It’s happened again. Another harrowing national tragedy. This time in Boston, during that city’s much-beloved marathon, on Massachusetts’ annual Patriot’s Day, a day of holiday and celebration.
More innocent lives were lost yesterday, April 15. More bodies were maimed, more souls damaged, more children left without a parent, more parents’ lives ravaged by the loss of a child. Another beautiful day in April, forever marked by catastrophe and sadness. Today is the six-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech shooting. This Friday, 18 years will have passed since the Oklahoma City bombing. As in the 1996 bombing at the Atlanta Olympics, a jubilant time in the life of a city has been twisted into ugliness, a blood-red-letter day of mourning. As in December’s horrific mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, children are among the victims. As on all these days and on September 11, those of us still standing are shakier, less steady.
Perhaps somewhat guiltily, we are relieved that it wasn’t our time. Not yet, at least. But we know it could easily have been us. It could happen to any of us. And increasingly often, it does. Our family was concerned, in particular, about friends from our church. The daughter was running the marathon, and her parents were there to cheer her on. Luckily, she is young, strong and very fast. We learned through Facebook that the family was unhurt physically.
Now, as a nation, we will pause. We will mourn. Many of us will pray. We may find ourselves at a loss for how to proceed. But then, as we always do after such calamities, we will rally. We will come together in love and support of those who died, of those runners now missing limbs, of those who have lost loved ones, of those who will assist friends and family as they face years of surgery and difficult recovery. We will stand up and say that we refuse to get used to this. We refuse to accept such violence as the natural order of things. And through our shared strength and determination, we will show that no matter what, the power of goodness will win out over evil. Immediate proof of this is demonstrated by the many people who stepped in, selflessly and heroically, to do everything they could to help injured strangers.
My prayers will continue to go out for all those impacted by this tragedy, and for all Bostonians, who, I would imagine, take personally this despicable strike against their hometown.
Our group was a few minutes late in returning to the bus after touring Mont Saint Michel. The Chickamaugans, hopping mad because of the delay, demanded an apology. I can’t remember if we apologized or not. If we did, I’m sure we managed to ooze contempt and condescension. Our traveling companions had clearly missed the magic of Mont Saint-Michel. That night we were to stay in nearby Saint-Malo in a French boarding school, empty over the Easter holidays. The trip to the Lycée Jacques Cartier didn’t take long. The school, in a pleasant wooded setting, consisted of long, low gray stone modernist buildings. It appeared to be very new at the time. We immediately went to dinner. In a big room adjacent to the dining hall were several huge round basins for washing hands. The water, controlled by foot levers, came out from the center in a smooth round sheet, as in some fountains. Bars of soap on metal rods extended out over the basin. Seven or eight people could wash their hands at once. It was the highest-tech lavatory we had ever seen. Dinner was unremarkable. After dinner we headed up to the dormitories. The girls all slept in one enormous room. Partitions that approached but did not reach the ceiling separated the space into smaller areas, each with six beds. My friend Jackie, her mother and I found ourselves rooming with three Chickamauga girls, much to our dismay. The bathrooms were of great interest. There were eight shower stalls and perhaps even more bidets (a word I misspelled biday throughout my journal), but only two toilets. Very strange, we thought, but consistent, as our hotel room in Paris had had a bidet but no toilet.
That night, of course, none of us was in the mood for sleep; the camp-like living quarters spoke to the fundamental need for teenagers to indulge in late-night antics. Our Chickamauga roommates seemed to have forgotten their animosity toward us after the bus incident, and we gained a new appreciation for them. They entertained the crowd with comically rendered country songs, liberally borrowing from episodes of the TV show Hee-Haw. My friends and I considered ourselves too cosmopolitan to admit to watching that show, but we had to say that the Chickamaugans could have starred in it. They had the requisite country twangs, the goofy, expansive personalities, and they really sang well together.
