Category Archives: Parenthood

Family, Nature, Parenthood

Summertime? What’s Missing?

One of the things I like most about living in Northern Virginia is experiencing the change of seasons. I enjoy looking out for the many small signs that herald the end of one season and the beginning of another. This year, as usual, I was paying attention as spring yielded to summer. And certainly, it feels like summer, with the heat and humidity expected during a DC-area July. Most afternoons, a storm threatens, typically with lots of bluster and thundery build-up. Sometimes a pounding, torrential rain follows, or maybe it’s just a few sprinkles. Considerable drama, either way. That’s summer, with moods that are shifting and short-lived, rather like those of a fiery teenager with no homework and time on her hands.

Summer is here, without a doubt. But for me, something is off. I’d like to blame it on my broken thumb. Maybe my sense of timing is out of whack because of the injury? During those two months with a cast, followed by a splint, most tasks required twice as much time to complete; that’s true. But it can’t explain my occasional tendency to suddenly forget what season we’re in. It’s more like I’m waiting for some special signifying cue that tells me: Now this is Summer.

A part of me, I think, is waiting for my own fiery teenager, or elementary schooler, or Kindergartner, or preschooler, to finish her classes for the year and be here, at home, on summer break. It’s similar to the way I felt in mid-December. How could the “Holiday Season” have been upon us without our girl home for the holidays? And how can it really be summer without her here?

I’m not complaining. I’m grateful that our daughter has found a career that she enjoys; it’s why my husband and I encouraged her to work hard throughout her many years of schooling. And we count ourselves fortunate that she lives nearby in Maryland. Right now, she’s on a work trip, in Tacoma, Washington. She flew there immediately after returning from Scotland and England with friends. She’s making her own choices, living her life, and we celebrate that.

My husband and I have not been especially clingy parents. We made a conscious effort not to shelter our daughter, or to keep her to ourselves. Growing up as an only child, my small family warmly welcomed others, and we tried to do the same. We encouraged D to forge strong friendships, yet to be unafraid to claim her independence at times. She was among the few students to attend her college orientation on her own. H and I were skeptical of the University’s entreaty, earnest and emphatic, for parental attendance at orientation. Seemed too much like a marketing ploy. D said later that she felt a bit awkward when she sat beside someone else’s mother on the shuttle bus from the parking lot, but other than that, our absence didn’t bother her. When we dropped her off at UVA that first August, (and yes, we helped move her in) we left teary-eyed. We didn’t expect to see her for quite a while, and that thought made us sad, but we tried to keep it to ourselves. We visited her on grounds only rarely, and we didn’t push her to come home on weekends. I have friends who headed to Charlottesville for most home football games and the accompanying all-day festivities. Not us. H, especially, was concerned about interfering with D’s engineering studies. When his sister, her husband and their little boys drove down from Rochester to spend an Easter weekend with us, we didn’t tell our daughter. She’d already said she had too much work to do, and wouldn’t be home for Easter. We took her at her word. She was upset with us. And then the pandemic prevented our visiting during most of her final two years at UVA (with the exception of her graduation, which we happily attended).

All this may make us sound like cold, unfeeling parents. We are not. If we were, I wouldn’t be walking around in the July heat, wondering when summer will begin.

Our daughter in her Jar-Jar pool, July 2003, in her nightgown.

I’m not bemoaning the loneliness of an empty nest. But neither am I unmindful of and unmoved by our daughter’s absence. Images of summers past, when she was with us, are never far away in my mind’s eye. I have sudden flashes of leisurely breakfasts with her on the screened porch. I see her jumping into the blow-up wading pool first thing on a summer morning, in her nightgown. I see D and her friends dashing through the sprinkler spray in the front yard. I see her happily cuddling our young dog. Those were summer days that felt like summer. I miss them. But I have them with me, too. And always, I will count them among life’s treasures.

D and a good friend at the pool club, August 2007.
D and Kiko, June 2009, on our then-unfinished back porch.

Family, Holiday, Parenthood

‘Tis the Season, Again

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A wreath once again adorns the remains of the maple tree in front of our house.

Mid-December has arrived. I tell myself that I’m getting used to not expecting our daughter back home for an extended winter break. I tell myself again, and again. I speak with considerable authority and firmness. I listen, and I hear, but I quickly forget.

