I woke up early on Sunday morning. Partly this was due to the time change with daylight saving ending, but it was also due to an insistent “chirp” from the hallway – the warning sound from a smoke detector battery that needs to be replaced.
I grumbled a little bit to myself, but then remembered that at least it was Sunday rather than a weekday and my husband Rick would probably have time to change the battery before too far into the day. I know this is something I should be comfortable doing, but our ceilings are so high and our ladders so heavy; I’m much happier to leave it to him.
But when I opened my eyes to see what time it was, I saw that the digital clockface was black. The smoke detector was chirping not due to battery malfunction but because the electricity was out.
When I was a kid, I loved blackouts. I thought they were exciting beyond description, especially when they accompanied a big snowstorm. I was eleven during the Blizzard of ’78, when we had five days of snow and the same amount of time without power. It’s hard for me to fathom now, but I loved every minute of those five electricity-free days. I loved the coziness of sitting by the fire and the novelty of playing board games with my sisters all day instead of being in school. I thought it was fantastic that we drove to my grandparents’ house, 45 minutes away, to take showers.
This is yet another example of how impervious kids are to adults’ feelings. My parents must have been miserable, being without power for five days, and yet I couldn’t have been happier.
Now I’m on the other side of the equation. I’m one of the adults who gets anxious and grumpy when the power goes out. Since we have a well rather than public sewer, no electricity means no running water, and anything romantic about it is quickly dissipated in the reality of no hot showers and no flush toilets.
And yet on Sunday morning I felt differently. I couldn’t use my computer because it has no battery, so I didn’t even have to struggle to resist the temptation to check email. Sunday is the one day of the week that I never exercise in the morning – it gets too rushed to try to fit in a workout before church, so I always wait ‘til afternoon – so I wasn’t too concerned about the lack of shower.
“The kids are going to be cross about the breakfast options,” I acknowledged to myself. They eat cereal during the week; hot cooked food like bacon and French toast are typically a weekend treat.
But I could already feel a sneaky grin spread across my face: Sorry, kids, no bacon, no French toast. You know I’d cook you a big complicated breakfast if only I could, but gosh, no electricity today! How about some cereal? The milk is still cold.
As anticipated, the kids were irritated indeed when they awoke. Days full of board games and reading are great, in their estimation, but by choice, not by imperative. All they could think about as they faced this long, quiet Sunday was the absence of any possibility of computer fun, video games, televised football, and of course bacon and French toast. Tim dispiritedly went out to pee off the edge of the kitchen porch. I mentally apologized to the neighbors.
After they’d had some cereal, I convinced them to come out to the barnyard with me to feed the animals. As we were putting our boots on, the hum of appliances and the warm yellow bath of synthetic lighting filled the house once again, and the smoke detector was silent.
I’d like to think the kids’ exuberance as we headed out to feed the cows was the result of fresh air and exercise. They chased each other, played with the dog, raced up the ladder to the hayloft, flung bales of hay down to the animals, chased each other some more on the walk back home, the very embodiment of youthful vitality. But, of course, I know better. What was fueling their delight wasn’t fresh air; it was the realization that awaiting them at home was a working furnace and a hot shower. Breakfast was long over, but they managed to get me to promise I’d make bacon for lunch.
I couldn’t blame them much, though. I never fail to marvel at the sense of exhilaration I get whenever a power outage ends. Even after just two hours without electricity, it seems like the greatest luxury imaginable to be able to use the oven, the computer, the bathroom.
The rest of the day seemed to go better due to this inauspicious start. Everything seems easy once the electricity goes back on. And, rather surprisingly, the kids are continuing this week to help me in the barnyard every morning. Apparently it doesn’t matter so much why they had so much fun; they just remember the fun itself, with tag and haybale-tossing.
And that, to me, is a fair tradeoff for their expectation that Sunday mornings should rightfully begin with Mom making bacon.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
Fall back (into a whole extra hour)
I’ve never bought a lottery ticket, but on Saturday night I had a feeling that must be what it’s like to win one. Holly and I had gone to Portland on Friday afternoon with my parents and needed to be back for church on Sunday – I was both a greeter and a Sunday school teacher this week – so we had to head home on Saturday night after dinner. I was loathe to leave because we were having such a good time, and I didn’t want to rush a fine dinner of fresh, locally caught cod and roasted potatoes, so it was a little after seven when we headed home.
And, as always, I was already feeling behind on the weekend. I was almost-but-not-entirely ready for the Sunday school class; I knew I hadn’t left things all that tidy at home before we left; I hadn’t gotten as much work done while in Maine as I’d hoped to (yes, it was a weekend, but I was a little backed up with article deadlines and should have at least tried to get some writing done); and I’d been too busy to read the newspaper in two days. Staying in Maine as late as possible felt like the right thing to do while I was there, but heading home I was growing increasingly frazzled.