After the North Georgians had concluded their performance, Jackie and I joined Katie and Rebecca in the room they shared with other friends from our school. We were engaged in some sort of forgotten silliness when one of us happened to look out the window and notice several boys hanging around outside. We didn’t know them; they were evidently French locals. This was an unexpected and exciting development. My memory of what follows is hazy, and my journal, surprisingly, doesn’t record the details. My guess is that windows were opened, and intercultural flirting began. The boys felt sufficiently encouraged that they tried to scale the building and climb in the windows. Seems like I remember one of them standing on a portion of the lower roof. When it looked like they were really planning to storm the barricades, our group tried to backtrack. We didn’t really plan to invite them in. How do you say Never mind in French? I assume we locked the windows and hissed Arretez!Allez-vous!Va t’en! The commotion awakened one of our chaperones. She addressed the boys with severe words, the gist of which was unmistakable no matter the language. After they had retreated and disappeared, she treated us to similarly severe words and herded us back to our little beds.
Although Jackie and I returned to our room, we still had no intention of sleeping. We sneaked off quietly to the expansive bathrooms, hoping for further distraction. To our delight, we found a couple of forgotten bras hanging on hooks outside the shower stalls. They were for full-figured girls, unlike us, and made for ideal comic props. Whatever we did with those bras (and I can’t remember), it was the height of middle-school hilarity. It must have been near 3 AM when we returned to our cubicle. I had never been to sleep-away summer camp, and I never would go, but that night, I got an exhilarating taste of it.
It was Jackie’s birthday yesterday. After all these years, when we get together, we still tend to stay up late, talking and laughing. The difference is that today, we catch up on the current events of our lives while also reveling in so much shared history. It’s one of the nicer things about growing older. It makes the present moment all the sweeter.
Yesterday, our daughter went to New York City on a whirlwind, 24-hour trip with her drama class. The group left from the school by bus at 5 AM, and returned at 5 AM this morning. They saw two Broadway shows–Newsies and the eagerly awaited Matilda, still in previews. A Newsies cast member led the kids in a dance workshop. They had some free time, so I’m expecting a a full report on wandering Times Square characters. Are the Naked Cowboys in season yet? Were there plentiful sightings of Elmo, Shrek, Hello Kitty, Grandma Liberty and the Tin Man? How was the singing waitstaff at Ellen’s Stardust Diner? D is still asleep, so I haven’t heard the details of the trip yet. I’m very grateful to the drama teacher and to the parent chaperones accompanying the group. I’m especially thankful that I was not among them. While I enjoy New York in small, metered doses, I’m relieved that crowded, pre-dawn bus rides are predominantly in my past.
As D was preparing for the excursion that launched her spring break, I was recalling the days when I looked forward to my own eighth-grade adventure. I mentioned in an earlier post that I had the unlikely good fortune to participate in a school trip to France and England. (See A Small Reunion of the Rutherford Hall Gang, Nov. 2011.) As I said then, it was a rare event for a group from the Atlanta Public City Schools to venture anywhere for spring break in the 70s, much less to Europe. It was just about unheard of then for middle-schoolers in our area to take part in such study trips. But we were blessed with a dynamic and unusually dedicated French teacher, Martha Elizabeth Correll. She decided we must see France, and we must see it with her. We loved and admired the young, fun and charismatic Mrs. Correll. She seemed to be fond of us, too. She found a bargain-priced trip through the now extinct Foreign Study League. Nine of us, including several of my best friends, managed to persuade our parents that this was an opportunity not to be missed.
Mrs. Correll encouraged us to keep a journal during our trip, and naturally I saved mine. In my first entry, dated a few days before our departure, I mentioned my vague fear of flying. I had never been on a plane before: It couldn’t be especially frightening, could it? Katie, who wouldn’t ride the roller coasters at Six Flags, had flown before, and she wasn’t scared.
Above, most of our group at the Atlanta Airport, ready to board the plane to New York. Several of us hold our blue and white Foreign Study League carry-ons. Our teacher, Mrs. Correll, is at the far right, in her signature, whimsically decorated bell-bottom jeans.
My journal from the actual trip continues on the subject of airplane travel. The flights were unexpectedly smooth, I reported. Apparently I was expecting a roller coaster experience, despite Katie’s evidence to the contrary. But every aspect of flying was novel and amazing, if not particularly enjoyable. I wrote at length about the unbelievably cramped quarters on the overseas flight, the tiny bathrooms, and the unidentifiable food (my friend Jackie maintained that we had been served baked rat).