Last year, I faced this reality for the first time. December of 2021 seemed especially unreal. With our daughter working and living in Maryland since the fall after her graduation from the University of Virginia, she would no longer be with us for most of the month, and well into January. It’s a tricky concept to accept. I still can’t quite wrap my head around it.

I’ve had another twelve months now to get acclimated to being the parent of a young person with a career. Most of the time, it’s been a very pleasant situation. We’ve seen our daughter often on weekends, thanks in large part to the fact that her boyfriend lives near us. We have the luxury of knowing she’s only about an hour away. No long plane ride separates us. Only a hair-raising ride on the Capital Beltway, which I do not attempt on my own. And, I’ve been busy, as always. I never lack for things that need doing, or things I want to do.

My husband and daughter, hanging the central wreath at my mother’s house, December 2017.

Still, December is different, because of that winter break that won’t be happening. Seasonal prep tends to be more fun with our daughter around. Her presence, and her youthful enthusiasm–they add an element of festivity. Without her, it’s more like we’re just doing chores. Ever since she was a toddler, she’s enjoyed adorning the house for holidays. I remember her, as a four-year old, sitting amidst my gingerbread houses on the dining room table, exploring boxes of baubles and chanting, “Decorate! Decorate!” Once she was old enough to climb the tall ladders and strong enough to help move them, it became her job (and not mine) to assist my husband in hanging the outdoor wreaths at our house and my mother’s. Together they set up the electric candles in every window, positioned the floodlights and programmed the system. But not this year.

I’m not complaining. Not really. She’s been with us several times this month, but never long enough to help with the usual Christmas tasks. My husband and I both felt her absence as we stood in the front yard to watch the lights click on for the first time. Never before has she missed this family countdown-to-Christmas signal. But she was doing her own holiday prep in Maryland, where she has an apartment, a meaningful job that suits her, and friends. She is building a life that is, for the most part, separate from us, her parents. That’s what we raise our children to do, right? I don’t have to tell myself that I’m happy for her. I’m more than merely happy. While parenting is a job that never ends, it’s a job with numerous stages. Or seasons.

Wreath hanging at my mother’s, December 2017.

And now, my husband and I are in a season in which there is no long college break to anticipate with our child. On the down side, for me, it’s one with fewer chances to sit up late together, laughing at the quirks of foreign-language Netflix shows. Fewer mornings to chat unhurriedly across the breakfast table. For my husband, it’s fewer opportunities to work with D on what, a generation ago, might have been considered father-son projects. Or to hit the ice, in hockey gear, together. And it still sneaks up on me that there will be no time at all to see our daughter cuddling on the sofa with our soundly sleeping elderly dog. Maybe this December feels doubly “off” because we’re not only post-college kid, we’re also post-dog. Between dogs, more accurately, I tell myself. Another dog will join us, in a while.

But even this season has its advantages. Our daughter was home for part of last weekend. We dropped her off at the Kennedy Center to meet friends on our way to a DC hotel for my husband’s company holiday party. How cool is that?

And while our daughter wasn’t here with us to add a bigger dose of cheer to some of our holiday chores, she’ll be present for others. And she knows that as twilight falls, our old farmhouse glows like a beacon, as it always does during this season. She knows that it waits to welcome her home.

As we do, too. Our daughter will be home for Christmas. Not only in our dreams.

Community, Family, Parenthood

Toward Finding Common Ground on Gun Violence

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Four more people were shot dead on Wednesday, this time at a hospital in Tulsa.  Yet again, the gunman used a military-style semiautomatic rifle.  He bought it that very day.  This is the 233rd mass shooting in the U.S. so far, in a year that’s not yet at the halfway point.  Guns have replaced car accidents as the leading cause of death for children.  In the light of our country’s ceaseless gun violence, the need for real progress toward a solution becomes ever more urgent.