And then we arrived home – grateful as always for safe travels – and a wonderful thing happened. Even though it was technically 9:30 at night, and therefore not only past time for Holly to be in bed but time for me to start wrapping up my evening as well, Rick had already set the clocks back to mark the end of daylight saving. And just like that, magical as a visit from Cinderella’s fairy godmother, it wasn’t 9:30 at all; it was 8:30.
Which made a colossal difference to me. Nine-thirty is practically bedtime; eight-thirty is still the middle of the productive part of the evening. (If neither of these sounds like a very interesting description of a Saturday night, I should just mention that a night before I have to teach Sunday school is, as far as I’m concerned, really a school night for me: it’s important to me to be well-prepared with a lesson plan, all set with any supplies I need, and ready to wake up early.) Holly was tired and went right to sleep; Tim was reading in bed. I was elated to realize as late as it felt, it suddenly wasn’t really that late at all.
The end of daylight saving always feels like such a gift to me, the one I need more than anything else: the gift of time. I know I shouldn’t live my life in such a way that an hour makes that much difference. To my husband Rick, it doesn’t. He’s a much better planner than I am; he doesn’t budget every last minute toward one thing or another. An hour one way or another doesn’t make all that much difference to him; he’s not that starved for time, and I admire that greatly, but I find it impossible to emulate. An extra hour is huge to me. Even an extra ten minutes can be a big deal most days.
Rick dislikes the day we turn the clocks back because of the sense that early daylight means the end of any hope of warm weather. I love the long sunlight evenings of June and July, but the change in the clock doesn’t really bother me. The early darkness makes the transition from afternoon to evening easier; I know when darkness falls, it’s time to get serious about making dinner and getting the kids thinking about bedtime.
But the best part is definitely that first hour, whether we change the clocks back on Sunday morning like we usually do or Saturday evening like Rick did this year. An hour. A whole extra hour. I wish it could happen more often, but even just once a year, it’s an absolutely wonderful gift.
And, as always, I was already feeling behind on the weekend. I was almost-but-not-entirely ready for the Sunday school class; I knew I hadn’t left things all that tidy at home before we left; I hadn’t gotten as much work done while in Maine as I’d hoped to (yes, it was a weekend, but I was a little backed up with article deadlines and should have at least tried to get some writing done); and I’d been too busy to read the newspaper in two days. Staying in Maine as late as possible felt like the right thing to do while I was there, but heading home I was growing increasingly frazzled.
And then we arrived home – grateful as always for safe travels – and a wonderful thing happened. Even though it was technically 9:30 at night, and therefore not only past time for Holly to be in bed but time for me to start wrapping up my evening as well, Rick had already set the clocks back to mark the end of daylight saving. And just like that, magical as a visit from Cinderella’s fairy godmother, it wasn’t 9:30 at all; it was 8:30.
Which made a colossal difference to me. Nine-thirty is practically bedtime; eight-thirty is still the middle of the productive part of the evening. (If neither of these sounds like a very interesting description of a Saturday night, I should just mention that a night before I have to teach Sunday school is, as far as I’m concerned, really a school night for me: it’s important to me to be well-prepared with a lesson plan, all set with any supplies I need, and ready to wake up early.) Holly was tired and went right to sleep; Tim was reading in bed. I was elated to realize as late as it felt, it suddenly wasn’t really that late at all.
The end of daylight saving always feels like such a gift to me, the one I need more than anything else: the gift of time. I know I shouldn’t live my life in such a way that an hour makes that much difference. To my husband Rick, it doesn’t. He’s a much better planner than I am; he doesn’t budget every last minute toward one thing or another. An hour one way or another doesn’t make all that much difference to him; he’s not that starved for time, and I admire that greatly, but I find it impossible to emulate. An extra hour is huge to me. Even an extra ten minutes can be a big deal most days.
Rick dislikes the day we turn the clocks back because of the sense that early daylight means the end of any hope of warm weather. I love the long sunlight evenings of June and July, but the change in the clock doesn’t really bother me. The early darkness makes the transition from afternoon to evening easier; I know when darkness falls, it’s time to get serious about making dinner and getting the kids thinking about bedtime.
But the best part is definitely that first hour, whether we change the clocks back on Sunday morning like we usually do or Saturday evening like Rick did this year. An hour. A whole extra hour. I wish it could happen more often, but even just once a year, it’s an absolutely wonderful gift.
