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A Souvenir

A Souvenir

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I returned home with an unwelcome souvenir: a case of Covid, the first time for me, or at least the first I’ve known about. Luckily, I didn’t contract the virus until a couple of days before departure, and it didn’t fully reveal itself until I got home. Since home is the best place to be when under the weather, I’ve been more reconciled to the trip’s end.

On the other hand, I miss the energy that usually accompanies a return: the joy of hugging family I’ve missed, the bustle of doing the laundry — mine is still piled up, optimistically, in front of the washing machine.

I’ll spend the next few days sipping Gatorade, nibbling crackers … and dreaming about where I was last month. 

(Portree, on the Isle of Skye)

Home, for a Minute

Home, for a Minute

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Today is the slender filling of home in a very large travel sandwich. Tomorrow we leave for three weeks in Scotland. Was this trip planned by a madwoman? Yes, of course, and that madwoman would be me. 

So yesterday and today it’s a flurry of laundry and repacking, of settling in but not settling down, of checking lists and paring them to a sliver of their former selves. 

Tomorrow evening we take off for a country I visited once decades ago and found much to admire: castles and lochs and vistas galore. 

But before that, the dust will be flying. 

Meet Cleo

Meet Cleo

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This is my second parakeet post in a week, but what can I say … it’s been a bird-dominated week at my house. While we are still mourning the loss of Alfie, we wanted a new friend for his cage-mate, Toby. 

Enter Cleo, the blue bird on the right. This little guy (who may be a gal … it’s too early to tell) seems to be holding his or her own against Toby’s tonnage. And we’re hoping the new birdie will get Toby up and moving. 

This already seems to be happening. I’ve seen more cage clambering from Toby in the last few days than in the preceding two months. 

Cleo has a lot of growing to do, and a lot to learn, but Toby is an excellent instructor … at least when it comes to the the culinary arts. 

From a Distance

From a Distance

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I’ve spent a few evenings this week rocking in the hammock as day dwindles to darkness. It’s a show worth watching. 

At first, my focal point has been the sky, the lightning bugs (fewer than last year but still blinking), and the garden, in peak bloom with coneflowers, day lilies, roses and zinnias. 

Eventually, though, I can’t help but notice the house, which appears almost fetching in the half-light. I can’t spot its deficiencies as I do in the no-nonsense noontime glare. I forget about the azalea that needs pruning, the deck that needs mending, the door that needs replacing. 

All I see is my home. How beautiful it looks … from a distance. 

Humidity of Home

Humidity of Home

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It’s not that Manhattan defies seasons, not completely. It can be stiflingly hot there, and bitterly cold. But weather does not rule as it does in other places I’ve lived. 

I remember my first winter in the city, being amazed when snow finally stuck on the pavement. I thought that all the heat underground — the subway, smoke belching from grates — would make it impossible for white stuff to accumulate. It eventually did, of course, but the city itself is an excellent distraction from all things meteorological. 

All this is to say that last week I was ensconced in a season-free bubble, so this week I open my eyes (and my pores) to the new season in town: summer. I know this not just from the calendar, and the writing on the street, but from the humidity, which began building Saturday and is now gearing up for a sticky, months-long run. 

What can I say — it can be miserable, to be sure, but it’s the humidity of home. 

Night Flight

Night Flight

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We left Seattle for Virginia at an hour I consider normal for overseas flights, that is, almost midnight. But then we had almost as far to go, give or take a few hundred miles

Instead of crossing an ocean, we traversed a continent. In the dark of night we flew over cities and villages, swamps and high deserts. In a darkened cabin, we covered the distance of this broad land. 

And now, after a few hours of catch-up sleep, I’m sitting where I so often do, at a desk overlooking a green yard, my slice of this planet: home. 

The Full Fridge

The Full Fridge

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Long ago, when I was writing a magazine article about what parents could do to promote family happiness, I remember being surprised at the additional point my editor suggested adding. It’s good to keep the refrigerator stocked with good food, she said.

I’d been interviewing experts about family self-esteem and other heady topics, forgetting that all the good feelings in the world aren’t much help unless there’s a healthy body to receive them. 

Our refrigerator serves only two people now, so there’s a limit to how stocked it can be. But a couple of recent holidays plus entertaining out-of-town family last weekend means it’s been fuller than it usually is. And yes, that is happy-making … but only because it means I won’t have to cook this week. 

(No open-fridge photos this morning, but here’s one of a salad that came out of it.)

For Love of Place

For Love of Place

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On this earth day I’m thinking about the places I love best on this planet: my home in Virginia, starting with the house and yard and moving beyond to woodland paths and trails, the spokes of a wheel of caring.

My hometown of Lexington, Kentucky, with its old brick homes and its new distillery district; with its rolling grasslands, shaggy limestone cliffs, white fences and horse farms.

Other places I have lived and loved: New York City, which inspired and thrilled me in my youth and revives me still. Chicago, which I heard about all my young life and where I went to college.  Petit Jean Mountain in Arkansas, with its friendly people and its views that go on forever. And Groton, Massachusetts, small town extraordinaire, where I gave birth to our first child. 

On Earth Day we honor this, our only planet, and think about ways to protect and promote its health and longterm viability. But all this protection and promotion starts with love. It’s love that emboldens us, that helps us make the tough choices, do the hard things. Unless we truly care about the earth, what incentive do we have to safeguard it?   

(Above: Joe Pye weed blooms in a Kentucky meadow on a perfect August morning, 2021.)

Megalopolis!

Megalopolis!

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Over the weekend, a family birthday party took me to Towson, Maryland. It dawned on me as I was driving that my niece, her husband and their now one-year-old daughter live in the same metropolitan area that I do. I can get in my little gray car and drive for an hour and a half and never leave home.

It sure feels like leaving home, though. Four expressways are involved: the Dulles Toll Road, the Capital Beltway, I-95 and I-695 (the Baltimore Beltway). And the two places have quite a different look and feel. 

The megalopolis is a strange creature, a many-bellied beast of a term. Coined in the middle of the last century, it means two or more adjacent metropolitan areas that share enough transport, economy, resources and ecologies to blur their boundaries and complete a continuous urban area. I see that megalopolis is an outdated term. It’s now megaregion, according to the America 2050 Initiative. 

Given that most humans identify with a house, a block, a town at most, I think we’re in dangerous territory here. Let the geographers have their fun, but as far as I’m concerned I definitely left home on Saturday.

(The Northeast Megaregion at night. Courtesy Wikipedia, which also served as source for some of the information in this post.)

Many Worlds

Many Worlds

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Yesterday there was a drive and some errands that reminded me how many worlds exist inside this one world we call home. 

There was a body shop with country music blaring and an American flag flying and a mechanic named JJ who pronounced the bill — “that will be nine thousand dollars” — before grinning and saying he was just kidding. 

There was a hole-in-the-wall eatery with goat meat and fou-fou and a woman wearing a colorful West African print in bright yellow. 

And in between these places were parkways of green, the home of our first president, and the Potomac River flashing bright outside the car window, its bridges arching gracefully over the waves.

It’s a big world out there. How good it is to be reminded of it.