Working full-time. What a concept.

If you count babysitting, I started working for money at age 11. Beginning with when I dropped out of Johns Hopkins after one semester, I worked full-time, either at Farm and Wilderness, or cobbling together several part-time jobs in Baltimore. I took a year off to study scenic design at BU, but went right to work in Boston after I dropped out (I can't draw). Third time's a charm: I worked part-time all through Wellesley and full-time summers and Christmas vacations.

And then grad school in New York City, followed by Time Inc. And then Lily. November 10, 1998. I was always planning on going back, and that might have happened if I had still been working at LIFE magazine. I didn't feel the same way about This Old House magazine, so after my six-month maternity leave was up I resigned. Just after Lily turned one I started working part-time at the Fifth Avenue Committee. I freelanced for several places--I particularly recommend the Gotham Gazette, a superb, thorough web magazine about New York City news and policy, edited by one of my former professors from journalism school.

I also volunteered, of course. Partly inspired by the Fifth Avenue Committee, I tried some community organizing, including helping get the Warren St. Marks Community Garden on our block off the ground (sorry) and co-founding the Park Slope CSA. Mostly I put out newsletters for whatever school Lily was in.

And of course I was the primary caretaker for Lily, a responsibility I almost totally discount, while Dave, a very active father, brought home the bacon every week. I have wonderful memories of taking 7- or 8-month Lily to Prospect Park with the big stationwagon stroller my father and step-mother generously got us. Those hot summer mornings I'd pack that thing with a blanket, food, diapers, reading materials, and a couple of toys, and we'd hike up the hill a mile to the Meadow, where I'd set us up under a tree. All afternoon we'd play and nurse and eat and doze, just me and her.

Eventually Lily went to preschool. During the day I went to every event and many field trips (you never can go to enough of those), and picked her up afterwards. We'd go to a playground, or a cafe, or a mother's, for a nosh and adult conversation. I'd go home and make some sort of dinner, or at least think about it. Those were wonderful, in some way terrible times.

More information than you wanted to know, I've no doubt. At any rate, while I worked hard hard hard during Lily's first eight years, no job was full-time and most of what I did fell into the category of unpaid. Just look at my tax returns. True labors of love.

So today, nearly six weeks into it, breaking in a new job, buying work clothes, getting up and dressed and out the door at the same time (8:30am) every day and leaving the office at the same time (5:30pm, more or less; later than I should be) has been an adjustment. But it's not as big a one as I might have feared. I fit into those stereotypical traces pretty easily. I remember how to answer phones; occasionally I pack lunch--I'm trying to pack more; I get outside during the day; I stay off the personal phone calls and email (that's new behavior from when I was in my late twenties).

It's a strange transition, partly because it's all so familiar. It's still hard for me to do the transitions: leaving for work or leaving for home. I'm clear my time is Lily's when I am home, and weekends are for the family as exclusively as possible. But I wonder what I should do with myself when Lily is in bed. I feel anxious during the commute and search for something positive thing to do with the time--I have never in my life commuted regularly in car to work, so this at least is very new. NPR? iPod? Blue Tooth? I don't have that many minutes.

Dave is a far better housewife than I was, especially when it comes to cooking dinner, which is always delicious and healthy. He does the laundry and pays the bills. He's on top of every detail about the new house: the lawyers, the brokers, the inspectors, the contractors, the movers. By definition he handles all the childcare, picking Lily up after school, talking with her teacher, taking her to afterschool events, arranging playdates, helping her with homework if I'm not home.

The hardest adjustment is Lily's, of course. We've been in Amherst now nearly six months(!) and while she's more settled, it's still hard. She doesn't complain. She doesn't have a Friend yet. Several friends, but no Friend. And now her mom is working. We are moving again, and we'll be across the river and 10 miles from her new friends. She is watching her mom go from primary caretaker to primary breadwinner, and her dad do the reverse. Her world has changed immeasurably--will she ever forgive us?--and if the ground feels like it's shifting under me I can't imagine what it feels like for her.

She ran a half mile in 6:40 in gym today, I bet the farthest she's ever run in her life. Last Saturday's events at Bement, her new school, included a book fair and she asked me to buy her teacher a copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends. It seems her teacher was borrowing someone else's. Of course I did and the teacher sent a delighted thank you email yesterday. How easy to be kind!

On Sunday we threw the bikes onto the new rack that Dave got. It fits on the new hitch he had installed on our new car. It was a gorgeous but surprisingly chilly day. We drove to the bike path and rode down to Pete's Drive-in for an ice cream. The woods were lovely, dark and deep, but we also rode past sweeping fields--what would have been our backyard if we had rented that farmhouse on South Pleasant--and Amherst College tennis courts.

When we came out of the woods we were in Hadley farm land--source of the famous Hadley asparagus--and the back of the route 9 malls, source of the famous Hadley low taxes. The sun was cold and the air smelled like manure and flowers. We heard birds and saw many more people biking, walking, and rollerblading. At Pete's the ice cream made us chilly and the enormous hawk skimming the air about six inches above us gave us the shivers.

Back on the path Lily collapsed, as I had anticipated but had decided to ignore until it actually happened. It was a long three and a half miles back to the Mill Lane parking lot. But I have to say it was worth every agonizing moan, tear, and sigh from her. She had never biked more than a mile in her life and here she was on a two-wheeler, working the gears and handbrakes, riding perfectly to the right of the yellow line, all thought of the tagalong fading into distance memory. I praised her profusely and can't wait to ride again.

House and health

So now we are in that weird time where we've had the inspection, we're about to buy this house, and we're just finalizing the contract, or what they call here, the purchase and sales. The inspection went well -- really nice guy. He was very thorough and very educational, giving us tips about what to prioritize now and how to maintain our house in the years to come. He and Dave spent the four hours cracking each other up. I took pictures of the house and some of the items the sellers want to leave behind.

This may sound naive to the natives, but so far there seems to be little classism here in the Happy Valley. We've heard lots about carpenters and others with advanced degrees here. Before the house inspection we had a termite inspection and Dave said that the two owners of that company both have Ph.D.'s in entymology. Not only do you not find highly educated craftspeople in Brooklyn as a rule, you don't find the intelligencia mixing with people who work with their hands. Part of that is snobbery, of course. But maybe it's also that with so few people overall, you can't afford to be choosey; who wants to turn down an interesting conversation, no matter what the source?

Maybe if you live in the country you can't afford to be single-minded in your interests, either. If you own a house you're probably interested, at least a little, in renovation and up-keep. But chances are you also bike and cook and read, too. In New York City there's so much of everything that if you want your life to revolve around opera, or baking, or Chinese, you can do that to the exclusion of just about everything else.

Sorry for the digression. We met the wonderful owners -- he's a retired religion professor and the head of a local Buddhist church. She's a lovely retired special ed teacher. I am no longer worried about the grounds being too dark or not good for gardening: They said they were not gardeners and did not have green thumbs, although she did teach Japanese flower arranging for 40 years and she has gorgeous orchids. That means that if the grounds look as nice as they do, Dave's green thumb will turn them even nicer.

Standing out there yakking we also met some neighbors and although everyone's kids appear to be grown, we're hoping for visits from grandchildren and kids on nearby streets. This street is quiet and a dead-end, so it'll be a great place to practice bike-riding. Although it's an access point for the Fitzgerald Lake conservation area and there's an area for parking just a couple of houses down, I don't anticipate a ton of traffic; many people who live in the town look blank when I mention Fitz Lake. I have a fantasy of walking in the woods before work in the morning. I've been waking up at 5 am these days anyway, maybe because of the light. It could happen!

The woods around the house on Wednesday afternoonduring the inspection were roaring with bird song. I saw a mess of red-wing black birds and two turkey vultures. I want to join Mass. Audubon and get some of their CDs with New England bird song. I gather we have to be careful of bears, and not leave bird food out during the spring months. I am going to love the wildlife. I am delighted to learn to live with the ups and downs of raccoons and coyotes and foxes and whatever else. Hell, I lived with the ups and downs of Brooklyn for nearly two decades. What's the difference, really? Everything is a trade-off.

And otherwise we are all well. Lily was sick yesterday so Dave stayed home with her while I went to the Bement spring auction. Bement is her new school. I met some great parents and the whole feeling of the place reminded me of PS 261 in terms of the relaxed and friendly atmosphere. We went as a family to the school this morning for their Spring Fling, and that was fun, also. Again met some nice folks. I think Lily will like it.

As I was driving home last night I was glad we decided not to live in Deerfield, only because it is a long way from Northampton and Amherst. I am also glad our new house is inthe northeast corner of Northampton; closer to school.