Is there really no common ground?  I continue to pray that it does exist.  We might find it if only we could step out from the confines of our ironclad political ideologies for a moment.  Of course, this is difficult because we don’t want to leave the safety of the familiar.  Maybe imagining ourselves in a hypothetical situation can help.  Let’s say we’re students, working together on a final group project.  We’re tasked with arriving at a plan to curb gun violence.   We don’t agree with, or like, everyone in our group.  But we all could really use an “A.”  Our teacher reminds us that no plan can possibly stop all gun violence, humans being what we are.  She suggests that we pretend, for the duration of the exercise, that the two major political parties as we know them do not exist.  A fellow classmate suggests that a real solution may be hiding in plain sight.  He proposes starting with some basic questions for discussion.  Here they are:

  1. You’re a parent, and you learn that an active shooter is threatening your child’s school. Which incites your greatest fear?
  •  To hear that the shooter wields a small handgun capable of firing a limited number of bullets before reloading is required, or
  • To hear that the shooter wields a semi- or fully automatic assault-style rifle capable of quickly firing hundreds of rounds of ammunition

2. You’re a police officer, responding to a call about an active shooter at a school.  Which gunman would you prefer to confront?

  • One wielding a small handgun, as above.
  • One wielding an assault-style rifle, as above.

3.  Does it really seem good, right, and appropriate that any eighteen-year old, unable to legally buy a beer, is able to purchase not one, but two AR-15 rifles for immediate use?

4. Think of a particularly immature, hot-tempered teenager whom you know.  Would you want this person to have easy access to multiple such weapons and a huge cache of ammunition?

5.  Would you feel comfortable knowing that the volatile teenager above is armed and roaming your neighborhood regularly?

4. Is it really likely to impact your rights as a responsible gun owner to protect your home if the person mentioned above is unable to purchase an AR-15 or similar gun without a background check, waiting period or any red flag laws in place?

5. Do you lock the doors of your home  at night and when you’re away?  Or do you not bother because, if someone wants to rob or harm you, they will find a way? 

The next victims of gun violence will likely not be members of our own families. But let’s act as if we expect them to be. Let’s quit bickering, acknowledge our shared humanity, and take real steps toward lessening this horrific epidemic.

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Holiday, Nature, Parenthood

‘Tis the Season?

Christmas is five days away.  Every year around this point, I ask myself: how can this be?  How can Christmas be upon us?  But this year, more than ever, time seems slippery, unreliable, prone to eccentricity.  Yesterday seems like a month ago, yet wasn’t Halloween just last week?  Is it because of my advanced age?  Is it because of sudden and broad temperature fluctuations?  In a typical seven-day span, here in Northern Virginia, we experience weather appropriate for all four seasons, sometimes in a single day.  Is it because we’re approaching our third Covid winter, and the weeks and months are draped in a veil of sameness? 

It’s certainly not because I’ve neglected the usual Christmas prep. I haven’t, and it’s kept me too busy to write. The evidence of the season is all around me, but still, this mid-December has an air of unreality. Something just seems off.

After further reflection, I think it may be this: the back-of-my-mind awareness that our daughter will no longer be joining us for an extended winter break. The Christmas season, in recent years, has begun in earnest for me with her arrival home from college. Last year, it started with her final online exam, as she was already here. I think what I’m missing now is the anticipation of having her back with us for about a month. That extra spark of excitement is absent.

At this realization, I had a mental pep talk with myself. Our daughter will be coming home soon, for about a week. She can’t stay longer because she’s gainfully and happily employed. (I’ve never held a job that ticked both boxes.) She’s embarked on a career that relies upon her training. This is why she went to college. At least it’s why the time, trouble and expense of college can be justified. All those demanding classes in aerospace engineering and astronomy are being put to good use. And while she’s a Maryland resident now, she’s closer to home than she was in Charlottesville. When she first began applying for jobs, my husband and I both feared that she’d find it necessary to move to the West Coast. In the rare absence of traffic, she can drive home in about an hour.

So I’m a lucky mama. We should see our dear daughter in two days. And then Christmas Vacation will officially begin.

As my mother reminds me, having recently watched a PBS show about the medieval origins of the twelve days of Christmas, December 25 is only the first day of the festive season. I’ve got plenty of time to get that spark of excitement back. In fact, I’m starting to feel it already.

The spirit of the season is popping up in unexpected places. Here, for example, is a radish that resembles a little head in a pointed elf cap.

The halls have been decked. It’s time to savor the joy of Christmas.