After a sleepless night on the plane, we arrived in Paris in the gray dawn and boarded our bus for an introductory tour of the city. I recall powerfully the miserable war I waged against my leaden eyelids during my first, much anticipated hour in a foreign country. We were surrounded by legendary sights, yet the yearning for sleep was overwhelming. After the discomfort of the airplane seats, the tour bus provided an ideal environment for snoozing. Most eyes were closing, most heads were bobbing. Mrs. Correll, ever vivacious, walked the aisle, rousing us. She hadn’t taken us with her to France so we could sleep on a bus. Once in the heart of Paris, I shook off some of the muddled fog of half-sleep. After stops at the Eiffel Tower and Notre-Dame, nearly everyone was awake enough to feel rejuvenated by our surroundings. Avoiding sleep became even easier once we noticed that our Parisian guide, Salvador, was charming and exotically handsome (so French!).
Rebecca, me, Jackie and Katie in our hotel room on Easter Sunday morning.
Because my expectations had been low, our hotel was a pleasant surprise. It had one of those old-fashioned elevators I had seen in movies, with a folding iron grille in place of a door. Our room was almost grand, if slightly faded. I liked its high ceilings, ornate wallpaper and elegant fireplace. Its large size was fortunate, considering there were five of us in it. Katie and Rebecca shared one double bed, Jackie and her mother shared the other, and I got the single. I remember being cold at night and sleeping huddled under my coat. We had been told not to expect a private bathroom, so we were surprised to find a spacious one with lavatory, bathtub and bidet. The toilettes, as we learned to say, were down the hall, in claustrophobic compartments. One of our friends went in one and couldn’t get out. He was finally extricated by a team of chamber maids speaking in baffling, rapid-fire French. After that, we were all careful about locking the door just so.
The 13th-Century Sainte-Chapelle, built by King Louis IX.
Our three-day visit to Paris was like a fast-paced tasting menu of the city’s highlights, most of which Mrs. Correll had discussed with us previously in vivid detail. She wanted us to understand and appreciate the history and culture of France, as well as its language. Paris came alive for us during that short time because our teacher had prepared us well. We heard some of the Easter mass in Notre-Dame. We saw the forbidding Conciergerie, where Marie Antoinette spent her sad last days. We beheld the lovely Sainte-Chapelle, the Gothic jewelbox that Saint Louis built to house the Crown of Thorns. We wandered the Latin Quarter, alive with bohemian student activity. We explored the courtyards of the Sorbonne, where Mrs. Correll had studied.
We watched old soldiers playing boules outside Les Invalides, fishermen casting their nets from the Pont Neuf, and children sailing paper boats in the Luxembourg Gardens. Everywhere there were Frenchmen carrying baguettes and wearing actual berets. We spent some time (not nearly enough for me) in the Louvre. Of course we walked the Champs-Elysees. We cruised the Seine at night in a Bateau Mouche. I got to witness first-hand the view I had most anticipated–the tip of the Île de la Cité with the lacy spires and flying buttresses of Notre-Dame just behind.
I loved the wealth of intricately decorated Easter candies and pastries that beckoned from the windows of small shops on narrow streets. Never before had fruit and vegetables looked so beguiling as they did in the city’s outdoor markets. Even displays in butcher shop windows were strangely beautiful, recalling old-master still lifes. We ate in cafés and brasseries, and learned that a croque-monsier, an omelette, or anything with frîtes was a good choice. We learned that French ice cream is served in minuscule metal dishes. And we found that paying for our meals and managing francs and centîmes was as difficult as we had feared.
Real Frenchmen, real baguettes, and real berets.Some of our group (dressed in the height of 70s middle-school style), in the gardens at Versailles.
We were busy during our three days in Paris. But we weren’t so busy that we missed getting a sense of the city’s unique, ebullient, quirky atmosphere. Sooner than we would have liked, it was time to head to Normandy, to Mont-St-Michel, and on across the Channel to England.
This Angelica house, built in 1884, is one of the town’s newer structures. It is now the Park Circle Bed & Breakfast.
If you ever find yourself in western New York, perhaps after fulfilling a quest for authentic maple syrup at Cartwright’s Maple Tree Inn, I would recommend another stop in the nearby historic village of Angelica. (While Cartwright’s has an Angelica address, it is several miles outside the tiny town.)
