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Writing Quickly

Writing Quickly

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I woke this morning, as I did yesterday, to the scamper of little feet and the noise of life being lived, hard, above me. It’s the configuration of this shambling old cabin by the lake that the deck that runs the length of the main floor also runs above where I sleep. 

It’s not until the respectable hour of 8 a.m. that the little ones are let loose, but once they are, further winks are impossible. 

They scamper, they giggle, they push plastic kiddie chairs across the floor. If there is a quiet moment, it’s when bowls of cereal are being offered, fuel for further activity. 

I’m writing quickly because I don’t want to miss a minute of it. 

Bluuuue Sky

Bluuuue Sky

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It’s not cerulean or azure or aquamarine. To describe the sky I saw on yesterday’s walk, we need a new word. I propose bluuuue. Not blue, or even bluuue. This is bluuuue (four ‘u’s) at its purest and most intense. The hue of a cloudless sky.

I have a reason for describing this on Father’s Day.  Dad was the king of blue skies. He didn’t seem to notice the clouds, or if he did, he chose to ignore them.

So in honor of him, and fathers everywhere, the bluest bluuuue sky photo I can find.
Circle of Life

Circle of Life

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Yesterday felt more like a weekend with a daughter and two granddaughters here. At a visit to a nearby farm park, I found myself on the merry-go-round with Bernadette (pictured here with her mama a year and a half ago).

Yesterday I was the one holding way too tightly to the rider, too tightly being a relative term, I suppose. Bernadette will be 4 in October, but hold tight I did. And as we made endless rotations to patriotic favorites like “Stars and Stripes forever,” I thought about how many times I took Bernadette’s mother on carousel rides, and how particular she was about her mounts — her favorite being the rainbow pony at the National Mall carousel.

Now Suzanne was standing on the sidelines with her newborn, and I was back on duty. The circle of carousels. The circle of life. 

They Grow Up So Fast

They Grow Up So Fast

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Children do, of course. But so do goslings! I’ve been watching this year’s Lake Anne spring babies toddle into semi-maturity for the last few weeks. A few weeks ago, this pair struggled to follow their mom and dad down to the water, slipping and sliding much of the way.  No helicopter parents these.

By now, the spring babies have grown into gangly teenagers who would rather die than acknowledge their ‘rents. Notice the nonchalant way they graze and lag behind. You can almost imagine them grumbling, “Mom, puhleeeeeze! Don’t you have something else to do?”

Such is life. And such is parenthood … throughout the animal kingdom.

(Top photo: Sally Carter)
Slipping Into History

Slipping Into History

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Today is the 80th anniversary of the Allied landing on the beaches of Normandy. It is also “the moment when D-Day will slip almost entirely from memory into history,” says Garrett M. Graff, author of When the Sea Came Alive: An Oral History of D-Day, a 19-hour audiobook.

My knowledge of World War II is also from oral history — Dad’s stories about the 35 missions he flew in 1944, including air support on D-Day. He always insisted that his efforts were nothing compared with soldiers on the ground. 

“I don’t think the American people appreciate what some of those men did,” he told a newspaper reporter in 2009. “Those guys, they deserve all the honors.” I think Dad was too modest; being crammed into the tail gunner’s seat of a B-17 bomber carried enormous risks and responsibilities. 

Dad was one of the lucky ones. He survived to return, marry, have four children and die peacefully at the age of 90. Like him, most of the boys who stormed the beaches (or flew above them) are now under the ground. As D-Day slips into history, it’s up to us to keep it alive. 

(Dad poses beside a B-17 bomber at his air base in Horham, England in 1944.)

Best Present Ever!

Best Present Ever!

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Today there’s another little person in the world, my newest grandchild, who just gave me the best birthday present ever: arriving yesterday at 6:30 p.m., just hours before the day I came into the world a few (ahem) years ago.

Who knows what triggers labor. I don’t know the latest research. But I like to think there’s something magical about it. At least two of my three children would have different birthdays if they were of this generation. Doctors don’t let women go two weeks beyond their due dates anymore. 

But this little girl came on her own steam, at her own time. She decided she wanted her own special day. I can’t wait to meet her!

Family Bibles

Family Bibles

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They hold newspaper clippings, holy cards, photos of babies in long cotton gowns. Century-old flowers crumble in their pages, and their bindings are frayed and worn.

Yesterday I paged through a stack of old family bibles looking for names, dates, relationships. Some of them had elaborate closures; others were falling apart. Some of them gave up their secrets; others did not.

But all of them held the fears and triumphs of mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, siblings and cousins. They were the ceremonial center of recorded family life. I studied them, photographed them, copied words from their pages. Then I brushed their dust off my hands and came upstairs, to the land of the living.

A Confluence

A Confluence

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It happened regularly and would have happened today, which is both Mother’s Day and Dad’s birthday. I would make the trip out to Kentucky then, figuring the confluence gave me two reasons to visit. 

I always felt a bit bad for Dad on those days, worrying that the luster of his special day was dimmed a bit by having to share it with Mom. But Dad didn’t seem to mind. 

Now I have so many reasons to revel in this day, which celebrates both my parents and on which I will see or hear from my own precious daughters and grandchildren. 

It’s a confluence all right. 

Capturing Birds

Capturing Birds

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Once upon a time, I wrote a book for parents, encouraging them to avoid the trap I’d fallen into, double-thinking my words and actions until I’d turned what used to be a joyous and natural activity — raising kids — into a highly fraught, expert-dominated procedure.

In one chapter I talk about what children bring to adults when they’re allowed to remain children, not miniaturized adults, how they remind us of the way the world looks when we’re just coming alive to it. 

I was reminded of this the other day when Isaiah asked his mother why his grandparents “capture birds.”

We keep parakeets in a birdcage, you see, but to Isaiah, we are stalking the Northern Virginia landscape in search of parakeets. Every time I think of this, I smile. 

It’s the child’s mind trying to make sense of what he sees around him — and it’s a joy to observe. 

(Two of our “inmates.”)

This Old Door

This Old Door

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It’s installation time: the long-awaited day when the new back door becomes a reality — and the old wooden one becomes history. That one is in such bad shape that I won’t even include a photo of it in its entirety. But it’s served us well and is worth a backward glance.

The old door wasn’t professionally installed, but for decades it has shielded us from snow, cold, wind, rain and heat. It has kept pets and small children inside, or swung open to let them run across the desk and down the stairs. 

The door has been slammed by teenagers — and snuck through by teenagers too, although they preferred the basement window for their late-night escapes. 

It has been gouged and scuffed by pets, starting with our old cat, Basil, whose claws were much sharper than his sweet temper, followed by our dear departed doggie, Copper, who might scratch the door a dozen times a day to keep us apprised of his needs. 

In other words, the years have not been kind to the back door. The glass is mottled and wind whistles through a gap at the bottom. But it’s our door, and in some strange way, I’ll miss it when it’s gone.