I have two more pieces of news, both health-related. One is I had a routine colonoscopy-- I'm very healthy -- this week and I bring it up, one, because it's a crucial test everyone should do; colon cancer is one of the biggest killers but also one of the easiest to arrest if you find it early enough. It's deadly because most people are too embarrassed to talk about the procedure, never mind go through with it. The other reason is that I was at a health practice about a mile from our house and afterwards, when they offered me some food to break my fast, I had my choice of either cinnamon toast or English muffin with strawberrry jam. That was the best English muffin I've ever eaten.

My other health news is that Lily came into our room at two in the morning recently, sobbing. We heard her coming from the other room because she was limping so badly she was dragging her leg. "My knee! My knee!" she cried, tears pouring down her face. Her knee hurt so badly she couldn't put any weight on it. Oh, my god, I thought. Bone cancer. But I kept a brave face,wiped her tears and Dave her some Motrin. She curled up under my arm and we snuggled the rest of the night.

In the morning she was still limping a bit but she went to school okay. Dave carried her backpack to the bus for her. As soon as I got to work I immediately started quizzing my co-workers -- it's handy to work at a parenting magazine where almost everyone in the building has kids, most of them under 10. "It's growing pains, right?" I asked one of my colleagues.
"Yup. It's growing pains."
"Really? They'd be so bad she'd be limping and sobbing?"
"Yup." And she told me a couple of similar stories from her life. Phew!

A few days later Dave said, "Lily, c'mere, I have a hunch about something. Let me measure you."

She had grown a half an inch in two weeks, an inch in two months. That'd be enough to make anyone sob.

Blogging in the real world

Hello from a few weeks off-blog.

A lot has happened in the three weeks since my last post. Blogging is a challenge in discretion, not my strongest suit. Yes, I have a new job, as associate editor at a magazine. I am in my fourth week there. I love it. It's a lot of fun. I thought my days of magazine work were long gone; I couldn't imagine being happy at a magazine after LIFE. I have a button on my bulletin board in my new cubicle that says, "I've turned my life around and now I'm right back where I started." Ain't it the truth! In more ways than one.

The hours are nine to five; I have a cube with a window; I get paid to read and write and send email and talk on the phone; my job entails two of my most favorite subjects: children and journalism. The people could not be nicer and more friendly, and they are all very professional. I work right in the middle of the thriving city of Northampton, the county seat. But I am not going to blog in any greater detail than that about my job. There's lots of great stuff -- everyone has great work stories, right? -- but if you want to know details, email me your questions.

The other news that's really great is that we have found a house! also in Northampton. Dave has posted some pictures - that's their stuff, not ours. We hope to close May 31.

The house is a snug 1971 contemporary/split level/something right near Laurel Park, an old religious community, just off routes 5 and 10 heading north to Hatfield. The property backs onto a wetlands conservation area called Fitzgerald Lake, with lots of trails. Lovely. Dave and I took a peaceful walk there when we first moved here.

The house feels very well constructed, with lots of rooms, a cathedral ceiling, and a brand-new kitchen and Japanese soaking tub. There's quite a few rooms -- lots of room for visitors! -- and a fireplace, a wood stove and a pellet stove. We like it a lot. We're having it inspected next Wednesday and we'll keep you posted as to our progress. The street is full of retired Smith proffs and everyone seems really nice; it's a very tight block as the development is 35 years old and appears to be mostly original-owner occupied.

And yes, I'm ambivalent. I'm scared there are too many trees and the plot is too thickly wooded. I told our broker we were having reservations and he did his usual line about how that's what the inspector is for, to reassure you etc., etc., how we can still walk away without losing anything more than $500 for the inspections. I finally said, I'm afraid there's no place in the yard for me to put up a laundry line. He laughed a long, long time.

I really want to hang my laundry outside for as much of the year as possible. One of my longtime Brooklyn dreams was lots of closet space, a bigger bathroom, room to store our stuff, not hearing loud parties and buses and car alarms and sirens -- and a line to hang laundry. Dave wanted berries, and vegetables, and when we've been looking at farms he's been thinking fruit trees. This place has some of that but not all. How much do I want to compromise today? I'm not sure. I do know it would be fabulous to be settled early in the summer. We've been transient for too long.

We saw the place at an open house on Sunday, bid on it Sunday night, and accepted their counter-offer last night. I go to work and try not to be distracted too much by all that's going on in my brain or the occasional calls. Dave stays home and telephones lawyers and real estate brokers and parents and inspectors, arranging everything. He also handles the shopping, cooking, cleaning, and paying the bills. At least, that's how it's happening today.

Our brains are on overload again. I go to sleep pretty quickly but then I wake up a little after five, with the early sun, the extremely loud birds just chattering wildly, and the first cars on their morning commute down route 9. Closing the window means it's stuffy but a bit quieter on the car front. Dave doesn't sleep much at all at night lately. But this too shall pass.

We really think we're going to like living on the west side of the river. A lot happens in and around Northampton. If this works my commute will be about a 10 minute drive and a 20 minute bike ride. Lily's will be about 15 minutes the other direction. Now I just need to find a place to hang my sheets. Oh, and a hammock and a tire swing. And maybe a space trolley....

Breaking in a new restaurant

Establishing relationships with restaurants is another new experience we are undergoing here. Cafe Amanouz on Main Street in Northampton is the first restaurant I've eaten at in the Pioneer Valley that I feel sure I will return to regularly. I've been there four times now, twice with Dave and twice alone; I enjoy eating alone occasionally. Well, I guess I already do go there regularly.

It's just my kind of place, small, cozy, Moroccan. You order at the counter and they bring perfect food over to your table: stews with chicken and olives and vegetables over couscous for a cold wintery day, and platters of humus and grape leaves and pita for the warm weather; sweet mint tea and Middle Eastern pastries for dessert.

Going to a place over and over is a process of getting to know the place, the staff, the menu, the routine. The last time we ate there, the night of the Mary Chapin Carpenter concert last weekend, I could see my future at this restaurant, the predictability of the slow service, the crowded tables but frequent turnover, and I could sense that I will be eating there a lot.

As it's still so new, each time I look at that enormous blackboard listing tons of dishes, all sounding delicious, I still get overwhelmed. I don't know it yet. We still need to figure out portion size and what dishes are very shareable and in what combinations. But we will; we are. And not just my future but also my past flashed before me, as this cafe reminded me a bit of the Olive Vine on 7th Avenue in Park Slope. Not the Olive Vine national chain, this is a small local place run by Jordanians who make their own pita and pita pizzas.

Last weekend was our first official date since we moved here, with a babysitter and everything. It was Saturday night and all the fancier restaurants were packed with 40-minute waits. We finally decided to eat cheap, so stopped by this place. While it was also crowded we did get a table. We were lucky to see Lily's fabulous teacher, eating dinner with her fiance, and they helped us decide what to order.

We also really liked our meal at Paul and Elizabeth's, a vegetarian place in Northampton. My mother and step-father took us there for brunch a few weeks ago and the food was simple, fresh, reasonably priced, and really good. I definitely intend to return there, too.

Not just the quality and variety of restaurant choices, we have been really struck by how friendly people are in Northampton, too. At this Moroccan place we were sitting at a table for four and when we saw a couple desparate for a table we sat New-York-City style, just moving the other other half of the table over a couple of inches, and listening in on each other's conversation and observing menu choices. They were happy to have a place to park and eventually we started chatting and they were very friendly.

This weekend we had friends in from Brooklyn and we had an adventure-filled day, starting with pancakes at the Williams Farm sugar house in Deerfield, a tour of the campus of Lily's new school, a couple of real estate drivebys, a climb up Mount Sugarloaf -- perfect day, incredible view -- and ended up eating big pizza slices in Northampton and walking around in the sunshine. Lily met a woman with a dog, of course, a min pin who is usually very shy, apparently, but came right over and sat in her lap.

The dog couple had borrowed the animal from friends and were socializing her on the steps of the municipal building. The woman half could not get over how much she liked Lily and how much Lily reminded her of herself when she was young. She kept calling her a mini-me. It was pretty funny, actually.

Cruelest month?

April vacation is coming up and it's always the third week in April, to coincide with Patriot's Day, a Massachusetts holiday, and not Passover, as in and around New York City. This year I will be working, for the first time, and Dave is busy researching places for him to go with Lily and things for them to do. It's particularly hard because she doesn't have friends here who might want to, say, join her on a day trip to MASS MoCA or the Boston Science Museum. Lots of kids in Brooklyn would be thrilled. Oh well.

Patriot's Day, Wikipedia tells me -- and take that source for what it's worth -- is also celebrated in Maine and is held in honor of the revolution starting in Lexington and Concord in 1775. There's great parades in both towns, with guys dressed in colonial garb banging on drums and playing Yankee Doodle on fifes, Red Coats, high school marching bands, fire engines -- all the kinds of stuff I like.