Postcard-pretty Angelica was named for Angelica Shuyler Church (1756- 1814), scion of two eminent New York families, the Schuylers and the Rensselaers. Angelica’s father was a general in the Continental Army, later a member of the Continental Congress and a U.S. senator. Her brother-in-law was Alexander Hamilton. After eloping with the English-born merchant John Barker Church, Angelica lived most of her life in Europe. Intelligent, well-educated, charming and beautiful, she mixed in elite circles. During her years in Paris, her confidants included Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson (with whom she kept up a lifelong correspondence), and the Marquis de Lafayette. Her London acquaintances were equally renowned. Angelica and her family returned to America for a visit to attend the inauguration of George Washington.
When her family purchased a 100,000-acre tract of land in the wilds of western New York, Angelica’s son Philip scouted the area for a suitable location to build a town. He chose a site along the Genesee River. In 1802, he named the new settlement after his mother. Thanks to Philip and his surveyor, the town has a pleasing geometric plan, its main street radiating out from a central circular park.
Considering the name of the town and that of its founding family, it’s appropriate that Angelica is notable for the many lovely old churches that ring the green and dot Main Street. Nearly all the town’s buildings date from the 19th century and have been little changed. Modernism sidestepped Angelica. Large, still beautiful homes, plus a library, academy, court house and post office, are interspersed among the churches and shops. We typically visit in February, when the view from the snow-covered central park recalls a tabletop Christmas display of quaint ceramic buildings.
Angelica’s central green, showing two of the town’s churches.
The former Presbyterian Church.
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, which dates from 1847 and includes several Tiffany windows.Yet another Angelica church, surrounded by homes.
This Gothic revival house was built in 1826 for the family of Aaron Burr.
The Lloyd House, built from 1834 with local stone quarried from nearby Joncy Gorge.
When Kiko spotted these two dog figures on a side porch of the Lloyd house, he confronted them with extreme wariness. They remained silent, and he moved on, disappointed.
In 1797, Angelica and her husband returned to live permanently in the U.S. Their grand home, known as Villa Belvidere, is located on the outskirts of town. Begun in 1806, its design is attributed to Benjamin Latrobe, architect of the U.S. capitol. The house remains in private hands.
On Ash Wednesday, we are urged to face a stark truth: we will not live forever. The certainty of our mortality should be evident as we daily confront our society’s latest egregious incidents of violent fatality. Where was today’s shooting? At a mall, an office, a restaurant, a church, or, most horrifically, at a school?Who were the heroes and innocents who died senselessly this week? Firefighters, doctors, nurses, teachers, small children, infants? Depending upon where you live, you may be mourning a different tragedy than the one that preys on my mind. There are so many tragedies in our world. Every day it becomes more difficult to say It can’t happen in my neighborhood.
Yet despite the ongoing exposure to such dire events, our culture is constantly blaring the message that if we spend enough on miraculous health and beauty products, if we make the right lifestyle choices, we can prolong our lives indefinitely. It promises us, repeatedly, that it’s in our best interests to extend the look of youth far beyond our youthful years. One of the worst things we can say about a celebrity is this: She’s looking her age. How shocking! How pitiful! Not enough botox, or botox gone bad. Excessive collagen, or inadequate collogen. A facelift that failed. A fanatical exercise regime that no longer does the trick. Her arms were once buff; now they’re stringy. The more beautiful one is in youth, the sadder seems the diminishing of that beauty with age.
Yesterday I caught a brief snippet of a TV soap opera that I admit I used to watch, on occasion. Well, not really watch. It happened to come on at a time when I needed a rest. It offered a distraction as I sat down to fold laundry, leaf through piles of papers and magazines for recycling, make get-well cards. Sometimes it lulled me to sleep, I have to say. This particular soap opera, even sillier than most, if possible, requires minimal attention, because it’s always the same. During my most recent viewing, it was immediately apparent that the same small group of characters was still soldiering on in scandalous banality, divorcing, remarrying, swapping spouses and children, re-betraying one another in bizarre ways. At a glance, the old gang looked very much the same. There was not a wrinkle, not a gray hair to be seen. Bodies were svelte, as always. But the faces were altered in odd ways: eyes slanted at more extreme angles, lips overly puffy, cheekbones higher, chins more pronounced, foreheads immovable as those of marble statues. The characters continue to behave in sophomoric, stupid ways, so it is fitting, perhaps, that they appear young. In real life, though, is maturity so terrible? If we learn from our mistakes, we are not cursed to repeat them endlessly, like soap opera characters. As we mature mentally and spiritually, we will age, and our age will show.
