Endeavor

Endeavor

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The space ship Endeavour landed yesterday in the Gulf of Mexico, the first time a capsule had ever splashed down in that body of water — and from the the first flight operated by a private company. All this on top of the nine years it had been since American astronauts were launched into space from U.S. soil.

What struck me when reading the news accounts this morning was what astronaut Bob Behnken said after landing, thanking those who made the flight possible “for sending us into orbit and bringing us home safely. Thank you very much for the good ship Endeavour.” 
What a lovely word, endeavor: so much longer than the word “try,” more multi-faceted in meaning, more elegant in syntax. Though it is named for the space shuttle, the name spoke volumes about the vessel, the launch, the landing — and the times we live in. 
Back to Browsing

Back to Browsing

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Returns still go in the chute, and holds can still be delivered to an outside table in a plastic bag. But for the bold and restless, you can also now enter the Fairfax County Public Library branches in person. I took the plunge … and I’m so glad I did.

Though it was almost eerily quiet, it wasn’t like being in an empty restaurant, a place you expect to be lively and people-filled. The communion we have with the printed page is silent anyway.
I’d forgotten how much I enjoy finding the books I read in tangible form — not clicking to retrieve them on a screen or downloading them in an audio file. But browsing, tilting my head to read the titles, scanning up and down the shelves. Seeking and finding.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of picking Susan Orlean’s The Library Book because there it was in the “New Nonfiction” section and Anne Tyler’s Clock Dance because I was over in the “S”s anyway, looking for Stegner’s Crossing to Safety and her book was in the “T”s. It was the great pleasure of serendipity, of finding a book I wasn’t looking for but that was waiting for me all the same. 
Hunted and Gathered

Hunted and Gathered

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On my way to breakfast, I found four ripe blackberries, courtesy of my morning walk. It’s a bush I’ve known for years, quite accessible to deer and other passersby. 

Since four berries do not a breakfast make, I sliced some peaches on my cereal, from a bag our neighbors gave us after they had picked them at a local orchard.
This means that two parts of this breakfast were locally grown, hunted and gathered. And then … there’s the Special K. 
Working Al Fresco

Working Al Fresco

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I feel like a kid who finally has to come inside because the street lights are on. For the first day this week, I’m working inside. It was quite a run: four straight days of al fresco work. 

I’ve been writing this blog on the deck, editing articles, crafting talking points, and, yesterday, sending out a newsletter to 5,500 people, also from the deck. Kinda scary that one can do all this from the backyard … but that’s the way we roll now. 
Meanwhile, I go through two changes of clothes a day (it’s been in the 90s with 70-percent humidity), drink glass after glass of water or iced tea, and every day when the accumulated heat of the day seems ready to collapse upon itself, I plug in a small fan to ease my way to quitting time.
Minor discomforts aside, working outside is divine. I type to the rise and fall of cicada song, I answer emails while birds settle in the azalea bush behind me. Though I don’t hunt for worms or sip nectar to keep body and soul together, working outside makes me feel a part of the natural world in a way few other things have.  
Joyland!

Joyland!

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Yesterday, the neighbors had their driveway sealed, which meant that I was whisked away to a place I used to love more than any other — Joyland.

Joyland was an amusement park in Lexington, Kentucky that closed when I was young. How I came to conflate the smell of blacktop with this down-on-its-heels fun park was likely due to the hot asphalt of the parking lot.
All I know is that the merry-go-round there was an utter delight, and the roller-coaster, called the Wildcat, was a rickety wooden model that clattered when the cars rolled up and down its hills and valleys. 
When I made my First Communion and was told by the nuns that it would be the happiest day of my life, I asked Mom and Dad to take me to Joyland. All spiritual aspects of the day aside, if this were to be the happiest day of my life, Joyland would have to be involved. 
And, dear people that they were … they took me. It was after Mass and the family brunch, after the rain had stopped (because it was pouring that morning). The sun had come out and the pavement was steaming.  The whole place smelled like blacktop. It was Joyland! My happiest day was complete. 
The Competitors

The Competitors

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Here in the outdoor office, where I just completed several major tasks and am taking a brief breather before starting another, I often find my eyes wandering to the hummingbird feeder. 