This morning’s full moon, not long after sunrise.

Community, Covid-19, Family, Friendship, Holiday, Parenthood

Halloween 2021

The last time our daughter was home for Halloween was in 2017, her senior year in high school. Her return for the recent holiday weekend therefore seemed extra special. Slim was eager to see our daughter, as well. He recognized her as his ideal partner in preparing for all things Halloween. She is nearly as big a fan of the day as he is. Ever since she was a toddler, Halloween anticipation has begun for her in the summer. (See Friendly Ghosts of Halloweens Past, October 2013.)

In 2020, because of Covid, young parents in our neighborhood organized a Halloween parade, with all trick-or-treating outside. The kids progressed from one end of the neighborhood to the other, to tables set up by families in front of their homes. It worked so well and was so enjoyable that they decided to do it again this year. I liked it because it made it easier to appreciate the costumes and gave more time to chat with kids and their parents.

Our daughter was determined to make our Halloween display as thorough as possible. Slim was equally zealous, of course. Together, they hauled out all the old, mostly homemade decorations that D recalls fondly from her childhood: Fred, the stuffed dummy, the tombstone and graveyard fencing, various skulls and bones, jack-o’-lantern votives, spiders and spiderwebs. They festooned our tables for treats in appropriately witchy garb. They set up the fog machine and an outdoor speaker for projecting spooky sounds. They rolled out the love seats from the garage so we could be comfortably seated during the parade. This persuaded even my mother to join us. When we began to see the children approaching, Slim climbed up in a cherry tree, and D, wearing the gorilla costume that we just happen to have, hid herself from view.

Our daughter, quietly channeling her inner gorilla.
A tense moment.

As each group of children chose their treats, my husband, holding a heavy chain, would ask, “Has anyone seen my pet gorilla?” Then D would pop up from behind the love seat and jump around. The performance was well-received, usually with genuine surprise. No one was overly frightened, which was as intended, but one little boy asked his mother to remain close by his side as he got his candy. Several trick-or-treaters, and possibly one parent, wearing an inflatable T-Rex costume, engaged in high-spirited dance-offs with the gorilla.

Thanks to our friendly neighborhood, the parade, to the presence of Slim and our daughter, this Halloween was one of the happiest I can remember. It was rewarding to see just how many children live among us. We were impressed by the innovative costumes, on both kids and adults. How satisfying it was to see neighbors out socializing as they provided treats. As Slim likes to remind us, Halloween has evolved from an ancient Celtic harvest festival into a day when we affirm our common humanity through a love of sugar. It’s a day to welcome back, unapologetically, the child that abides within us, no matter our age. A time to share some sweetness and joy with others, simply because we’re God’s children here together. After all, it’s the custom to give candy not only to those we know personally, but to everyone who stops by.

It was a perfect top-off to the evening when a small Superhero jumped out of a highly decorated SUV and brought us a festively wrapped bottle of sparkling wine. We’d won one of the prizes for best display. Our daughter’s and Slim’s efforts had paid off. We’d given treats, and we got a treat. That, my friends, is Halloween, isn’t it?

Art and Architecture, Cape Cod, Family, Nature, Parenthood, Travel

Past and Present, Wrapped up Together in our Summer Village on the Cape

Our family’s long-time summer destination sits on the skinny finger of land between Cape Cod Bay and Route 6A, or Shore Road. When seen from the water, the small cottages appear to be nestled between the sea grass and a low hill of dunes that rises along the banks of Pilgrim Lake.

As the aerial photo above shows, the complex resembles a miniature village. The look is classic Old Cape Cod. Basic, simple, absolutely without pretense. On each side of the central pool, two rows of white cottages, built in the 1940s, face a grassy, rectangular courtyard. Six additional cottages are covered in weathered cedar shakes. Constructed in the 80s, these are off the greens, clustered in the sand. In the broad expanse that leads to the water are two narrow boardwalks and a fire pit enclosed by a semi-circle of sturdy wooden chairs. The wide beach, unusual for the area, has grown much bigger over the years. When the colony was new, the high tide mark reached all the way up to the line where the beach grass begins now. It would seem that every bit of sand that’s continually swept away from the rest of waterfront Truro is being deposited here.