Friday, November 5, 2010
In admiration of November
Ever since moving back here in late fall of 2001, I’ve believed November to be the loveliest month on the farm. Absent the verdant brilliance of June or the stunning golden and crimson colors of October, November has a quiet splendor, with its yellowed fields, early sunsets and bare gray tree branches. Five days into November, here are some of this year’s hallmarks of a magnificent month:
* The sight of the ten-year-old who lives next door on her cantering horse, the sunlight falling across the girl and horse in flashing planes of yellow as they carve wide circles over the yellow-green grass of the pasture
* The sheep hustling out of their enclosure in the morning as soon as I unlatch the gate to get their share of the hay before the cows decimate the bales
* A six-point antlered buck crossing the driveway just in front of me, stopping turn his big head slowly to look at me with big brown eyes before he steps on into the woods
* Yellow leaves so thick across the footpath that I can’t see the border between gravel path and the grass
* Frost making a smooth white plane across the lawn as the sun rises
* Hank, a very large bull, breaking the top plank of the fence as he pushes his neck through to eat the few remaining leaves on a tree at the edge of our yard
* A border of ice on the brook first thing in the morning
* Squirrels skittering along the fences
* The dog, uncharacteristically barking into the darkness when I let her out before bedtime. Maybe she sees a coyote? A bear?
The growing season is ending. The ground will freeze soon. But living things are busy at this time of year: some growing, eating, foraging; others – leaves and plants – dying. November’s assets repeat themselves year after year, appearing to me to be lovelier with each year that goes by.
* The sight of the ten-year-old who lives next door on her cantering horse, the sunlight falling across the girl and horse in flashing planes of yellow as they carve wide circles over the yellow-green grass of the pasture
* The sheep hustling out of their enclosure in the morning as soon as I unlatch the gate to get their share of the hay before the cows decimate the bales
* A six-point antlered buck crossing the driveway just in front of me, stopping turn his big head slowly to look at me with big brown eyes before he steps on into the woods
* Yellow leaves so thick across the footpath that I can’t see the border between gravel path and the grass
* Frost making a smooth white plane across the lawn as the sun rises
* Hank, a very large bull, breaking the top plank of the fence as he pushes his neck through to eat the few remaining leaves on a tree at the edge of our yard
* A border of ice on the brook first thing in the morning
* Squirrels skittering along the fences
* The dog, uncharacteristically barking into the darkness when I let her out before bedtime. Maybe she sees a coyote? A bear?
The growing season is ending. The ground will freeze soon. But living things are busy at this time of year: some growing, eating, foraging; others – leaves and plants – dying. November’s assets repeat themselves year after year, appearing to me to be lovelier with each year that goes by.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Yes, again with the gratitude
Two different people, unbeknownst to each other, commented in the past couple of weeks that I write too much about gratitude. “We get it, you’re a really good person and you’re always appreciative of everything,” said one of them. The other was more terse: she simply scrawled in the margin of a draft I had asked her to review, next to a passage about how grateful I was for the blessings of the present, “Enough already.”
And yet it’s hard to internalize this particular critique, the way I might if, for example, someone were to say (quite rightly) that I should use fewer adverbs or not always give examples in sets of three. When I get those kinds of criticisms, I tend to incorporate the recommendations swiftly into my writing. But cutting back on adverbs seems to be easier than cutting back on gratitude.
So once again, I find myself thinking about gratitude. Because my two critics were right: it is something I tend to, well, dwell on. But often I write about gratitude for big things, like an absence of current terrorist attacks or the fact that my children are so physically and mentally healthy. I still sometimes catch myself overlooking the smaller reasons for gratitude. Two days ago, I posted a comment on Twitter about starting my day with a two-mile run and then a cup of coffee. Someone I don’t even know, writing under the umbrella of a sports company, posted this response to my note: “A two-mile run followed by some coffee sounds like a perfect start to the week. Keep it up.”
My initial response, I’m sorry to admit, was a bit of an eye-roll. Keep it up? My running streak is now three years and almost three months long. Going on a two-mile run and then drinking a cup of hot coffee is how approximately 95% of my days begin. I’ve run every day for the past 1,180 days. I don’t really need to be urged to “Keep it up.”
But then I read it again, and this time stopped on the first sentence: “A two-mile run followed by some coffee sounds like a perfect start to the week.” Yes. It is a perfect start to the week. And it’s how most of my weeks start. Also how they middle and end.
But it’s little things like this that I sometimes forget to observe with gratitude. My days start with a run and coffee: what could be better? My workdays consist of sitting in a sunny kitchen in a quiet house writing for pay: what could be better? Most evenings, those when I don’t have meetings or social commitments or errands to do, I change into sweats after dinner and read to my kids: what could be better?