I’m not saying I’m immune to the horror of growing old. I’ve begun to avoid harsh lighting, I’ve noted, with acute dismay, what an awkward turn of my head can do for the skin on my neck. The magnifying mirror is my frenemy. I silently bewail the effects of gravity. Just as the classic birthday card line attests: Old age is not for sissies. It’s for the the wise, the well-adjusted, the truly mature. On Ash Wednesday, we are called to confront the fact that no magic potion or surgery will keep old age forever at bay. And while death claims the young, as we see all too often, most of us are granted the bittersweet privilege of aging in this lifetime. This is, indeed, a gift; it allows us the opportunity to grow toward wisdom, toward maturity. It means the chance to come to terms with the hollowness of our culture of vanity, and to learn to live accordingly. The visible effects of age are reminders that death awaits us, unavoidably. The physical body decays even as we live, earthly beauty is fleeting, and material possessions are transitory. Once we acknowledge these truths, we are free to recognize the real value of what will not pass away:
And now, these three abide: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. –1 Corinthians 13: 13
On Ash Wednesday, we thank God for not leaving us to eternal decay. Through the love of Jesus Christ we are rescued from the dust, from perpetual darkness. Our future, as God’s beloved children, is one of light and glory, of joyful wisdom that, in its zeal, perfection, and yes, its maturity, will remain forever young, forever beautiful.
I noticed today that some Lenten roses (Helleborus Orientalis) are already in bloom , although barely visible among winter’s dead leaves.
On this Fat Tuesday afternoon here in northern Virginia, the sun is emphatic in its brightness and temperatures are well into the mid-50s. Kiko again sought out his customary spring spot on the terrace. He reminds me of a northern tourist revelling in the winter Caribbean sunshine.
The sunshine was so abundant, so luxurious, and so relaxing, that Kiko had no choice but to sleep.
Before long he woke up, overheated. It’s February 12, and he had to find some shade.
There will be a blizzard raging this weekend just to the north of the DC area. It seems that northern Virginia has already received our meager portion of accumulation. We awoke to areas of white mushy crystals around the bases of trees. Pine boughs drooped slightly under a thin coating of watery ice. Now the temperature is rising and a light rain is falling. Kiko evaluated conditions from the dry warmth of the front hall and deemed it too yucky to hurry out on our morning walk. He is now cuddled on the office sofa, and I am very thankful. My daughter, of course, takes the lack of snow as yet another personal affront by her old nemesis, the Weather.
What should we call this ambiguous season? It’s winter one day, spring the next. I’m more used to this pattern than many people, having grown up in Atlanta, where 70-degree temperatures routinely alternate with those of 30- or 40-degrees. I remember when Virginia had four distinct seasons, but nowadays, they’re more of a blur.
Over the past week, the extreme cold has subsided here. As the fine layer of snow in our yard disappeared, it revealed one of our first signs of spring: the dark red clusters of buds that have fallen from our old silver maples. These seem to appear earlier and earlier every year. It’s not just a few buds, either, but many, heavily sprinkled over the yard. The readiness of our big, battered maples continues to amaze me. From the first cold days of winter, they are already anticipating spring. Like good scouts, they are prepared, standing sentry for the first warmer rays of sunshine. And during these recent winters, they receive many confusing signals: Get ready! No, wait! Yes, go ahead! No, no, no, hold up– it’s snowing! Wrong again–it’s only rain. I feel bad for our trees; such see-sawing conditions must be hard on their elderly systems.
A tiny bouquet of silver maple buds, some already sprouting with fine pale green foliage.
The melting snow revealed further evidence of a new season. Bright yellow-green daffodil shoots are already emerging from the ground. Unless you’re in the extreme north, you’re probably noticing them, too. The beginning of February really seems too early for them to be heading up and out, but who am I to judge?