I also know that the Boston Marathon is held that day, although I seem to think they wanted to switch it to Sunday, at one point. That was always a gas; we'd walk down to route 16 and hold out oranges for the runners. The first woman always got a big hand, as did the unusual; I still remember a family of Asian runners starting in ages from about 8 years old on up. We always walked home saying, admiringly, "and all the winner gets is a bowl of beef stew!" Well, those days are long gone. Now you can't even run in it if you haven't qualified in an earlier marathon. Pooh! At least they allow women in today. They didn't when I was a kid. Double pooh!

Apparently, in another longtime tradition, the Red Sox always hold a home game on Patriot's Day at Fenway Park. So when my choices are baseball, parades, or the marathon, it's easy to see where I didn't go: I am so not a baseball fan, or any sports fan, and yes, I did work at Sports Illustrated for 10 months. Learned a lot there, too, including that no matter how many ways you look at it, you can't force an interest in something. I looked at sports from a theatrical point of view, as a sociological force, with a cultural eye and a business one. Nada. I just didn't care.

I will always be grateful to Sandy Padwe, my sports journalism professor at Columbia and a senior editor at SI, and Bambi Wulf, then SI's chief of reporters, for the job, though. Bambi, who grew up in my hometown and is now an assistant managing editor at Time, taught me to fact-check, a fabulous and thorough teacher. As horseracing reporter I went to the Breeder's Cup, held at Gulfstream that year, and I was sitting next to Arthur Hancock, the owner of Sunday Silence, when the horse won the Classic. Very cool. The job also positioned me to move on to LIFE, and the rest is history.

When we moved to the Pioneer Valley several people told me I could move to Massachusetts only on the condition that I not become a Red Sox fan. I said I was born here and lived most of my life here, so it was already preordained that if I rooted for any team, that would be the one. But then I hastened to add that I care so little about sports that when the Sox won the World Series I didn't watch. Not a single pitch. I just don't care. I like to play.

Still in Bardo, here, new job, lots of visitors, lots of obligations of various sorts. But I've made another new friend, a magazine editor whose 8-year-old daughter goes to Bement, spring sure is coming, the croci are popping up, we had a bluejay on the bird feeder, and every day above ground is a good one.

"May I suggest this is the best part of your life."

Ella, Anne, Julie, and Lili

All right, I admit it, I'm a fan of the latest incarnation of teenie bopper movies, especially the ones with Anne Hathaway as a spunky girl snogging some cute male eye candy.

Lily gets home around 1:30 on Wednesdays and today, after she played Whiffle Ball at the playground with her dad for awhile -- I've got a mild version of the GI bug going around, and spent most of the day snoozing on the couch and reading over my pre-employment packet from Disney, which owns Wondertime -- we watched Ella Enchanted, based on the clever book by Gail Carson Levine. It stars, naturally, Anne Hathaway.

Levine's an inspiratin because apparently she wrote her book after taking an adult ed class at the New School in the Village on writing children's literature. She writes twisted fairy tales with fiesty spunky girls and women, modern takes in the classic setting. Not as intellectual as say, Georgory Maguire's retellings, the most famous of which is Wicked. Levine's books are meant for a younger audience, and Lily is at the perfect age for them.

I like both Levine and Maguire for different reasons; Maguire is making political and literary points with his adult novels, especially Wicked, which I really enjoyed. I also enjoyed Wicked the musical, which I've seen twice, even though, as with Ella Enchanted, the plot has significantly changed from the book. But the production values are extraordinary, the songs catchy, and Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth on the CD really belt 'em out.

Among the other teenie bopper movies Lily gets from Netflix -- did you know you can set up a separate list for members of your household? We are on the three-movie plan and we have our list and get two movies, and Lily maintains her own list, and gets one at a time -- I've also enjoyed Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries I and II, costarring the incomparable Julie Andrews. I mean, forget Barbra. Julie Andrews rocks. After her you can drop your voice, as my late dear friend Jean Kendall used to say.

Let's pause here and pay homage to the wonderful Julie Andrews. Just Cinderella, Sound of Music, and My Fair Lady, is enough to say wow. But she has a massive year career beyond that, as well as being a writer of children's books herself -- Lily's rereading The Last of the Really Great Whangdoddles again. Haven't read her but Lily likes this one.

Hathaway also starred as Lili in the 2002 Encores production at New York City Center of Carnival with the also incomparable Brian Stokes Mitchell. It's the theatrical version of the movie Lili, the story of the French girl and the puppets. Every spring the Encores series presents workshops four or five performances of 20th century American musicals. They are often quite obscure, but always well performed, with scripts in hand, some costumes, and fantastic dance numbers. This puppets in this production had scripts, too, which was pretty funny.

A separate musical, Carnival doesn't have the song Lili from the movie, though, which I rented when my Lily was first born. I played the song over and over so I could memorize it and sing it to my new baby. Everyone always sang me the first verse, which is very sad:

A song of love is a sad song, Hi-Lili, Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo
A song of love is a song of woe
Don't ask me how I know
A song of love is a sad song
For I have loved and it's so
Hi-Lili, Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo
Hi-Lili, Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo.

But did you know it has a happier second verse, at least in the movie?

A song of love is a gay song, Hi-Lili, Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo
A song of love is a song of joy, a waltz for girl and boy
A song of love is a gay song, for I'm in love and it's so
Hi-Lili, Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo
Hi-Lili----Hi-Lili----Hi-Lo.

Sing to me, Mama, Lily said the other night when she had burned her tongue on hot chocolate so badly she couldn't sleep. I sang "Sweet Baby James" and a verse and a half of "Fire and Rain" but she stopped me and asked me to sing something else, it was too sad. So I sang our current favorite, the one about the island where the babies all live in trees. Next time I'll sing Lily "Lili."

Notes on living here

LIFE magazine, RIP

--Got a package delivered yesterday. FedEx guy knocked on the door, handed me the thing to sign, and spent a good five minutes telling us to put the padlock on the inside of our bulkhead to the basement, rather than the outside, so we don't get trapped in case of fire. "Please do it soon so I won't worry about you," he said earnestly, "Okay?" We said we would but in fact it has totally slipped my mind. Sorry, FedEx guy! We'll get right on it.

I don't have to tell you that while the Brooklyn UPS guy was really nice and would leave packages without a signature -- you always prayed not to have a package delivered FedEx because inevitably they missed you and you had to drive down to a wharf in Sunset Park to find whatever it was -- but he never once worried about my locks.

Note to self: Move lock inside, soonest, so the poor guy can sleep at night.

--I had to buy stamps yesterday and found to my great surprise and annoyance that there was actually a line! A long line, and only one guy behind the counter! What gives? This is Amherst, not Brooklyn.

--Turns out the reason Lily doesn't like her cousin's hiking boots is not that they were boy boots, as I suspected, but rather that they are way too small for her. Who knew she was a size three? And worse, where to buy hiking boots at what turns to be this late date? We went to Dick's on route 9 and got one of the last pairs of Gortexed Timberlands, size three. It seems boot season starts in January and they are almost entirely sold out. I hope I can still find cross-country skis for next winter.

--Dave gave blood yesterday at our local health club, and he reports that the juice and cookie quality is far superior to Methodist Hospital in the Slope. Go figure. He also says his blood pressure is very low, in a healthy way, and everything went smoothly -- last summer he hadn't eaten and passed out and scared me to death -- which I suspect is a result of his working out diligently at the gym. Who knew I married a jock? I am working out there, too, but not as religiously as Jack Spratt -- err, Dave.

--Note to self, number two: Be sure to join the Applachian Mountain Club, Berkshire branch, and Mass Audubon, so I can learn to tell to identify all those Quabbin birds.

--Note to self, final: Better get going on the summer camp sign-up, now that we know we are moving across the river. Problem is we don't know when we are moving, so we will have to factor carpooling into the equation. Lily's interested in art camp, riding, Shakespeare, all kinds of things, and we also hope we are chosen in the lottery for Family Camp at Farm and Wilderness again this year. Wouldn't that be awesome! Our five days there last summer was one of the big reasons I wanted to move here (but that's another story).

P.S. -- Dave and I drove by some houses for sale in Deerfield and Whately today to see if we wanted to look inside. We still haven't had a gut reaction of, oh, this is where I want to live, but we're having fun and getting closer. More is coming on the market in the next few weeks, we're promised.

Wilderness past and present

Here's a newsy entry. I've been a bit behind but hope to get back on schedule now. My goal is to write at least something most days. Who knows if I can keep to that, though. I have a lot to do before I start my first full-time job in eight years next Monday.

BROOKLYN
First of all, our trip to Brooklyn two weekends ago was fabulous and fun. I got to see several close friends I'd missed on my previous trips, as did both Lily and Dave, too. We went to PS 261 for a parent-teacher basketball game on Friday night and I caught up with several friends. Sure is a different school from the one Lily's at now, and it's more than just the colorful diversity. There is always a chaotic, slightly out of control sense about the place that can either drive you crazy or thoroughly inspire you. In my case, surprisingly, it always energizes me.