My mother told me an informative story recently. She receives her mail at the post office rather than by delivery. Because the paper recycling piles up so fast at home, with all the catalogs, envelopes and inserts that arrive in the mail day after day, she throws whatever she doesn’t want into the recycling bin at the post office before she leaves. Sometimes she even reads the mail while standing at the post office counter and leaves it in the recycling there. (I have a post office box also and do all of these same things.)
Last week, she received a form letter with the results of a routine mammogram. The letter said that the results showed no cause for concern and she should come back in a year. She told me she dropped it in the recycling bin…and then rethought the action. “That’s important,” she thought. “A healthy mammogram? That’s not just a piece of paper to send to the shredder. That’s a big deal. That’s a piece of paper worth bringing home.” It wasn’t just a matter of being generally grateful for good health, which, like me, she always consciously is; it was this particular piece of paper bearing good news: something small and tangible for which to be thankful.
So I’m holding on to that Twitter post because it reminds me that even though I start nearly every day with running and coffee, it’s still a nearly perfect way to start the day. I’m grateful for it. And yes, I say that a lot. But my coffee mug is like my mom’s slip of paper: nothing good should go randomly into the shredder, literally or metaphorically. So I’ll keep that post to remind myself of just how grateful I should be, yet again.
And yet it’s hard to internalize this particular critique, the way I might if, for example, someone were to say (quite rightly) that I should use fewer adverbs or not always give examples in sets of three. When I get those kinds of criticisms, I tend to incorporate the recommendations swiftly into my writing. But cutting back on adverbs seems to be easier than cutting back on gratitude.
So once again, I find myself thinking about gratitude. Because my two critics were right: it is something I tend to, well, dwell on. But often I write about gratitude for big things, like an absence of current terrorist attacks or the fact that my children are so physically and mentally healthy. I still sometimes catch myself overlooking the smaller reasons for gratitude. Two days ago, I posted a comment on Twitter about starting my day with a two-mile run and then a cup of coffee. Someone I don’t even know, writing under the umbrella of a sports company, posted this response to my note: “A two-mile run followed by some coffee sounds like a perfect start to the week. Keep it up.”
My initial response, I’m sorry to admit, was a bit of an eye-roll. Keep it up? My running streak is now three years and almost three months long. Going on a two-mile run and then drinking a cup of hot coffee is how approximately 95% of my days begin. I’ve run every day for the past 1,180 days. I don’t really need to be urged to “Keep it up.”
But then I read it again, and this time stopped on the first sentence: “A two-mile run followed by some coffee sounds like a perfect start to the week.” Yes. It is a perfect start to the week. And it’s how most of my weeks start. Also how they middle and end.
But it’s little things like this that I sometimes forget to observe with gratitude. My days start with a run and coffee: what could be better? My workdays consist of sitting in a sunny kitchen in a quiet house writing for pay: what could be better? Most evenings, those when I don’t have meetings or social commitments or errands to do, I change into sweats after dinner and read to my kids: what could be better?
My mother told me an informative story recently. She receives her mail at the post office rather than by delivery. Because the paper recycling piles up so fast at home, with all the catalogs, envelopes and inserts that arrive in the mail day after day, she throws whatever she doesn’t want into the recycling bin at the post office before she leaves. Sometimes she even reads the mail while standing at the post office counter and leaves it in the recycling there. (I have a post office box also and do all of these same things.)
Last week, she received a form letter with the results of a routine mammogram. The letter said that the results showed no cause for concern and she should come back in a year. She told me she dropped it in the recycling bin…and then rethought the action. “That’s important,” she thought. “A healthy mammogram? That’s not just a piece of paper to send to the shredder. That’s a big deal. That’s a piece of paper worth bringing home.” It wasn’t just a matter of being generally grateful for good health, which, like me, she always consciously is; it was this particular piece of paper bearing good news: something small and tangible for which to be thankful.
So I’m holding on to that Twitter post because it reminds me that even though I start nearly every day with running and coffee, it’s still a nearly perfect way to start the day. I’m grateful for it. And yes, I say that a lot. But my coffee mug is like my mom’s slip of paper: nothing good should go randomly into the shredder, literally or metaphorically. So I’ll keep that post to remind myself of just how grateful I should be, yet again.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Files off to the self-publishing house
It was three years and three months ago – August of 2007 – that I started thinking about a book I wanted to write. I’d written a Boston Globe story the year before about people who run every single day without ever taking a day off – “streak runners,” not to be confused with streakers – and I thought the topic merited far more than an 800-word newspaper feature. Plus my 8-year-old son and I had started our own running competition, challenging each other to see how many consecutive days we could do together. Tracking our “streak” might make a good appendix to my book about these men and women who run thirty or forty years daily without a day off, I thought.
