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Biking the Trail

Biking the Trail

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I spent the weekend hearing tales from Tom and his brothers, intrepid cyclists just returned from a 350-mile bike adventure down the Great Allegheny Passage and C&O Canal Towpath trails. 

These rails-to-trails paths allow walkers and bikers to make their way from Pittsburg to Washington, D.C. almost completely off-road. They provide a glimpse of the way life used to be, when people journeyed on foot or not at all. 

Tom and the guys hung panniers stuffed with tents and sleeping bags on their bikes, then cycled through forests, along rivers and across iron truss bridges. They told went swimming in the Potomac and heard train whistles in the night.

They passed through Pennsylvania towns like Boston, Connellsville and Ohiopyle (gateway to Falling Water), and Maryland burgs like Cumberland, Paw Paw and Hancock — meeting the same folks along the way.

It was challenging, exhausting, unforgettable. All I can say is … sign me up!

(Photo: Tom Capehart)

Twenty Years

Twenty Years

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When I visited Lexington last month, Phillip drove me through the University of Kentucky campus. He  wanted to show me that the twin towers were gone. Not those twin towers, though Phillip saw those come down, too. He was working in New York at the time, his office less than two miles north on Hudson. But it was the absence of the Kirwan-Blanding Towers he wanted to show me, two 23-floor dormitories that housed students for almost 50 years and that came down carefully, a floor at a time.

Not so with those other towers, of course, which pancaked to the ground 20 years ago today, taking the lives of almost 2,700 with them. As is so often the case, we hadn’t known what we had until we lost it. We also hadn’t known that terrorists with fake IDs were learning how to fly planes — but not to land them. There was ignorance within our innocence. Perhaps there must always be.

In the days and weeks that followed 9/11, I cooked up a storm. I made bacon-and-egg breakfasts, chopped vegetables for stews and soups. I drug out the crockpot and pressed it into service. I was making food for the bereaved and serving it to my family. It felt like a way to heal.

But that was long ago. Our problems have metastasized. The terrorism is still present but now we also have a pandemic, climate change disasters, and an ignominious end to the war we started to avenge the 9/11 attacks. So many challenges … and so little consensus on how to deal with them.

Ten years ago, I wrote that our children grew up in a different world. Now my children have children. What kind of world will they inherit?

A Different Thursday

A Different Thursday

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For most of the summer, we’ve been watching our grandson, Isaiah, every Thursday. The little tyke and his mom head over here early in the morning, and Isaiah’s daddy picks him up in the afternoon. But starting this week, Isaiah has begun going to a family daycare provider, so it was quiet around here yesterday.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a babysitter-type person. Watching Isaiah (or granddaughter Bernadette) full-time are not jobs I’ve lobbied to have. Much as I adore my grandbabies, I know my strengths and weaknesses — and a daycare provider I’m not.

But I love to be around the babies, and watching them grow and change is a greater joy than I could have imagined. All of which is to say.that yesterday I missed the feel of a little head on my shoulder and of little arms around my neck, the softness of baby skin and the dearness of hands so plump that the wrist line looks like a bracelet.

I missed the devilish smile when Isaiah bangs the cabinet doors or opens up the crisper drawer, finds an apple and bites into it. Watching babies: so much of it is funny, so much of it is tedious, so much of it is tactile. So much of it is all of these at once. 

Before there were grandchildren I thought I remembered what it was like to have a baby in the house, But it turns out, I had forgotten. 

(Isaiah and friend plot their escape.)

The Big 1

The Big 1

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Today our grandson Isaiah celebrates his first birthday with a party, presents and a smash cake —  something we had back in the day but just called “cake.”

He’s a cheerful little fellow who’s on the cusp of walking, who likes to point and say “dutz?” or “dat?” and who’s totally at home with two huge German shepherds and a dog-sized cat. 

I love him to pieces, of course — how could I not? But I find it difficult to write about him and his younger cousin Bernadette. How many ways can you say adorable, huggable and snuggly? How can I retain even a smidgen of objectivity when writing about this pair?

For years I penned articles for parenting magazines. While I conducted research and interviewed experts, I also used my daughters’ bedtime routines, imaginary companions or other age-appropriate behavior as anecdotes. The girls were first and foremost my precious children, of course, but sometimes … they were material. 

This is not the case with the grandkids. They are pure pleasure, not only because we can send them home at the end of the day but also because there’s not one published anecdote about them. Unless you count the occasional blog post, of course!