A trellis-topped archway and white picket fence mark the entrance to one of the greens.

The cottages farthest from the water have the benefit of being surrounded on all sides by a grassy lawn planted with bountiful hydrangeas.

The photo above shows the cottage that my family will probably always think of as “Grandma and Grandpa’s place.” It’s the one that my husband remembers as the vacation home from his childhood, beginning in the 1970s. His parents last occupied it in 2018. Sadly, that visit made it clear that their health issues had become too daunting to make the trip worthwhile.

There are several models of the white cottages. Those across each green are mirror images of one other.

The cedar-shingled cottage above is the one our family returns to in early August. It sits just in front and to the side of H’s parents’ old place.

A sandy lane separates this row of cottages from the pool. There are no paved roads in our summer village.

Just as I often expect to see my husband’s parents planted in their beach chairs every time I approach their old cottage, I can’t go to the pool without recalling the way our daughter, as a baby, delighted in the glistening, chilly water. The photo above shows her with my husband in 2001, on her very first visit to the Cape.

Nearly every spot in our pleasant village conjures an image of our daughter as she has been, over the years. I can see her at two and a half, sitting happily outside our cottage, talking to herself while pouring sand into a cup.

I remember her as a little girl, pausing on a sandy path leading to the water, a wistful expression on her face.

I see her as a young teenager, the summer before she began middle school.

All the while, I see and give thanks for the strong, compassionate, intelligent young woman she has become. Here she is this August with Dozer, one of the owner’s dogs.

As our daughter has grown, and as my husband and I have simply aged,  our summer village has changed only minimally.  Here in this timeless place, more than anywhere else, I hold simultaneously in my mind’s eye the various stages of our family’s life.  With our every return to this sliver of sandy ground that floats serenely between sea and sky, I feel what it means to be young, to be old, and everything in between, and even beyond.  The day will come when H and I, like Grandma and Grandpa, no longer make the trip.  Will there be a time when our daughter gazes at the sunset over the Cape while watching her own child contentedly pouring sand into a cup?  I think I can see that, too.  

Community, Nature, Parenthood, Walking the Dog

For Brood X, Mission Accomplished

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The cicadas of Brood X have fulfilled their mission.  They’ve done their part to further the species.  The seventeen-year cycle has begun again, and the proof is all around us.  It’s in the hanging patches of brown leaves appearing at the ends of tree branches, every day, in greater numbers.  The oaks seem to be especially popular as Brood X egg incubators. 

The reproductive success of Brood X is evident in the clumps of silver maple leaves that dot our front yard. 

A close look at the fallen branches reveals a series of incisions in the young bark.  These were made by the female cicada as she deposited her eggs, using a swordlike abdominal appendage called an ovipositor. While it’s often noted that cicadas do not harm humans or animals, this evidently depends on the mama-to-be not mistaking a living creature for a tree.  If I’m still around in the summer of 2038, I hope I remember not to sit or stand perfectly still outside for an extended period.  One female may lay as many as five hundred eggs, in batches of five to twenty, among several trees.  When the eggs hatch about six weeks later, tiny nymphs emerge, fall to the ground and begin tunneling into the soil, launching the next seventeen-year subterranean phase.  

Brood X has gone silent and still, but their physical presence will be with us for some time.  Cicada bodies, often perfectly intact, are strewn along the ground and nestled into foliage.  The cicada above, though deceased, appears to be napping comfortably on its back in a pleasant rhododendron hammock.  The insects’ wings and body parts, frequently snapped off cleanly like 3-D puzzle pieces, are all around.   The discarded exoskeletons will remain for quite a while, as well. 

I’m glad that Kiko got to experience the cicadas of Brood X.  They gave our old boy the rare opportunity, in his own little mind, at least, for successful hunting.  Many of his fellow canine colleagues immediately recognized the big insects as tasty treats and gobbled them up as soon as they began appearing.  My dog, dainty and fastidious in eating as in every activity, took his time to warm up to the idea of snacking on Brood Xers.  The mob was on the wane before he developed a taste for their flavor.  We would watch as he slowly approached a cicada, stared intently at it for a while, before moving in quickly and decisively to devour it.  As far as we could tell, he never ate a live cicada, but he clearly thought he was participating in the thrill of the chase.  My daughter noticed that he seemed to relish rooting around for them in the grass like a truffle pig.  A cicada wing dangles from his mouth in the photos above and below. 