Three years, three months. Yesterday morning I made my last edit (catching yet another critical typo; they seem to be never-ending when I don’t have the Boston Globe’s copy desk watching my back), converted the 250-page word file to a PDF, and sent it off to a self-publishing house. Final production stages are now under way.
Self-publishing was not my initial hope. I wanted my first finished full-length book to get into print the traditional way, through a commercial publisher. And I did come close. I did my due diligence, identifying literary agents who might be interested in this project, sending off proposals and sample chapters. And plenty of them responded positively, asking to take a closer look at the manuscript. It wasn’t long before I found one who seemed like the perfect match for this project: she liked the concept, she liked my writing, and she definitely had the professional acumen to give my book its best shot at publication.
Still, it didn’t quite work out. Signing a contract with an agent was a thrill, but once I’d done that, I realized that the many unpublished writers who see getting an agent as the Holy Grail are missing the bigger picture. She tried really hard, but we just couldn’t quite get there with a commercial publishing house. By this time, what I thought would be a book about runners had evolved into a memoir about parenting, and how I tried to strengthen my relationship with my growing son through undertaking a running streak. What I thought would be an appendix had turned into the crux of the piece; now the other runners were mere footnotes. “I’m just not sure there’s a big enough market to carry this book” was what most editors told my agent.
And the thing is, I couldn’t disagree with them. A commercial publisher wants to feel assured that a book will sell well into the five figures. Twenty thousand copies. Fifty thousand copies. It depends who you ask. And it’s one thing to say “Yes, I believe in this project of mine; I wrote it to the best of my abilities and I firmly believe it has a market,” but I know enough about the reading public to not be certain at all that there are twenty thousand individuals out there who would part with $24.95 for the privilege of reading my memoir. I’m sure there are inspirational speakers who would say “If you don’t believe in your project one thousand percent, you’ll never succeed with it,” and maybe they’re right. I believed in the value and strength of my project; I just didn’t believe it had twenty thousand potential readers.
On the other hand, if it never saw the light of day, it would have accrued all of five readers, the five friends I specifically asked to give feedback on my work in progress. And that didn’t seem like the right way for this project to end either.
Hence, the decision to self-publish. I’m not out to make money off of this; I’m out to validate a creative endeavor on which I spent three years by finding people who consider it worth reading. Not twenty thousand people. Two hundred. Maybe even five hundred. Five hundred sounds great to me.
I worked on this for three years, and in another couple of weeks it will be in print. Not everyone who reads it will like it; confessional memoirs about parenting, whether or not they take place against the backdrop of recreational running, are not everyone’s cup of tea. But maybe two-thirds of my readers will consider it a really worthwhile read. In my opinion, that would validate my efforts. It’s not the glory of a traditionally published work, but it’s the joy of having something I labored over be read. And at least this time around, I’ve decided that’s good enough.
Three years, three months. Yesterday morning I made my last edit (catching yet another critical typo; they seem to be never-ending when I don’t have the Boston Globe’s copy desk watching my back), converted the 250-page word file to a PDF, and sent it off to a self-publishing house. Final production stages are now under way.
Self-publishing was not my initial hope. I wanted my first finished full-length book to get into print the traditional way, through a commercial publisher. And I did come close. I did my due diligence, identifying literary agents who might be interested in this project, sending off proposals and sample chapters. And plenty of them responded positively, asking to take a closer look at the manuscript. It wasn’t long before I found one who seemed like the perfect match for this project: she liked the concept, she liked my writing, and she definitely had the professional acumen to give my book its best shot at publication.
Still, it didn’t quite work out. Signing a contract with an agent was a thrill, but once I’d done that, I realized that the many unpublished writers who see getting an agent as the Holy Grail are missing the bigger picture. She tried really hard, but we just couldn’t quite get there with a commercial publishing house. By this time, what I thought would be a book about runners had evolved into a memoir about parenting, and how I tried to strengthen my relationship with my growing son through undertaking a running streak. What I thought would be an appendix had turned into the crux of the piece; now the other runners were mere footnotes. “I’m just not sure there’s a big enough market to carry this book” was what most editors told my agent.