After a dry spell earlier in the summer, the tiny birds are at it again, zooming in for a drink and battling off competitors with fierce territoriality.
The hummingbirds may not realize how much competition they have. They may not always notice the ants, bees and wasps, even the errant spider or two, which as far as I can tell are siphoning off more of the nectar than any rogue birds. 
But I’ll just ignore that for now. If it’s OK with the hummingbirds, it’s OK with me. 
Most Beautiful Day

Most Beautiful Day

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Today we celebrate the birthday of a daughter who is about to become a mother. It has me thinking back to the day when she was born, a most glorious day, as all three of the days were when my children came into this world. 

In this case, however, July 28 was the day when an oppressive heat wave had finally broken. My second-born, who was due almost two weeks earlier, had apparently been waiting until the temperature was back below 90 before she made her appearance. The weather had turned overnight, a cool breeze had sprung up, which led the TV weather person to announce “This is the most beautiful day of the year.” 
It’s something I’ve always repeated to Claire, and today was no exception. “It’s certainly not the most beautiful day of the year today,” she responded, referring to our high temperature and oppressive humidity. 
“That’s because it’s waiting for when your baby is born,” I said. And of course, no matter what, it will be. 
Stegner and Home

Stegner and Home

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It made sense that I finished this year’s “beach book” just hours before firing up the work computer.  It made sense, though it made for less than 40 winks. That’s the way it is — or can be, when the book is good enough. 

In this one, it was almost as if I could see Stegner coming into his own as a writer from the beginning of this 562-page saga to the end. The Big Rock Candy Mountain was Stegner’s second published novel and an autobiographical gem that becomes wiser and stronger as the writer (and the characters) mature. 
I’ve always loved Stegner’s depiction of the American West, his love for the landscape and the way he grapples with the nature of home. And here I could see this in full flower: 
It was a grand country, a country to lift the blood, and he was going home across its wind-kissed miles with the sun on him and the cornfields steaming under the first summer heat and the first bugs immolating themselves against his windshield. But going home where? he said. Where do I belong in this?
…Where is home? he said. It isn’t where your family comes from, and it isn’t where you were born, unless you have been lucky enough to live in one place all your life. Home is where you hang your hat. (He had never owned a hat.) Or home is where you spent your childhood, the good years when waking every morning was an excitement, when the round of the day could always produce something to fill your mind, tear your emotions, excite your wonder or awe or delight. Is home that, or is it the place where the people you love live, or the place where you have buried your dead, or the place where you want to be buried yourself? 
…To have that rush of sentimental loyalty at the sound of a name, to love and know a single place … Those were the things that not only his family, but thousands of Americans had missed. The whole nation had been footloose too long, Heaven had been just over the next range for too many generations.
Bodies and Souls

Bodies and Souls

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The several loads of laundry I’ve done since returning home are a good re-entry point. Cleaning and folding make me feel at home. And being on the deck as my nightgown blows in the breeze helps me remember the freedom I felt at the shore.

That feeling of freedom is more important now than ever. It’s so easy to feel hemmed in by the pandemic, to think only about what we can’t do, where we can’t go.

Of course we must take care always to protect ourselves and those we love. But we must also find our own personal balance points, the tradeoffs we will or won’t make to ensure that we not only keep our bodies intact — but our souls as well.

Traveling Twice

Traveling Twice

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This year’s beach read is The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner, a family saga as broad and as deep as the western horizon. It’s been a fine book for this year’s trip, accompanying me on the plane and on the strand.

There aren’t many readers on the beach these days. There are plenty of people on their phones, and, believe it or not in this age of air buds, plenty of people listening to portable radios loudly enough that everyone nearby can hear them, too.

But I spotted only three or four people reading books on yesterday’s walk, though the day before I happened to park myself by an entire family in thrall. But though few in number, readers stand out. There they sit in perfect communion with the printed pages, as waves break and gulls swoop. They could be anywhere — running through an airport in Bangkok or driving cattle through a freak spring snowstorm in Montana.

I like to think that these readers have discovered what I have: that when you travel with a book, you travel twice.