The cicadas of Brood X have accomplished their goal.  While tangible evidence of their brief existence will fade, their legacy endures.  Soon, their progeny will be underfoot everywhere in our northern Virginia neighborhood, invisible in the above-ground world, but nevertheless thriving as intended.  We can read countless philosophical insights into the brief appearance and long apparent absence of these periodical cicadas.  I can imagine the question appearing on SAT and ACT essay prompts.  One lesson from Brood X that strikes home with me is this: what we see in everyday life is only a small slice of that which is real.  And, even more importantly, a shift in perspective may render the unseen visible.  As I age, I’m becoming increasingly aware that some things are not what they seem, or at least not the way I’ve previously understood them to be.  I’m learning that, to see more clearly and understand more comprehensively,  a new and occasionally uncomfortable viewpoint is sometimes necessary.

Brood X also reminds me that the imprint we humans leave on our world and on those around us, for good or bad, may not be immediately apparent.  The fruit of the cicada’s short life is long delayed.  But with the fullness of time, its effect is significant.  And while human actions and  words may not produce instantaneous and seismic changes,  they will indeed have consequences.  May we work for good even when we cannot expect to see the products of our labor.  May we strive to build bridges with the blocks at hand. And may better building blocks and methods be developed in the future, by our children and our children’s children, if we consciously choose to guide them in that direction.  Our days of toiling, buzzing and flying, like the cicada’s, are relatively brief.  May we use them well.    

Community, Family, Holiday, Parenthood

Father’s Day 2021

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My father and I at my grandparents’ home in Lebanon, KY, ca. 1965.

Hats off to all the men who make the little people in their lives feel welcome, loved and safe, the way I felt in my dear daddy’s arms.  Cheers to the good guys who have the strength and courage to be kind, nurturing, supportive, and occasionally vulnerable.  May the blessings you provide be returned to you with interest.  Happy Father’s Day, fathers and fatherly men! 

Family, Holiday, Parenthood

Oh, Christmas trees, 2020

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This year’s peculiar pandemic Christmas season has been lacking (and lackluster) in too many ways. But it also brought about a return to some activities that I thought might have been largely confined to the past. In an earlier post, I wrote about how my daughter and I, home bound together in the family pod, were inspired to make a new type of Christmas ornament for the first time in years. It wouldn’t be right to consign our Band of Bulbs to a table or shelf. They needed an appropriate home for the holiday, as did our creations from years gone by. They needed a Christmas tree. No. Not just one. If all were to be accommodated, several trees were required. My daughter was adamant about this.

Last year I didn’t find the time or energy to put up the tabletop tree in our playroom. I’ve been known to grumble that this slightly bedraggled tree’s ideal location is a crowded corner of our messy basement. But this tree is particularly dear to my daughter’s heart. It’s the locus for most of the ornaments of her childhood, many of which we made together, such as bread-dough clay snowflakes, stars and candy canes, awkward wrapping paper angels, and little drums of felt and spools. It’s the place for decorations that she bought, with her own money, each December at her elementary school’s holiday book fair. Its base provides the perfect spot for a gathering of stuffed animals consigned to the attic for the rest of the year. It sets the room warmly aglow with its multicolored lights. Once fully decorated, I have to admit that it’s a wonderfully cheery sight. And when positioned in a corner just so, its pronounced slant is barely noticeable.

We hadn’t put up a tree in my mother’s house next door since her relocation to Virginia three years ago. Again, with time on her hands and a general absence of social activities, my daughter took the lead. Nana’s house, she insisted, must have a tree. Wasn’t there one lying forlorn, in pieces, in the basement? It’s been eleven years, when we spent Christmas in Atlanta, since she’d seen the ornaments my parents and I had collected and crafted over the years, the ones I remember so well from my childhood. Even the hand-written, idiosyncratic labels on the boxes bring me smiles and vivid recollections: Handmade Fancy Balls. Santa Makings. Big Red Balls. Angels & Rudolfs. So it was a special pleasure to unpack these vintage treasures again with my daughter, as Mama and I recounted the stories of Christmases past that they prompted.