Another unexpected sign of spring at our house is this: Kiko has already been dozing in his favorite sunny spot on the back terrace by the garage doors. I watched him as he settled there after an unsuccessful pursuit of a squirrel at the bird feeder. In years past, I don’t remember ever seeing him there before April or so.
And finally, what about the robins? I know I can’t be the only one to notice that the robins are choosing to remain with us in Virginia all winter long, just as they always do in Georgia. I used to remember noticing their distinct absence, as well as their much-anticipated return. They typically left around the first of December and showed up again with the melting snows of early March. But this winter and last, having apparently adjusted to the weather roller coaster, they haven’t bothered to fly south. They are hopping across our thawing lawn right now, drilling for worms.
To the many disappointed kids like my daughter, I’m sorry that the hoped-for snow is nothing but rain. I’m sorry today’s slush wasn’t even enough to warrant a two-hour delay. And to those of you in the path of this weekend’s storm, good luck, and take care. For all of us, spring (or sprummer?) will be here sooner than we expect. Although who can say what season will follow?
Daffodil shoots popping up from the mulch in our back garden.
We woke up this morning, unexpectedly, to snow. It wasn’t a lot of snow, but it was enough to cover the yard and nicely powder the trees and shrubs, to give the world a sort of winter facelift. It’s been ages since we’ve seen snow here in northern Virginia, so it was a welcome sight. Schools were delayed two hours, giving my daughter, a snow fanatic, the chance to enjoy it. The snow piled up prettily on the nandina berries, above.
Today’s snow is pleasant, attractive and manageable. I don’t miss the winters of constant snow, as my daughter does. When she was in preschool and kindergarten, seems like every Friday from December through February brought just enough accumulation to shut down the schools. The prospect of another snow day overjoyed her as much as it exhausted me. I don’t look back fondly on the years of blizzard after blizzard. I hated the many transportation worries. Will the schoolbus make it through? Will the steeply winding road home be passable? Should I cancel that appointment? What havoc will be wreaked by those drivers who have no business venturing out in such weather? Will my husband get stuck behind someone who is unwisely inching up the long hill, again? Will D and I be left to try to shovel the driveway alone, anxiously awaiting roadside updates from H?
The snowy weather ceased, of course, once H bought a snowblower. While he’s been itching to give it a try, I wouldn’t mind if he doesn’t need it again this winter. Or, maybe, to please him and D, he could use it just once. For their sake, I wouldn’t mind one lovely deep snow. While I’m wishing, I’ll wish for the flakes to start falling some Friday night after we’re all safely home.
The yard was covered, just barely, with snow. The trees and bushes were powdered white.
Kiko seemed to have completely forgotten that he had ever experienced snow before. He found it strange but exhilarating.
The first glimpse of the sun in the sky this morning could have been lifted from a Currier and Ives print.
The recent cold, rainy weather here in Virginia has been the sort that tests even the most dedicated dog walker. The mornings have brought no pastel watercolor skies, no evidence, really, at all, of the existence of a distant, light and life-giving golden orb. There is only a gradual diminishing of the steely gray darkness. The atmosphere of pervasive gloom is not lessened as the day progresses. It’s hard to look on the bright side when no bright side is visible.
On dreary wet mornings like this one, Kiko’s enthusiasm for the first outing of the day is, thankfully, muted. If the sound of rain is loud and continuous, he might remain curled in his bed, small and fox-like, for several hours. We have postponed that initial walk as late as 11:00 AM on some rainy days. I was hoping this would be the case today, but unfortunately it was not. I was able to delay him for about an hour, but no longer.
I cannot complain of being poorly equipped for dog walking in inclement weather. Prompted either by tender familial devotion or a determination that none of us would have an excuse for not walking the dog on wet days, my husband has outfitted the whole family with extensive rain gear. In addition to hooded, high-tech jackets, we have waterproof boots and pants. If it’s pouring rain, and if I can locate my rain pants (that’s a big if), I’m glad to pull them on over my jeans. More typically, I decide that the rain isn’t steady or strong enough to warrant leg protection. I usually regret this decision, as I did today.