Two Photos

Two Photos

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I took a long walk this morning after an early airport run. It felt good to hit the pavement after sending off the Seattle contingent. They live so far away, and I miss them. But they are well on their way now, and the rest of us are back in our homes and routines, too. The week we spent together was full of hikes and paddles and loud, raucous family dinners, and I’m enormously grateful for it.

If today I’m a little sad knowing it’s over, that’s part of it, too, like the rise and fall of breath and tides. I tell myself that it could easily not have worked out at all. There were the schedules of eight adults to juggle, to say nothing of baby nap times, feedings and gear. 

I snapped the top photo after everyone else had left the house, amazed that it could end up looking like it had in the website pictures once we’d packed up and moved out. But I’d rather remember it like this:

On the Lake

On the Lake

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There’s at the lake and there’s on the lake. And what a difference between the two. Being at the lake can also mean being in the woods or on a walk or hanging with the family in an A-frame across the road. 

Being on the lake is being immersed in water and wake, paddle and foam.  It’s kayaking up and down Red Run Cove, saying hello to folks in other boats or on the shore, listening to snippets of conversation about the invasive grasses that are mucking up motor boat propellers. 

Once in the middle of the lake, I put my oar across my knees and feel the sun on my face. I think about the trip, which ends today. There was a lot of packing and organizing to get us here. There’ll be a lot of packing and organizing to get us home. It was worth every minute of it.

At the Lake

At the Lake

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A laptop that’s been off for more than two full days. Dinner for eight every night. A new place with new routines. Must be on vacation.

Here at the lake it’s 20 degrees cooler than home — and with two babies and two dogs, quite a bit more lively.

Two of us are working, two just left for a walk, two of us are napping (the under-one crowd) and the rest are figuring out what we’ll do next. 

It’s August … and the world is now this cottage near a lake. 

Space Relations

Space Relations

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Never my strong suit on standardized tests, what we used to call space relations is not one of those fusty academic subjects that never comes in handy later in life.  It’s an aptitude you can use! 

Right now, for instance, it would be nice to know if the two large (and growing) piles of stuff I’ve been collecting for the lake will fit in our two smallish sedans. One of these cars will have a kayak strapped on the top, or at least that’s the plan, so that must be taken into consideration, weight-wise. 

My record in these areas is dismal. I can’t even figure out how big a Tupperware I need for leftovers, often trying one too small before I finally hit it right. The difference in cubic feet between a dollop of green beans and the mountain of food, fans, towels and other essentials growing upstairs and down is, well, stunning. 

The hour of judgment is coming. I have a feeling it will also be the hour of jettisoning. 

‘Let Every Fiber Thrill’

‘Let Every Fiber Thrill’

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With our family lakeside getaway only two days away, I couldn’t have picked a better time to read Madeleine Blais’ book To the New Owners. A valentine to her family’s ramshackle bungalow on Martha’s Vineyard it sums up the chaos of multi-generational gatherings.  

One of my favorite chapters features excerpts from the guest register. There are explanations, exhortations and ruminations — entries that touch on every aspect of that family’s island getaways.

“I’ve never played so many games of gin rummy in my life.” 

“I can think of no other place I’d rather go  out and not catch any fish!”

And, because this is a literary family, numerous riffs on the famous line from Moby Dick, including, “Call me, Ishmael” and “You never call me, Ishmael.” 

One of my favorite entries is this quotation from Flaubert, which captures the spirit with which one should embark upon a trip that (in my case) consists of eight adults, two babies and two large German Shepherds:

“Spend! Be profligate! All great souls, that is to say, all good ones, expend all their energies regardless of the cost. You must suffer and enjoy, laugh, cry, love and work, in other words you must let every fiber of your being thrill with life. That’s the meaning of being human, I think …”

(Above: Guest books from Thule, our beloved lakeside cottage in Indiana, which left the family about five years ago.)

Tales to Tell

Tales to Tell

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For the last few months I’ve been slowly moving books into the spare bedroom I now call my office. It was my office once, long ago, when I was a full-time freelance writer and two of our daughters still bunked together in the room across the hall.  

But since then it has been Claire’s room, from the time she was a grade-schooler with hermit crabs and hamsters (including one who miraculously gave birth two days after we brought “him” home from the pet store) to a teenager with walls covered by photos of the band Green Day.  

The door to this room has been slammed shut so many times that it barely closes. But it does close, and that is important. 

For now, I sit here in hard-earned quiet, thinking about the journey it took to reclaim this room — not just the painting and decluttering but the long journey from moving out to finally moving back in. 

This room has tales to tell.