In particular Lily saw her third grade teacher, the fabulous Melissa, whom we all adore. She also told Zip, the principal, all about her new school and about how she has the best teacher in school. A big shout-out to Rachel Davis at Fort River! Ya!

The reason we went -- too soon! we've been there every month for the past three months! -- was to see Emerald and her family, our former neighbors. DeeAnn and I are like sisters and I realized talking to her and Steve how much I missed them, and how a large part of my motivation to leave was their leaving, first. Our family lost something when they left. It was fantastic to see them again, though, and we laughed pretty much constantly from Saturday night through Monday afternoon. It was a bit much to eat out every single meal, but one meal in particular stood out, the Chiles & Chocolate Oaxacan Kitchen, which has a sign in its window that says, this is not Mexican food, it's Oaxacan. They serve a wide variety of moles, and grasshoppers are optional. Yum.

QUABBIN
Thursday, we took advantage of the time change and the goreous weather and dragged Lily to the Quabbin Reservoir's southern entrance after school, called the Enfield Lookout. (Man, it's like pulling teeth to get her outside, some times! She's worse than I am.) I've wanted to get over there for some time, now.

Finished in 1939 and completely filled in by 1946, this manmade lake displaced four towns and a half dozen villages when they created it in between the hills of the Swift River Valley. It's about 10 miles east of Amherst and 65 miles west of Boston, which is the primary user of its water. It's one of the three largest bodies of water in New England, is 18 miles long, 39 square miles, 181 miles of shoreline and holds 412 billion gallons of water when full. The entire watershed is 186 square miles and it cost $53 million to build.

Apparently because the sportsmen industry is well-financed, Quabbin is open to motorboats and fishing and limited hunting. No canoes or sailboats. And lots and lots of trails, which I can't wait to hike.

All that is from a cool little book I found in the Pioneer Valley section of the Jones Library called Quabbin: The Accidental Wilderness by Thomas Conuel, a journalist. I read it in about an hour after we finally made our visit. The Jones Library is our favorite place in Amherst, by the way, probably the best thing we've found here, and we will miss it and the librarians a lot when we move.

Quabbin is desolate and massive, an extraordinary wilderness in the middle of the state. There's loads of wildlife, birds, animals, fish -- it's even become a hotspot for eagles. Hundreds of families, 6,000 graves, and many houses were relocated in order to create this. And you can't help but look at this endless body of water and wonder what life was like before it flooded in, who lived in the houses whose foundations lie 90 feet below the surface, and what the remaining survivors and their descendents think when they see this view and think about this reservoir.

It's the exact opposite of the feeling I get when I think about New York City and read my latest book, The Island at the Center of the World by Russell Shorto (this next shout-out goes to my friend Anne Hollister, who helped with the fact-checking). Partly because of his lovely prologue I keep imagining Manhattan as wilderness, with streams and forests. It's hard to picture Manhattan as wilderness, just as it's hard to picture four villages under this expanse of water.

What's interesting too about this book is the description of the drive for beaver pelts by the Dutch in early 17th century Manhattan. We dragged Lily out again yesterday after all our guests had gone. We parked at Station Road and walked on the rails to trails path, which is paved so not muddy, about a mile and a half to the Fort River and then back. Most of this section runs alongside beaver ponds, with lots of dams and dens. Again it was hard to get her outside, but it paid off when we saw a beaver in the water, just resting her nose on a piece of ice for a few minutes. Lots of trees were half-eaten through. Awesome animals, beavers.

BRUNCH
My last news is that we hosted our first more-than-one-couple social event yesterday, a brunch for about 15 of my new friends. I made my so-called Greek baked omelet, which has leeks, zuccini, mint, dill, feta, and white rice (go figure). Delicious. I also made a Rosie's Bakery coffee cake that I thought was a bit heavy but everyone else seemed to like. Some folks made a fruit salad, we had fabulous Vermont Country Store cheddar cheese, and my favorite, homemade lemon-ginger scones with clotted cream. I loved how everyone showed up and pitched in -- at one point I came into the kitchen to see all the dishes had been washed -- and it feels like this little house is much more of a home, now.

Temporarily, of course. Now that I know I will be working in Northampton at Wondertime and Lily will be going to school in Deerfield, we are picking up the house-hunt and looking forward to finding a house we love somewhere over in or in between those two towns. I'll keep you posted.

Decisions

So we've decided that Lily will go to the Bement School in the fall. While we never intended to put her into private school, we found that the public schools here don't offer enough challenges -- social, emotional and other -- the way PS 261 did. Now there is an amazing school.

So if you will indulge me, here's what I wrote on our application to the school, in response to the "tell us about your child" question:

A favorite family story, from when Lily was two and a half years old:
We were joking with her, and her father said, “Lily! Say, ‘I’m beautiful!’”
She responded obediently, “I’m beautiful!”
“Lily, say, ‘I’m smart!’” commanded her father.
“I’m smart!”
“Say, ‘I’m a grapefruit!’”
“You’re a grapefruit!” Naturally, we all exploded with laughter.

That’s our daughter: precocious, verbal, funny – and of course beautiful and smart. Indulged as an only child, we fear, but also struggling to find her grounding with parents who both have strong personalities.

We work hard to stay one step ahead of her, in terms of her interests, enthusiasms, discipline, and structure, which she likes a lot. We seek her opinions on decisions and various topics, and work hard to deal with behavior issues with clear, unemotional language, respect, and firmness. She responds well when she’s asked to be trustworthy and she craves her independence, as long as she knows she can come back at any time.

Lily is very much her own person. She loves people and she’s very friendly. Once she warms up to someone, which takes about 30 seconds, she will talk non-stop, asking questions and telling her story. More than anything she loves to read. Her book choices range from Harry Potter and Lloyd Alexander to the Babysitters Club and biographies. She loves her weekly book group at the public library and she will happily spend most of a day reading. She also enjoys music – she has taken a year of piano and music theory and began violin in December – and theater, and is particularly interested in studio art, and crafts including crochet. She can be fearful about learning new skills, such as riding a bike.

As a rule Lily gets along well with us and with her extended family and friends. She has a half-dozen very close girl friends her age in Brooklyn; their play still includes pretend and fantasy, and they seem to have the usual issues with sharing. She has made a couple of friends in Amherst but we don’t think she’s found her tribe here yet. Still, she works hard at her friendships and seeks children out, including those of different ages.

We feel sure that Bement would be wonderful for Lily. We know the school will keep her challenged intellectually: She will adore the variety of subjects, the small class size, and the close attention from grown-ups. The entire Bement School seems both demanding and loving, with structure and discipline, but also affection and appreciation for the individual. Lily thrives in that kind of setting.

We expect her to thrive too in the family atmosphere, enjoying close relationship with adults as well as other children her age and not. We long for her to overcome her perfectionism to the extent that she can enjoy working in areas where she lacks confidence, such as math, as well as try new things. We are confident Lily will find herself intellectually, socially, and emotionally at Bement, and work hard to be a respected, contributing member of the community.

In response to another question, we told Bement about that the first couple of months here were hard for Lily, that "she loved PS 261, her old school – we all did – and had no interest in moving away from the only home she had ever known. Despite this, she’s finding her way in this new and strange land where we drive everywhere, can see stars and the horizon, and live next door to pedigreed dairy cows.

She has a great deal of personal power and we don’t want to squelch her enthusiasm; we work hard to be consistent and set limits, saying that her feelings aren’t wrong or bad, just her ways of expressing them. It sounds obvious, but she’s much easier to be with when she has a lot of focused attention from each of her parents; a Saturday afternoon game of Brooklyn in a Box (Brooklyn Monopoly) makes the evening to follow a joy."

So we'll see. Summer camps are still undecided, and really, the next big question is where I end up working, and thus where we end up living. But knowing Lily will be at Bement helps ground us; we know we will be somewhere near Deerfield, so that she doesn't have a long commute. More will be revealed.

Stormy weather

So there's a storm the press is calling a nor'easter coming tonight. Or is it tomorrow? Trying to decide if we should go to Brooklyn tonight or first thing tomorrow morning, I pulled a rune out of my bag.

I have used Ralph Blum's Book of Runes for ages, a decade or more, and find the stones to be very useful, a kind of Rorschach card for my unimaginative brain. I get direction from the images and ideas, and I love the way Blum writes. It's not brilliant, necessarily, but it's very spiritual.

Anyway, we couldn't decide whether to go down tonight or tomorrow morning as originally planned, what with the weather predictions so dire and all. So, musing on "New York City," I reached into my trusty bag of runes and pulled out Kano (click here and scroll down to "n"), which looks something like a less-than sign, and reading the corresponding entry, burst out laughing. The first word my eye lit on was "morning."

The runes never fail me. I don't always understand their message, and they don't always tell me what (I think) I want to hear, but they never fail me and I am almost always quite entertained in the process. I pull out a rune and laugh out loud sometimes. Check 'em out.