Rain seems to bring out the absolute worst in Kiko’s on-leash behavior. You’d never know he is a Puppy Obedience School grad. (But we have the photo of him, looking ridiculous in a mortarboard hat, to prove it.) The wet weather apparently enhances the depth and variety of earthy smells, so Kiko dawdles excessively, his nose working furiously. Rainy-day walks seem to be, for my dog, the equivalent of science labs. Unless I tug him unmercifully, we inch along. Every clump of grass beckons, begging to be sniffed and sampled, its delicate taste evidently heightened by the rain. Every messy smudge on the road asks to be examined and identified. Dangerous human snacks like bony chicken wings are more likely to be discovered on rainy days, and I must fish them out of his mouth with my fingers. At least Kiko has outgrown his taste for earthworms. If he finds nothing of interest directly in front of him, he tends to stand transfixed, a model of indecision, checking the air for enticing aromas nearby. Finally, there’s what I call his fake-out marking, more prevalent in the rain. He smells a spot lingeringly and intently; he pauses, looks up, almost lifts his leg, yet decides against it.
The more impatient and miserable I become during these rainy walks, the slower Kiko moves. This morning I opted against bringing an umbrella. No matter how often I tugged my hood forward, it kept slipping back, letting rain drop into my eyes, ears and hair. Water trickled into the gap at my wrist between jacket and glove. My gloves were soon heavy and cumbersome. My formerly watertight boots have recently developed a leak, and the first puddle admitted a small flood. One foot was immediately drenched.
The final part of the walk is the worst, along a narrow county road that winds along by the stream bed. It’s picturesque, but treacherous. The nearly nonexistent shoulder is muddy, rutted and overgrown. I’m continually amazed at the cars that fly by, mere inches from my shoulder. I have been known, I admit, to shake my head slowly from side to side, or even to gesture forcefully, if not specifically, in hopes that some may think to slow down, or perhaps, when there is no oncoming traffic, to move closer to the center line. If I ever turn up in the “Public Safety Notes” of our free local paper, I predict it will be due to my encounter with some driver along this stretch of road. I hope it will involve no bodily harm to either party. I expect it will mention something like a “heated verbal exchange.”
For those of you, who, like me, are out there with your dog on dismal mornings, I commiserate with you. And for those who have no dog that requires walking, be sure to count this today as one of your blessings!
He looks so sweet–why can’t he sleep all day long?
It’s the seventh of January, 2013. Epiphany has been celebrated; the Christmas season is officially over. The electric candles in our windows have clicked on and off for the last time this winter. Tonight’s early January dusk will have to stand on its own; there will be no soothing, quasi-magical boost of simulated candlelight. We are back in ordinary time. Yet again, the days sped by too quickly.
This is the dreaded week of my Christmas clean-up. I began the day by wandering remorsefully through the house, wishing we hadn’t put up six trees, wondering where to start the process of un-decoration. As always, I will resolve this year, for a change, to find the right boxes for the packing-up. When I can’t manage that, I will vow to locate an actual working marker to label the boxes. When even that proves undoable, I will tell myself that I’ll remember what I put where. Eleven months from now, I will be standing in our frigid attic, muddled and confused. The box that professes to contain miniature trees will be full of stockings and bead garlands. Where did the box of white lights go this time? Some crucial item, usually one of our star tree-toppers, will have vanished completely.
But it’s a new year, and it’s time to move on. The trappings of the holiday season have undergone an unmistakable, unsavory shift in essence. Five weeks ago, they were the stuff of joy and hope. Now they are clutter. The blue spruce is droopy and dry, its needles as sharp as steel.
I look forward, past the mess, envisioning the uncluttered, restful simplicity of mid-January. It’s an illusion, a vanishing mirage, of course. With a vengeance, this first month bursts with the business of everyday life. A glance at the calendar reveals an exhausting proliferation of church meetings, school volunteer meetings and appointments with doctors. All that and all the Christmas debris, still here.
Yet the reality of the new year brings a clearer, if starker, light. It gladdens my heart to think that the shortest, darkest day of the year has come and gone. The earth is turning, tilting toward spring. The leaves of the rhododendrons in our back garden shrivel in the cold, but their blooms are set, ready and waiting. Nature’s optimism and foresight promises renewal. It really is time to move on.
A rhododendron bud stands by for spring.
A blog about motherhood, marriage and life: the joys and frustrations, beauty and absurdity, blessings and pain. It's about looking back, looking ahead, and walking the dog.