And the thing is, I couldn’t disagree with them. A commercial publisher wants to feel assured that a book will sell well into the five figures. Twenty thousand copies. Fifty thousand copies. It depends who you ask. And it’s one thing to say “Yes, I believe in this project of mine; I wrote it to the best of my abilities and I firmly believe it has a market,” but I know enough about the reading public to not be certain at all that there are twenty thousand individuals out there who would part with $24.95 for the privilege of reading my memoir. I’m sure there are inspirational speakers who would say “If you don’t believe in your project one thousand percent, you’ll never succeed with it,” and maybe they’re right. I believed in the value and strength of my project; I just didn’t believe it had twenty thousand potential readers.
On the other hand, if it never saw the light of day, it would have accrued all of five readers, the five friends I specifically asked to give feedback on my work in progress. And that didn’t seem like the right way for this project to end either.
Hence, the decision to self-publish. I’m not out to make money off of this; I’m out to validate a creative endeavor on which I spent three years by finding people who consider it worth reading. Not twenty thousand people. Two hundred. Maybe even five hundred. Five hundred sounds great to me.
I worked on this for three years, and in another couple of weeks it will be in print. Not everyone who reads it will like it; confessional memoirs about parenting, whether or not they take place against the backdrop of recreational running, are not everyone’s cup of tea. But maybe two-thirds of my readers will consider it a really worthwhile read. In my opinion, that would validate my efforts. It’s not the glory of a traditionally published work, but it’s the joy of having something I labored over be read. And at least this time around, I’ve decided that’s good enough.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Autumn picnic
Early last week during the unseasonably warm weather, Holly and I took a late-afternoon walk. We passed a field near our house, and Holly noticed that a very tall oak tree had toppled over from the woods edging the field and was now lying almost all the way across it.
As she looked at it, it wasn’t so much like an idea formed in her head as like a snapshot popped into her brain. “I would like to have a picnic there with Samantha,” she announced.
Holly has several close friends, and she doesn’t usually plan picnics, so why this particular conflation of details – a picnic, Samantha – I can’t explain. I also suspected that by the next day, or at least once the warm weather broke, she’d forget about the plan.
But she didn’t. Two days later, she was still asking me if I’d emailed Samantha’s mother yet to invite the two of them on a picnic. So I sent the email, and they graciously accepted, and then it was menu-planning time.
Apparently to Holly, planning (and hosting) a picnic means drawing up a complicated menu that I am then expected to execute. Tea sandwiches – three or four varieties. Fruit salad (which would have to be made the morning of the picnic, for the sake of freshness). Apple crisp for dessert, Holly requested: warm from the oven.
I managed to make a few modifications. Two kinds of tea sandwiches rather than three. Sliced banana bread, which we happened to have in the freezer just waiting for an occasion. And how about those fancy chocolates I received for my birthday last week in place of the freshly baked apple crisp? (The fact that I was willing to break out my secret stash of fancy chocolates attests to just how much I didn’t want to have to worry about making an apple crisp.)
Holly was amenable, and I found little jobs for her to do as I prepared the food that Saturday morning: she fetched plastic plates and napkins from the paper goods closet, and then cleaned out the wagon, which we would need to transport our bounty to the field.
When we got there, everything seemed to unfold just as Holly pictured it. We shook out our picnic blanket, and the moms sat in the sun chatting (and munching on the sliced apples and brie that our guests had contributed to the meal) while Holly and Samantha examined the tree branches and jotted down their observations in small spiral notebooks Holly had brought along specifically for this purpose. (It turned out she had chosen the location because she recognized that when a tall tree falls down, it gives you a rare opportunity to examine what’s in those high branches that you can never see in a standing tree.) After we ate our tea sandwiches and drank our lemonade, Holly pulled out the songbook she’d brought along and sang a couple of songs she wrote last week. Samantha was a great sport: she seemed perfectly content with the remarkably micro-choreographed event Holly had planned.
For the two moms, it was a great chance to catch up; we’d both been busy all fall and hadn’t seen much of each other. For the girls, it appeared to be a happy fall afternoon, though the weather had turned a lot cooler since Holly first conceived of the plan, and we were wearing hats, gloves and fleece jackets. Mostly, Holly seemed pleased that the plan had unfolded just the way she pictured it.
But she also seemed unsurprised. She invited Samantha on a picnic; Samantha accepted. She brought notebooks for writing observations; observations were duly made. She gave me a picnic menu; I prepared the food. It’s nice to be eight years old and able to control an event to that degree, and I suppose it worked mostly because I went along so willingly. But this was a rare case where I was happy to take orders from my child. Holly had a plan and with help from me was able to make it come to fruition. The results were pleasing to everyone.
Usually, life is a lot more complicated. Parties don’t work out exactly as you expect; menus don’t turn out just as you imagine they will; the weather changes in unpredictable ways. But not this time. This time everything worked out just as Holly planned. I’m not sure if she realizes how rare that is, but I know it was a happy day for her, and I can only hope she’ll remember how happy she was on this day at some point in the future when plans turn out to be not quite always so easy to enact.