So tomorrow morning, we're off to Brooklyn again, way too soon for me, because Emerald, Lily's best friend from when they were 10 months old (their birthdays are a week apart) is coming to town almost two years after moving to Pharaway Phoenix. We have plans of all sorts, friends and meals and sleepovers and dinners, and maximizing as much time as we can with Emerald and her family. It'll be cold in Brooklyn, so I hear. Funny to hear me complain about going, right, when my last entry was so melanchology about missing it. I am a textbook example of a body at rest wanting to stay at rest.

If I'm lucky our next visit will coincide with the most glorious week of all in Park Slope: the week in March or April (global warming has thrown all seaonal predictability into a tailspin) when the callery pears that line 5th Avenue for a half mile burst into glorious white clouds all at once. Lily and I have spent many a walk down the avenue trying to come up with poetic language for the stuff. Clouds, goose down, snow, nothing quite cuts it, especially at that magical moment about 7:00 p.m. when the sun is setting and the street lights are a soft orangy glow. Magical. Lasts about a week, and then it's gone, until next year.

News flash! Lily has triops, a gift from our former neighbors Sam and Eva on their recent visit here a few weeks ago. They picked them up for Lily during our visit Dr. Spooky's Animal Museum in Deerfield. We went away and the first round of eggs all died. This time we have a little bugger who's about a month old, and he really looks prehistoric. These are not sea monkeys. Dave took a photo, I'll see if I can post it here.

Hope to see all my fine friends in the Slope tomorrow and beyond. There's lots to catch you up on here in the Happy Valley, including these cool things called sugar shacks that, Brigadoon-like, only open during maple sugaring season in late winter. People wait two hours for their pancake breakfasts. And something else called mud season that happens between winter and spring. I tell folks that in New York we either walk on snow on pavement or dirt on pavement. No mud. The parking area outside our house is a muddy lake. Definitely mud.

Well, if it's snowin' in Brooklyn

I've been away, both physically, in Brooklyn, and mentally, in my brain. Time to get back on the blog horse and write some more. It's hard to write this because we are still so unsettled and I still wonder, at times, if we made the right decision to move here, and to do it so suddenly. Well, that was of necessity, because Dave's company closed. Still...

It's also hard to write this because I self-censor in the fear that if I don't I will say too much and The Wrong Person will read it and I won't get that job, or I will hurt someone's feelings, or I will reveal too much to the world.

Having said that, I've been thinking about two things lately: Brooklyn and skiing. Our trips to New York are based around Lily's playdate schedule. We try to maximize her friend time and we squeeze in our visits around those. This time, over President's weekend and into February vacation, she saw three or four friends for good chunks of play time.

What made me sad was her sorrow at saying good bye. Lily used to see Ariadne several times a month for playdates, and daily at school. With the exception of some younger sisters of some of Lily's new friends, no one here seems to play pretend the way Ariadne does. And Ariadne's mom says the same thing: No one in her Brooklyn friends plays pretend the way Lily does. The heartbreaker: As we drop Ariadne off with her mom on our way out of town, Lily waves and says sadly, over and over, Miss you. Miss you.

When do you get over the sorrow? Am I destroying my child's life? I hope not. But I don't honestly know.

This week was my birthday, 46 on the 28th, and thank goodness for the little bit of snow we do have. Wednesdays are half days for Lily so we picked her up at school -- she was very disappointed she couldn't take the bus, the big event of the day these days -- and drove a half hour up route 63 to Northfield Mountain to cross-country ski. Now, it's been many years since I skiied. I only skiied cross-country and I only did it for a few years, pretty much stopping in 1988 when I moved to New York. Besides, my shoe size changed after I had Lily and I could no longer fit into my boots.

This day I kind of remembered how to move my feet, though, and we headed off in an interesting direction that turned out to be harder -- read, steeper. I spent some time walking down the hills. After awhile we backtracked a bit a novice trail. All in all, not bad for the first time in oh, 20 years. I only fell a couple of times, well, we all did, and only panicked once, when I could not get either my boot unhooked or my skiis uncrossed. The other two did great, of course: Dave has skiis and used to go out in Brooklyn once or twice a year when there was snow. Lily has been downhill skiing this winter. She's a natural.

We got a good couple of hours in, and while my jeans were soaking -- gotta get some snow pants -- I had fun. Afterwards we had dinner at Mi Tierra, a small good Mexican place in Hadley. Homemade torillas. A fine way to spend a birthday.

Today Lily went to a Purim carnival with a friend and her little sister who likes to play dolls. So Dave and I walked on the bike path in Amherst for an hour, just from Station Road to Southeast Street and back, but it was hard going at times in the icy, chunky snow. Beavers live all along this part of the path, and we saw some terrific dams and dens, as well as some of their snack trees. The path has enough snow and is quite flat, so perfect for cross-country skiing. Gotta get some skis.

I'd give anything for one more hour of light

I got a call this weekend from a young woman who lives here and is moving to New York City to make her way as a writer. Her call took me back to the days of foreign telegrams and the all-night rock and rolling. We was wild then.

I'm channeling Michelle Shocked here, of course, from her song Anchorage, one of my favorite songs ever. I once had an argument with a friend from Wellesley about this song. At the time, I was a reporter at LIFE magazine and living my version of a skateboard punk-rocker in New York City.

My friend, a former housewife, was a single mother working like a dog to finish her degree from Wellesley. Her days of foreign telegrams were all ahead of her, and she latched onto the housewife lines: "I sound like a housewife / hey, 'Chel, I think I'm a housewife." She just heard "housewife" and decided the song was sad and the letterwriter was depressed. I, who had never been a housewife but who fully expected to become a mother some day, took a longer view, that life changes and one day I'll outgrow my current experiences and move on from this place into something else.

Later, when I became a mother living in Brooklyn, essentially a housewife with a part-time job and my wild life over, I still related to the song. Even today I do, I think in part because I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with being a housewife, nor do I see it as being the final experience of my life. I like how my life has changed, how I am now living in the Happy Valley with my husband and daughter, looking for work, making new friends, and building community.

My friend Shante says she sees that we have made a decision based on our desire to see who and how we are elsewhere, out of New York City. I think that's right. We are finding out who we are outside of this mythical city that I so identified with for so long. (I think perhaps Lily wasn't done finding herself in the city, but I know she can return when she's older.) And guess what? I'm still me! No matter where you go, there you are.

I'm reminded of this song as I try to help my new aquaintance make happen her version of The Dream in La Grande Pomme. We talked a long time on the phone on Saturday afternoon. I want so much for her to experience the glory and charge of New York City so I try not be too much of a downer about how expensive it is and how hard it is to come by a decent job. There's no guarantee of making it, whatever that even means, and maybe everyone should spend at least a year in New York City during their lifetime.

But I also find myself feeling a sense of poignancy talking to her, a kind of mourning, perhaps, for the life that I had. I truly do not miss it. I'm about to be 46 at the end of the month and I am too old for the New York City that I enjoyed in my youth. I don't want to live there now, and although this transition period is hard, I wouldn't have it any other way. I love my new, unfolding life, and mostly, I love my family, my daughter and my husband, and I love how we are pioneers making our way in this strange new land where you can see stars, and the horizon.

For some reason I've also been flashing on the Elgin Marbles, too, the one that depicts the moment that Atlas has returned to Heracles with the Golden Apples. Heracles has taken the heavens from Atlas, as he is the only one able to collect the apples. Very soon, Heracles will trick Atlas into taking back his burden. But for a brief moment, he gazes at the precious apples that will allow him to complete the 11th task, while Atlas gazes at Heracles and the possibility of a life now that he no longer shoulders the heavens.

This frieze used to make me feel a bit anxious for Heracles -- hurry up, give him the heavens and get the Hades out of there! -- but now I feel I'm more of an Atlas. I've had my glory. I am shouldering my responsibilities, a better life for my child, my husband, and a better remainder of my life, I suspect.

And with that, one more song comes to mind, May I Suggest by Susan Werner, as sung by Ellis Paul and Vance Gilbert. Here's the last verse:

This is a song
Comes from the west to you
Comes from the west, comes from the slowly setting sun
With a request
With a request of you
To see how very short the endless days will run
And when they're gone
And when the dark descends
Oh we'd give anything for one more hour of light

And I suggest this is the best part of your life

This woman is young and energetic and an awesome writer. She's been a beat reporter for the Hampshire Gazette and she's about to go on tour with the Sister Spit group. She's ready to work a crummy job if she has to in order to pay her dues and break into the writer's world. I've given her some names of my friends who are working journalists and if you have any ideas, send 'em on and I'll forward them to her.

Keep on rocking, girl. Keep on rocking.

Climbing mountains

"Oh, life, so this is what you are!"
-- Michael Blumenthal (one of my favorite poets ever)

Two landmarks I want to acknowledge at the top here: One is my friend Shante has a new CD out, her first. She is an incredibly talented hip-hop artist/phd candidate/actor/etc. I love her to pieces and this is really great stuff.

