stamp.  Truth is, I still struggle with my cell phone.

•The "Hangover" Movies.  See "Veep."  All those bromances, really, leave me wishing our house had a shower, because they're so filthy.  Again, I'm wondering (and worrying) about the screenwriters. . . .

•And the list goes on:  sushi (texture issues), the last season of "Glee" (annoying teens living in a $4,000 New York apartment) martinis (gag!), Bob Dylan (really?),  Hillary Clinton (still trying), yoga (should try it again, I know), the writing structure of "Sarah's Key" (mix it up, girl!), liposuction (might be changing my mind on this one). . .

Really, I'm not a hater.  And I'm no Pollyanna, either.  Like everyone else, I just like what I like.  And occasionally I try to pretend I like other things, so that I can fit in a little more.  But, mostly, I just call "uncle" when it gets to be too much.

"Uncle."

Kill the Wabbit

Mark has a thing about bunnies, and I'm not talking Playboy.  Er, at least I don't think I am.  Anyway, where was I?

Oh, yeah.  Mark and bunnies.

I'm pretty sure Mark was born with his mom's gardening gene, because, ever since I've known him, he has had a thing about plants.  And, peripherally, bunnies.  Specifically, bunnies that eat his plants.

"A story of frustration and defeat and despair.  Of dreams dashed."  These are Mark's words, spoken just now, as he asked what I was blogging about.  (Now I'm starting to think that maybe he does have a thing about Playboy bunnies. . . . ) He also said I should quit calling them "bunnies."  "They're rabbits, just like a stomach is a stomach and not a 'widdle tummy'."

Whatever.

Mark's battle with Bugs and company took a turn for the worse a few summers ago when the two of us were enjoying a little crossword battle on the patio.  At one point, we both looked up from our papers (mine much more filled out than his, by the way, but who's keeping track?) just in time to see a towering  Loosestrife jerk madly back and forth.  And, just as suddenly, at the hands of a tiny lumberjack, one final "whack" from its bunnicular bicuspids and the whole plant just toppled down.  WHAM!  Right in front of us.

I swear to God I heard a whispered "timber!"

Since then, there have been wire cages, live traps (successful last year, considering there are now six relocated rabbits doing it like bunnies at Woods Park) and, last weekend, even talk of borrowing an air rifle, which I immediately pooh poohed, imagining backyard neighbors Wayne and Pam looking out to see Mark aiming in their general direction some morning.  Our reputation is shaky enough without going all Duck Dynasty on them.

For some reason this year, the trap is basically worthless, acting more like a Kwik Shop where young rabbits pop in for a cheap snack and a pack of Winstons. And the cages are like highway on-ramps to the latest produce stand. As for the gun?  Thank goodness the gun is still at our friend's house.

And the bunnies--er, rabbits? Well, it's like a Bacchanalia back there--a mammalian frat-house party, complete with dancers and debauchery.  They cannot cram the plants down their gullets fast enough.  I'll be surprised if we aren't labeled a party house by the cops pretty soon.

Where's Elmer Fudd when you need him?!

No More Monkeys Jumpin' on My Bed

It is 5:15 a.m. and, already, I can see the outline of our crab apple against a lightening sky.

Now, it is 5:17 and, while I am appalled that that first sentence took two minutes to write itself, I cannot help but notice that, already, the robin out back sounds like an AM station, repeating its earlier songs in a dependable if somewhat limited rotation.

. . . much like the monkey mind that has gripped me this spring.

And I think to myself what a waste it is, this well-worn record of imaginary conversations filling up my head when everything else should garner my attention.

So, today--right now, actually--I reach into my head for that tiresome LP, letting my nails draw themselves against its uneven grooves, hoping to do some damage, and I take that song out of rotation for good.  No more fiddle farting around, I tell myself.  It is time to pay attention to other things.  Real things.

Like the aching beauty of the golden chain tree out front, scragglier than it was last year, yet still adorned with a hundred languorous, perfumed necklaces hanging off its branches.

Or the far-off rumble of Lincoln's midnight train as it slows into Denver with Eric and Kate aboard.

I turn my attention to Finn--my one, true disciple--now curled up at my feet, his rough fur expanding and contracting while he dreams of bunnies and bad breath.

It's working!  Already, I struggle to remember the smeared edges of my imaginary conversation, its hard-to-read words slipping out my left ear.

What ho! I say to myself.  And I laugh, having never uttered that saying before.  But I like how it feels on my tongue, the way it lightens me as it whorls in my mouth, unfamiliar and tingly, leaking through my puffed up cheeks.

What ho, indeed, this day before me, chock full of promise.

And I feel my body turn consciously towards it, open to its possibilities.