As she looked at it, it wasn’t so much like an idea formed in her head as like a snapshot popped into her brain. “I would like to have a picnic there with Samantha,” she announced.
Holly has several close friends, and she doesn’t usually plan picnics, so why this particular conflation of details – a picnic, Samantha – I can’t explain. I also suspected that by the next day, or at least once the warm weather broke, she’d forget about the plan.
But she didn’t. Two days later, she was still asking me if I’d emailed Samantha’s mother yet to invite the two of them on a picnic. So I sent the email, and they graciously accepted, and then it was menu-planning time.
Apparently to Holly, planning (and hosting) a picnic means drawing up a complicated menu that I am then expected to execute. Tea sandwiches – three or four varieties. Fruit salad (which would have to be made the morning of the picnic, for the sake of freshness). Apple crisp for dessert, Holly requested: warm from the oven.
I managed to make a few modifications. Two kinds of tea sandwiches rather than three. Sliced banana bread, which we happened to have in the freezer just waiting for an occasion. And how about those fancy chocolates I received for my birthday last week in place of the freshly baked apple crisp? (The fact that I was willing to break out my secret stash of fancy chocolates attests to just how much I didn’t want to have to worry about making an apple crisp.)
Holly was amenable, and I found little jobs for her to do as I prepared the food that Saturday morning: she fetched plastic plates and napkins from the paper goods closet, and then cleaned out the wagon, which we would need to transport our bounty to the field.
When we got there, everything seemed to unfold just as Holly pictured it. We shook out our picnic blanket, and the moms sat in the sun chatting (and munching on the sliced apples and brie that our guests had contributed to the meal) while Holly and Samantha examined the tree branches and jotted down their observations in small spiral notebooks Holly had brought along specifically for this purpose. (It turned out she had chosen the location because she recognized that when a tall tree falls down, it gives you a rare opportunity to examine what’s in those high branches that you can never see in a standing tree.) After we ate our tea sandwiches and drank our lemonade, Holly pulled out the songbook she’d brought along and sang a couple of songs she wrote last week. Samantha was a great sport: she seemed perfectly content with the remarkably micro-choreographed event Holly had planned.
For the two moms, it was a great chance to catch up; we’d both been busy all fall and hadn’t seen much of each other. For the girls, it appeared to be a happy fall afternoon, though the weather had turned a lot cooler since Holly first conceived of the plan, and we were wearing hats, gloves and fleece jackets. Mostly, Holly seemed pleased that the plan had unfolded just the way she pictured it.
But she also seemed unsurprised. She invited Samantha on a picnic; Samantha accepted. She brought notebooks for writing observations; observations were duly made. She gave me a picnic menu; I prepared the food. It’s nice to be eight years old and able to control an event to that degree, and I suppose it worked mostly because I went along so willingly. But this was a rare case where I was happy to take orders from my child. Holly had a plan and with help from me was able to make it come to fruition. The results were pleasing to everyone.
Usually, life is a lot more complicated. Parties don’t work out exactly as you expect; menus don’t turn out just as you imagine they will; the weather changes in unpredictable ways. But not this time. This time everything worked out just as Holly planned. I’m not sure if she realizes how rare that is, but I know it was a happy day for her, and I can only hope she’ll remember how happy she was on this day at some point in the future when plans turn out to be not quite always so easy to enact.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Halloween retrospective
Halloween is a happy event in Carlisle. Last night was chillier than many years, but just as much fun. Although it’s always appealing to maintain regular traditions, Halloween varies a little bit each year, and that’s fine too – at this point, it’s to be expected.
This year Tim opted to stay home and watch the Patriots rather than trick-or-treat. He’s been ambivalent about putting on a costume for the past two years now, and it didn’t really surprise me that he greeted the idea of trick-or-treating less than warmly this year, but I had hoped he would walk along with us even if he didn’t go up to the doors. (He knew that Holly would share her take with him merely for being present.) He didn’t, though; he chose to stay home. But not too long after we left him, I received a text message from him saying he’d gone over to my parents’ house rather than stay home alone, so that made me feel better about how he was spending his evening. (Since we live so far off the road, we never expect nor get trick-or-treaters, so it’s fine to have no one home.)
Also different this year: though my friends Lisa and David hosted their annual pre-trick-or-treating party in their big yard just outside the town center, no one in my family but me wanted to leave the Patriots game broadcast for it. I wanted to be there enough that I went anyway, though, just for half an hour. It was enough time to chat with the other families who were there and eat a plateful of appetizers, as well as a bowl of the southwestern pumpkin soup that I had made and delivered to Lisa’s stovetop earlier in the day.