The second thing I am so proud of is that Katharsis Theater Company, the one I started with Henry Wishcamper in May 2005, has extended its first show, The Polish Play, another week. All the reviews are incredible, including a fabulous front-of-the-book review in The New Yorker. Simply producing a play in less than two years of founding is a mark of distinction. And this show, a combination of Macbeth and Ubu Roi (see the website for more details) is really great theater, funny, current, fantastic acting and production values: Henry's wife, Jenny Mannis, did the costumes and they are extraordinary. The puppets are gorgeous; the set; the lights; the Foley sound is hilarious (you gotta see it). I urge anyone interested in theater to see it.

There's another mountain Dave, Lily, and I conquered recently -- literally. That's Mount Sugarloaf in Deerfield. We were driving back from an open house at the Greenfield Center School last Sunday afternoon, at about 3:30 p.m. We had at least another hour or more of light and as we passed by the Mount Sugarloaf parking lot I said, let's walk up that! We could, Dave said tentatively, and I turned into the lot at the last possible moment.

We had meant to climb this our first week here when our friend George was driving us around, but hadn't had the time. Having spontaneously gone on a hike a couple of weeks ago at about the same time -- Dave and Lily were skiing -- I have had some recent experience with trying out trails at the end of the day. That time I had walked some trails off Pelham Road that lead to the Frost Trail, and gotten good and lost. The sun was sinking fast and I periodically called various out-of-town friends on my cell phone, ostensibly to say hi but always managing to include that I am a bit lost and all alone and the sun's going down but I think I'm okay.

I kept walking onto the back 40 of various farms, and every time I did I would think, oh, the helicopter could land here when they airlift me out. It was a bit ridiculous because I could see Northeast Street a half mile or so across the fields, and I knew that I was less than a mile from Pelham Road, where I had parked. But I was alone, it was getting cold, I kept hearing an owl hooting at me from a nearby pine (they are kinda scary but I felt privileged to hear it) and once I got back into the woods it was really dark. It's times like these that I really feel like a city slicker and I wonder if I will ever feel truly comfortable away from pavement and cars and electricity.

But this time, at the foot of Sugarloaf's southern peak, it was still early, there's a paved road to the summit, and I wasn't alone, so I was a bit more reassured we could make it back alive. We started out on the path alongside the road that gently winds most of its way to the top. Dave and I had hiking boots on but Lily was wearing snow boots. At first she complained and I didn't blame her one bit. But, mirabile dictu, my city child is turning into an outdoorsy one! After awhile she got into the hang of things -- the two people walking three dogs near us helped -- and when the trail rejoined the road near the summit and we said we could go back down now, she was the one who insisted on continuing. "It's the steep part, Mama!" she said. "I like the steep part!"

We wound our way up through the thining trees and came out on one fenced-in vista to protect us from tumbling over the massive rocky cliffs we could see from the road. We were looking out over the Connecticut River and beyond. Directly below were houses and farms, and we counted swimming pools awhile. We knew there were some buildings at the top, though, and we knew we weren't there yet. So we kept on, finally bursting onto a large grassy area with a tower with a couple of viewing platforms.

Climbing the spiral staircase inside made Lily long for our Brooklyn apartment briefly, but the view at the top took everyone's breath and all thoughts of Brooklyn away. Laid out before us, with that golden light of the almost gone sun, was the entire Pioneer Valley stretching off past Sunderland and the Amherst highrises to Hadley and the Holyoke Range beyond. To the west was Deerfield and Whately and the roads leading into the Hilltowns. To the north was more Deerfield, and then Greenfield, and what I assume is Vermont and the foothills of the Green Mountains.

We gazed awhile and then walked back down the road, Lily sucking on massive icicles she'd yanked off the rocks edging the road. What a joy this is! With just an hour or so to kill we pull off the road on the recommendation of a friend and after a brief hike we come out on this extraordinary view, the Pioneer Valley equivalent of the Empire State Building. At this point in my life I'd rather look at mountains and rivers.

News of the (mid) week

Molly Ivins, RIP

Here's the first hot flash - We finally got a car. We've been driving a 1994 Geo Prizm with 104,000 miles on it. It's been a great car but the door is rusting off and the gearshift is failing -- it's a standard transmission -- so the ride is really jerky.

Today, after a couple of years of lusting -- sometimes I think I moved to Amherst just so I could buy a station wagon -- we got a 2006 silver Subaru Outback with charcoal gray interior. It's got a heated windshield and side mirrors, a wiper on the rear window, and heated front seats. Heated front seats! Who ever heard of that! I thought those only came in Porsches and with leather seats, which this does not have. These butt-warmers will be lovely on those 10-degree mornings; I can't wait.

Dave drove it home from the dealer and said, you know those speed bumps by Amherst College? You don't even notice them in this car. It's warm, roomy, warm, comfortable, warm, and apparently easy to drive -- I haven't dared yet. Well, we just got it. Did I mention the heat works really well? It also has one of those LED dials that tells you how many more miles you can drive before you need to fill up. I feel like I'm on the Star Trek set.

We'll keep the Prizm for now, and fix it and use it for what we called in the old country a station car. Dave hankers for a hybrid, so maybe that's next. Meanwhile he got another booster seat for Lily and now we are a two-car family. How bizarre. How ungreen of me, I know, but we do need a reliable car here.

The second big piece of news is that Lily finally made it onto the ski lift last Wednesday and went on an even bigger hill yesterday. Dave said it was kinda scary, steep and icy, and mostly man-made snow. Lily took a tumble at one point and Dave skiied down and found her crying, with one ski here and another one over there. She was fine but had had the wind knocked out of her and she was afraid she'd broken her leg. One more week of lessons to go, and she's still having a ball. This is also why we moved here, along with the bird's nest she found outside our door recently that now resides on our piano.

The third news item is that while they were skiing yesterday I was off getting our skates sharpened. There's only one place north of Springfield, apparently, now that Fenton's in Amherst has lost their lease. That's F. J. Rogers Co. in Florence. I was over in Northampton anyway so I stopped by and had the deed done by the owner.

While I was there I noticed the rack of hockey sticks, and remembering my dream in elementary school, got a puck and each of us a stick. I am a terrible skater, as I've mentioned, and I figured, and the salesman agreed, that having a stick in my hand could help my balance and give me something to do on the ice. So, who knows, maybe I will actually learn to skate.

Finally, Lily had her first dentist appointment here. No news to report there, except that it's stressful to do everything for the first time. It took me several weeks to work up the courage to try a new hair sylist, and she not only did a fine job and I got lots of compliments afterwards, but it cost $22!

Today the car salesman asked us if we missed New York City, and with a very quick beat we both said no. Yup, there's stress, but it's still okay, and we have faith this will work for us, that it is working for us.

Being In Bardo

"We shall begin in exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to return to the place where we started and know it for the first time." -- T.S. Eliot

I am told the Tibetan Buddhists, who of course believe in reincarnation, say that after you die you go to a waiting place, which they call Bardo, for 49 days. Then you are reborn into your new life. So this fall I was under the illusion that once we'd been here a few weeks I'd be released from Bardo. In fact, I am coming to realize that I will probably be in Bardo for some months to come, maybe years. How funny that New England, where I lived the first 27 years of my life, is now my Bardo.

The Buddhists also say that everything is impermanent, everything changes, and that's certainly true for our lives today. My older, wiser advisors are recommending that I just relax, stay in the day, and breathe. They remind me that I will be taken care of, that all my life the universe has been extraordinarily good to me and I haven't been brought me this far just to be dropped.

I am constantly off-balance lately, and struggling to right myself, usually through distraction, prayer, meditation -- sometimes even reading a good book helps. I've been enjoying cleaning house, changing sheets, doing laundry, which is very satisfying in such a small, cozy space. I've also been cooking a fair amount, mostly hearty vegetarian stews -- Angelica Kitchen, among my two or three favorite restaurants in New York City, has a fantastic cookbook -- but also some fabulous sausages from Whole Foods, and last night we made pizza. Cooking is satisfying in the cold weather.

I know regular exercise will also help, but it's a challenge in this kind of weather: It's been cold and windy, with no snow other than an occasional dusting. Just enough to make cleaning off the car annoying. That's frustrating -- we should have gone to Canada after all -- as snow was one of the reasons I wanted to move north, so I could enjoy the cold weather more. A snowy day is useable. You can ski in it, and sled, and walk and oo and ahh. If it were colder longer the ponds would be safer to skate on. Not to mention the plants and trees need some time under snow, and because there's no snow the air is full of topsoil and everything is very dusty.