Even some of the smallest of trees were decked out in lights and baubles this year at my mother’s.

Back at our house, the three skinny alpine trees in the dining room serve as the setting for most of our cork and pinecone people, pasta angels, Cape Cod scallop shell angels, and now our Bulb Buddies.

The big tree in our living room was the last to go up. We decorated it over a period of nearly a week. No ornament, even those that were damaged or funny-looking, was left out this season. Each one found a place on the tree. I bought no new decorations at all this year. None, indeed, were needed.

The boxes of holiday trappings stored at my mother’s house and mine would likely be considered mere clutter by many. But to me, to my daughter, my mother, and to some degree, even to my husband, these battered containers are filled not with stuff, but with happy memories. They spark joy. And joy has been elusive and fleeting throughout 2020. Let’s seize it, and savor it, where, when, and while we’re able.

I wrote about some of the best-loved ornaments on the family Christmas tree of my childhood in several posts from 2015. See:

Childhood Treasures on the Christmas Tree

Vintage Pinecone Elves on Skis

Uncle Edwin’s Silver Stocking

Unsilvered WW II-Era Ornaments on a Kentucky Cedar

Community, Family, Parenthood

Back to School, at Home

School began again here in Northern Virginia this week. It’s the strangest “Back to School” ever, with all classes taught remotely. Last year I wrote about the poignancy of those “First Day” pictures that flood social media sites every fall. (See here.) The current photos have a different sort of heart-wrenching quality about them. Gone are the signs of jittery anxiety about bus-riding, lunch in the cafeteria, fitting in socially, and spending hours away from home. Largely vanished, too, is that hopeful excitement that comes with a new adventure and the opportunity for a fresh start.  This school year drags with it a melancholy unease, heavy with the loss of what should have been. There will be no fun school-sponsored group events, no band, orchestra or choral concerts, no in-person drama productions, at least for months, and no fall sports.  But without a doubt, there will be the ongoing annoyances of Internet and WiFi outages, tech complications, and occasional widespread system failures. Frequent parental intervention will be required, a serious problem for working moms and dads. There is the issue of space, especially in smaller households, the difficulty arising from an entire family working and schooling at home.  And then, when things are progressing as intended, there is the dull sameness of hours sitting in front of a screen staring at a Zoom gallery. 

For college kids, the situation isn’t much different.  Our daughter’s spring break last March slid into online classes at home.  After a summer that involved unprecedented amounts of time with her family and too little with friends, she began her fourth year again at home. The University of Virginia encouraged students not to return to grounds until after Labor Day.  Now she’s once again in Charlottesville, in the apartment she shares with three friends.  It’s not the final college year they had anticipated, that’s for sure. 

This new school year feels anything but new.  It’s already tired, burdened by the same frustrations we experienced in spring and summer.  Is it really September?  Does it matter?  The months have ticked by with alarming speed, yet each day is much like any other.  

In the alternative reality of our Covid world, time has become slippery, looping and uncertain.  I’m reminded of the red plastic cassette recorder I enjoyed as  kid.  My closest friends and I used it to tape variety shows modeled on The Carol Burnette Show and soap opera parodies (Another World in Hay City).  Our talent for comedy, if little appreciated by a wider audience, kept us in stitches. I can see my finger on the rewind button, hear the whir of fast forward, the loud sudden clunk of the stop. I recall the baffling emptiness when an expected song or bit of dialogue had somehow disappeared.  Sometimes we hit the wrong button and accidentally recorded over a prized skit or hilarious duet.  Since March, 2020 has moved with a similarly lurching, erratic randomness.  Some aspects of life that we cherish most have simply been erased. Many people are grieving lost loved ones.  As I write, nearly 192,000 Americans have died from the novel coronavirus.  Sometimes it feels as though a cloud of semi-mourning shadows the entire country.  We  plod along, uncertainly.  And we keep ending up where we started, in a place we never wanted to be.  

Happy “Back to School”?  Not particularly. Not this year. 

A friend’s daughter, making the best of it, as she begins her freshman year of high school at home. One plus: the comforting, watchful presence of her cat, Sugar.