After Lisa and David’s party, I went home to pick up Rick and Holly, and we headed back to the Town Center, which hosts hundreds of trick-or-treaters every year, a tradition that evolved in response to the fact that so many Carlisle neighborhoods are just too sparsely populated to be ideal for trick-or-treating. For the kids, going to the Center an easy way to reach lots of houses without too much walking, but there’s still enough walking that it feels like the kids are getting a workout along with their chocolate and candy corns. For the adults, with such a crowd in a relatively small area, it feels like a giant floating cocktail party; everywhere you look, you see familiar faces (and while cocktails aren’t officially part of the festivities, no one looks too closely at all those thermal coffee cups being toted along).
Some years we’ve gone with groups of friends, but having it be just the three of us was special. We could go at our own pace and didn’t have a lot of different people to keep track of. At most houses, Rick and I stood at the curb while Holly made her way up to the door; sometimes I went with her if it was the home of someone I particularly wanted to say hello to. Through the windows of the well-lit parsonage, we glimpsed our minister dressed in a black cape and watching the football game in between trick-or-treaters.
Some traditionalists in Carlisle – one of whom accosted me at coffee hour at church yesterday morning – dislike the newer format of trick-or-treating in the Town Center. They liked it better when kids went out in their own neighborhoods, and in some parts of town where the neighborhoods are laid out more traditionally, kids still do trick-or-treat. But I really like the Town Center idea. Over the past few years, when it’s not Halloween, the conversation arises periodically as to whether Carlisle is a lonely place, whether the emphasis on solitude and natural splendor results in too little socialization. Last night it didn’t feel like that at all. The whole town was out – though many were unrecognizable behind masks or make-up – and I was happy to be celebrating another Halloween with all of them.
This year Tim opted to stay home and watch the Patriots rather than trick-or-treat. He’s been ambivalent about putting on a costume for the past two years now, and it didn’t really surprise me that he greeted the idea of trick-or-treating less than warmly this year, but I had hoped he would walk along with us even if he didn’t go up to the doors. (He knew that Holly would share her take with him merely for being present.) He didn’t, though; he chose to stay home. But not too long after we left him, I received a text message from him saying he’d gone over to my parents’ house rather than stay home alone, so that made me feel better about how he was spending his evening. (Since we live so far off the road, we never expect nor get trick-or-treaters, so it’s fine to have no one home.)
Also different this year: though my friends Lisa and David hosted their annual pre-trick-or-treating party in their big yard just outside the town center, no one in my family but me wanted to leave the Patriots game broadcast for it. I wanted to be there enough that I went anyway, though, just for half an hour. It was enough time to chat with the other families who were there and eat a plateful of appetizers, as well as a bowl of the southwestern pumpkin soup that I had made and delivered to Lisa’s stovetop earlier in the day.
After Lisa and David’s party, I went home to pick up Rick and Holly, and we headed back to the Town Center, which hosts hundreds of trick-or-treaters every year, a tradition that evolved in response to the fact that so many Carlisle neighborhoods are just too sparsely populated to be ideal for trick-or-treating. For the kids, going to the Center an easy way to reach lots of houses without too much walking, but there’s still enough walking that it feels like the kids are getting a workout along with their chocolate and candy corns. For the adults, with such a crowd in a relatively small area, it feels like a giant floating cocktail party; everywhere you look, you see familiar faces (and while cocktails aren’t officially part of the festivities, no one looks too closely at all those thermal coffee cups being toted along).
Some years we’ve gone with groups of friends, but having it be just the three of us was special. We could go at our own pace and didn’t have a lot of different people to keep track of. At most houses, Rick and I stood at the curb while Holly made her way up to the door; sometimes I went with her if it was the home of someone I particularly wanted to say hello to. Through the windows of the well-lit parsonage, we glimpsed our minister dressed in a black cape and watching the football game in between trick-or-treaters.
Some traditionalists in Carlisle – one of whom accosted me at coffee hour at church yesterday morning – dislike the newer format of trick-or-treating in the Town Center. They liked it better when kids went out in their own neighborhoods, and in some parts of town where the neighborhoods are laid out more traditionally, kids still do trick-or-treat. But I really like the Town Center idea. Over the past few years, when it’s not Halloween, the conversation arises periodically as to whether Carlisle is a lonely place, whether the emphasis on solitude and natural splendor results in too little socialization. Last night it didn’t feel like that at all. The whole town was out – though many were unrecognizable behind masks or make-up – and I was happy to be celebrating another Halloween with all of them.
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