Little by little, though, we finish researching some project and take some action and make decisions. We decided to buy a 2006 Subaru Outback that came with some extras, like heated front seats (don't tell Lily, she'll be jealous). We called our insurance agent, who called the dealer to set up coverage, and then he got the plates for us. Amazing! They do it all for you. We arranged to wire the purchase money to a local account. We were all set, and the car was supposed to arrive at the lot Friday morning, but ended up in New Hampshire, instead. So we're praying our 1994 Geo Prizm makes it through the weekend and we'll get the Subaru on Monday. It's both exciting and a relief to have that unknown now known. "There are known knowns..."

The primary focus this week was on real estate -- just assume that I continue to scour job listings and send out cover letters and resumes -- and we spent Tuesday looking at houses in north Amherst and nearby Leverett, and Thursday looking in Sunderland, Whately, and Deerfield. We're getting closer to identifying what we want, which is some vague idea of character, but no fixer-uppers, either.

Along those lines, we saw a terrific house, a well-cared-for 1900 Craftsman with loads of detail just off Deerfield Center. No land to speak of, so lots of neighbors very nearby, but the road deadends at a trail up Mount Sugarloaf. The little downtown at the other end has several cafes, a small grocery, an excellent bakery, and a library. It would be ideal for Lily, and I suspect Dave would also enjoy the proximity to town. Deerfield is also kind of central, 20 minutes each from Greenfield, Northampton, and Amherst, right near I-91, and just a half hour from Brattleboro.

This weekend we are looking at more schools. Today was an open house for the Common School, a lovely small school in Amherst. Tomorrow is the Greenfield Center School. Last week was the Smith College Campus School, which also seems to be an excellent school. All these schools stress education but also community and social responsibility, some to a greater extent than others. Monday Lily will spend the day at Bement. Once she's weighed in on what she thinks about all these places we'll see where we might want to apply -- it could be public school, too. And once we have a better idea about school she'll land in, we'll know better where to live.

Today ended up being a good day, although we all had our moments in the early afternoon. Last night Lily's first friend to sleep over went home at 10:00 p.m. because she was feeling ill. Lily was in tears from disappointment and exhaustion, and kept quietly saying, "I really don't want this to happen." This is just a lonely, hard time for her. So Dave suggested she sleep in the living room anyway, where they had camped out, and I got the bright idea that we should join her. She and Dave crawled into sleeping bags on opposite ends of the sofa and I slept in our bedsheets on the blow-up mattress below them. In the morning we all watched Howl's Moving Castle, from the incomparable Miyazaki, and Lily ate popcorn. She was much consoled.

Late in the afternoon we ended up skating on a small, local pond -- ponds, swimming holes, and walking trails are as ubiquitous as bodegas in New York -- with her new friend from skiing who lives nearby. The mom is a new friend of ours, too, and we ended up staying for dinner. They live in a house in a condo village, a simple but gorgeous Douglas Fir-beamed house with wood and built-ins and lots of that elusive stuff we've been calling character. "I know it when I see it." The 59 houses in this complex are located in a grove of old pines, and while the idea of living in a condo again does not appeal, this was a great space and there are lots of neighboring kids. We'd definitelytake a looksee if something goes on the market.

Lily got along really well with this new friend, who had another friend over, too. They both seem like the kind of kids Lily used to be friends with in Brooklyn. They are friendly and thoughtful and interesting, they still play pretend, and they welcomed Lily as one of their own. And she's coming over to our place on Thursday!

The skating was amazing and just made me want to learn how to skate even more. I practiced, hesitantly, until I fell and landed on my knees, which slowed me down. But the ice was smooth and clear and Dave kept commenting how different it was from rink ice, harder and more solid. Bubbles and dried grasses buried deep inside made me realize that frozen water is organic; the bitter cold and the dying light reminded me that I am alive. Any day above ground, as they say, is a good day. Or should that be, any day above ice?

I kept thinking of Hans Brinker. Occasionally I would watch Dave longingly as he skated out of the cleared area and across the pond through the light covering of snow. "I wish I had a river I could skate away on..."

Amherst in a Box

Here's some examples of what our days are like here: Saturday morning came with a bitter wind, so I took Lily to a playdate and went to visit a friend. I had the car so Dave stayed home and made soup and read the paper. On my way back that afternoon I picked up a small microwave for us, something we've been meaning to get for some time now. When I took the microwave out of the box we saw that it was dented. So I killed Lily at Brooklyn Monopoly -- I'm always the Wonder Wheel -- and Dave took the thing back and did some more shopping. He came back with a gorgeous black jacket thing, kind of a fancy Polartec, from EMS, as well as a healthy, cheaper microwave, which he plugged in next to the stove. Now I can heat up my soup without having to dirty a pan.

Sunday morning we read the Times and then we all cleaned the house. One nice thing about this house, which is pretty small but extremely cozy, is that the three of us can clean it thoroughly in about an hour. Lily is very into cleaning. She particularly loves scrubbing the toilet - go figure. She is also very good at emptying the trash baskets in all the rooms, and sorting laundry. We did not spend much time outside. The last thing I did was mop the floors so they would dry while we went over to a nearby house where Lily was administered a test called the Weschler Intelligence Scale for Childen.

Yes, the WISC tells us her IQ, unfortunately -- no, we won't tell her what it is -- but more importantly it identifies what kind of learner she is, one who processes information better through hearing the information or seeing it, auditory or visual. This test is a requirement of The Bement School, which we toured on Friday and are applying to for next fall. They don't require a certain percentile or IQ level, they just want to know how each child learns so they can address his or her specific needs more carefully. I'm down with that.

Then we did a little grocery shopping and Dave cooked dinner while Lily practiced violin and I helped and kept her company. While we were at the Big Y I returned our bottles in their recycling center, yet another new experience. It's the little things like this that remind me I am no longer in New York City. We used to put our bottles in plastic grocery bag and hang it on the fence in front of our building. Someone, we always figured they were homeless but that's not necesarily so, would take them and return them for the deposit money. This time I put each one into a machine that crushed them and gave me a slip with a credit on it, which I cashed in inside the store.

This afternoon we took Lily to her new pediatrician to check on some things and then ran more errands. The line at the CVS across the street was short. The line at the post office, at five to five, was also short. Both were efficient. I could then stroll over to the music store Dave had found and meet him and Lily as they bought a music stand so she can practice her violin more easily. Small differences, but telling. The shelves in the stores are actually stocked, the employees are more efficient and probably less harassed, and through the beauty of cars, we didn't have to stand on a bus with our bags, or walk home 15 or 20 blocks in the lightly falling snow.

It's easy and relaxing, but also productive. We've been here just about two months and while we are all still a bit lonely, we are settling in. I feel as though the Pioneer Valley is welcoming us with open arms, saying, Welcome! We've been waiting for you! While it's stressful trying to make the right decisions about cars and houses and schools and realtors, we are very clear that these are definitely luxury problems and we are grateful. We are finding what we need, and we are being taken care of. Lily is holding up, it's finally snowing outside, another calf has moved in next door, and all is right with the world.

On houses, schools, and Brooklyn

Researcher that I am, my mother is in town and this week she and Dave and I are looking schools public and private. Last week Dave and I looked at houses in Amherst, and next week I hope to look at some more, both in and out of Amherst. Maybe it's the reporter in me: Research helps me feel safe, whether it's chatting with friends, meeting with a realtor, or walking around a school.

I never take notes at this stage of the investigation because I want to be as present as possible, to be aware of how I feel when I walk into a place, or when I meet someone, or when I observe something happening. We have not looked at all our options yet, but I had a strong sense, for instance, that Lily would really like Marks Meadow Elementary School in North Amherst, should we end up buying a house in that catchment area. Those are the kinds of reactions I am looking for at this point. We will narrow our options and then bring her into the discussion and look with sharper eyes.

The thing is, we might not buy a house in her current school zone, or even in Amherst, and if possible we'd like to put her in a school she'll thrive in. Leverett is a lovely town, with an impressive school, food coop, library, and librarian, although I wonder if it's simply too much in the country for my family. I think we'll have to look at a house or two to get a better sense of that. Pelham was also very friendly and welcoming, as is everyone in this valley.

We've been here long enough that we now go places and do things repeatedly. I've become accustomed to my routines -- grocery shopping yesterday at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's while Dave and Lily hung at the Jones Library; running errands today in Amherst while Dave and Lily went on their weekly ski trip, then bopping over to Northampton to meet a friend.

Beforehand I got some hiking boots at The Mountain Goat in Northampton. The guy helping me told me about a terrific short hike to a porcupine cave in Sunderland. He says this trail is kind of secret, but you hike up to a huge ledge and the cave is off that. His home is near the Connecticut River and he watches bald eagles nesting nearby. It's too cold to go this weekend, I think, but I plan to make this hike soonest.

We talked a bit about New York City, and I mentioned that years ago I went looking for the Vermont square dancers who lived there. I knew they existed because everything I could ever want was in New York -- well, except clean air, and stars. Sure enough, I found them. Hearing my interest, my helper advised me not to miss dancing at the Greenfield Grange, which welcomes beginners, and said to watch for the men wearing skirts. He said they chose to wear skirts because they are so confident in their dancing.

Later we went to a bookstore and noticing Teacher Man by Frank McCourt I mentioned to my mother that he was my friend Alyssa's high school English teacher. The man waiting on us was impressed, and I remembered that this is not New York City where everyone knows someone or worked with someone or waited on someone or sat next to someone -- Sam Waterston and his daughter at The Public Theater last year -- or was taught by someone, and that is just so refreshing. Not everyone has bald eagles living in their backyards.

And on that note, I was remiss in posting this Sunday, as planned, because we were in Brooklyn this weekend, my first time back to the city I lived in for 18 years. Although I had readied myself, it was emotional in ways for which I wasn't entirely prepared. Dave and I were nervous wrecks as he drove us the three-plus hours to Fort Greene on Friday morning to close on our condo, turning over a total of eight sets of keys to the new owner. What a momentous occasion! I lived in that apartment for the longest time of my life besides my childhood home, and now it is gone, as is our last chance to ever live in Brooklyn again, at current prices.

Afterwards, feeling a bit lost, we drove over to Fifth Avenue so Dave could deal with the checks and Lily and I could celebrate by having our nails done at our usual salon across from Key Food. Phew! Something familiar at last. Then we had dinner with our friends who live across the hall from our former apartment, bumping into the new owners at the same time. When we went outside after dinner to walk home I could not believe how bright the lights were, and how many people were on the streets! I knew that Brooklyn would feel foreign to me eventually, but I wasn't expecting it to hit me so quickly. As Jody Foster says in "Alice Doesn't Live Here Any More," weird.

We had arranged for Lily to have lots of time with her friends, so Dave and I were pretty free much of the weekend. We saw friends, read, had Thai food in Cobble Hill and walked back to our hosts in Prospect Heights, yakked, and slept. I was eager to head home, and felt, without forcing it, that Amherst is my home now. It might end up being a different town in the Pioneer Valley, but this is home now and I welcome it. Lily does not, unfortunately; as I walked her to a playdate on Sunday afternoonshe asked if we could move back. Oh well. I trust that will change.

It was a big weekend. In addition to the closing, the other major event of the weekend was going to the first preview of "The Polish Play" on Saturday night, the first production by the new Katharsis Theater Company. That's the company Henry Wishcamper and I founded in May 2005. It was odd being anonymous in the audience -- no one except the designers knew who I was -- since I had worked so hard with Henry to establish this company. I was and am immensely proud of Katharsis and its initial production. I urge everyone to see it, and not because I say so. It opens on the 19th but has already received a terrific review in the N.Y. Theater Buying Guide. Henry is brilliant, a wonderful director and a fabulous person to boot, and it's exciting to be associated with him and with this production.

It's been frigid this week, the windows in the kitchen covered with sheets of ice for much of the day. Bundle up, wherever you are, and be sure to come visit us. I hear spring is nice, here, too.

It's a girl! It's a boy!

Our cow delivered this week and we have twins! A boy and a girl. Well, she isn't our cow, and they aren't our twins. But we feel like godparents, at least, because they live right next door.

Lily got to name the boy calf. It's Boq, after the munchkin in Wicked. These twins are in the B line of names -- Boq's sister is Bloom and their mother is Belize. They have other relatives named Boston and Brighton and Bismark and Beyonce. Cow-naming is very complicated, apparently, if you are going to register your cow. You are required to have certain prefixes and identifying letter-codes, so there's not much room for the actual name. Boq, if it sticks, is great because it's just three letters.

These twins are lucky to be born to these particular owners. I forget the technical term, but when cows have twins the male hormone is dominant and almost always, 87 percent of the time, makes the female twin infertile. No one wants to bother taking the chance of raising an almost certainly infertile female. And no one wants bulls much, anyway, although this little guy is pedigreed, so if he lives he'll be a stud bull. Our neighbor has spent the last four days nursing these two baby cows to life, rather than selling them -- again, there was another technical term I can't remember. But the basically they're lunch.

So these two babies came home this afternoon tucked inside feedsacks and riding in the cab of the pick-up. We spent about two hours visiting with them, and when I first got there they had been fed an hour earlier -- they drink cow's milk from oversized babybottles -- and they were still in their sacks, each with a head on the lap of a girl, being stroked and cuddled.

The bull is particularly frail and scrawny. Why is he walking en pointe? Lily's friend asked her dad. In fact, that's just what he looked like, walking around on tiptoe on his hooves. It seems his feet were bent under him while he was still inside and when he first came out he was walking around on his knuckles. Walking on his tiptoes is progress.

Lily has been invited to halter-train Boq and she walked him around awhile this afternoon, or rather he walked her around and she periodically hollered for help. He is about as big as she is, and for a runty calf he's still mighty headstrong. The girls finally got them to lie down and snooze in the hay outside the barn where they will be sleeping. They were all curled up, looking like puppies.

We did not have calves in Brooklyn. We felt we were special because our next-door-neighbors had bullfrogs, which would thrill us every April by announcing that spring had arrived. Calves are something else, indeed. I thanked our neighbors profusely, said it was awfully kind of them to have twins so that Lily could have one, too. They didn't even know they were having twins until after the first one had been delivered. I guess no one does ultrasound on a cow, even a pedigreed one.

About schools and chickens

The question that keeps me up at night these days is Lily and her schooling.

Early on Friday evening the three of us gathered in the living room -- the room least used by Dave and me because the computers are in the other room on the first floor, and the room most used by Lily because it has the TV in it.

Anyway, even though the living room is directly above the furnace and thus the warmest room downstairs, it was still freezing, so we huddled together on the sofa, each with our own throw blanket, to watch the BBC version of The Witch, the Lion, and the Wardrobe.

The movie only confirmed my distaste for the Narnia series. But Lily enjoyed it, particularly Aslan's wonderful fur (there were some nice costumes), which she kept commenting on. Finally she just sighed, and said, completely unself-consciously, "I long to bury my hands in his mane."

Based on my observations, I'd say this is unusual language for someone who just turned eight. Lily is the true writer in the family. Is it reasonable to expect a public school to take on the task of nurturing her talent for language and imagery? Or do I put her in private school? Or do I follow the lead of some Brooklyn friends, recently transplanted to Vermont, which is supplementing public school with riding lessons and a theater class and lots of free time. They have a very bright child, too, who went to an even better school, in some ways, than PS 261. And until I started questioning our experience, at least, they have all been happy with theirs.

Currently, that's what we're doing: Lily is taking skiing and violin and working with clay (yikes! How did that happen? we didn't intend to overschedule). And she can't wait for the library's book group for kids to start up again next Tuesday. "Four weeks away is too long," she said tonight as we drove home from a delicious New Year's Day dinner at Dave's wonderful cousins in Newton.

I have to ask myself if my concerns about and desires for Lily are just my ego talking. A friend who works at a superb private school in Manhattan pointed out that the pressure for our children to succeed and exceed is extraordinary in New York City, but I like to think I've made my peace with those competitive types. I think I had to, or else I'd go crazy. A parent we knew was bragging because her two-year-old son was reading. Really reading, and doing math, too. I, who had always heard how advanced my two-year-old was, felt miserable until my mother, the former second-grade teacher, said, "Lots of kids are smart. But can they use those smarts? Helping them use their brains is the real job." I realized I wanted to help Lily follow her interests and develop new ones, not get an A so I could brag about her on the playground.

It's not that the kids at PS 261 were so erudite, or the teaching so significantly better, although Amherst parents were buzzing this fall because a teacher in another elementary school had gone to Bank Street, hardly a rarity in our Brooklyn public school. It's just that there was so much to do, intellectually, not to mention socially and emotionally. Lily had a half-dozen take-home projects in second grade. Every student in every grade practiced intense, focused writing every day at her school. There was always more to do, more to learn, further she could go. I suspect what she misses most about Brooklyn, other than friends, is the stimulation, and PS 261 was the focal point of that. While she grumbled about homework every night -- and it is nice to have hardly any, here -- she soaked up every bit of noise and grit and emotion she could latch onto. She thrived on it.

I'm sure this is heresy but truly, I could care less if Lily even goes to college, never mind where she goes. Not that she's going to be loafing around mooching off me, mind you. She'll have to get a job and paddle her own canoe and all that. But I believe someone can find meaningful work and be useful to society without going to college, or by going to college when they are older and more focused. Having graduated from Wellesley at 27, I am living proof.

I know Lily will get a good education in Amherst. The high school here is by far the best in the Pioneer Valley, and the top kids go to the Ivies and the Sisters, as well as the excellent public universities, small private colleges, and so on. But I worry that Lily is like I was: She's smart and will do the minimum of what's asked and no more. I am also living proof that if I had had more discipline, either self-imposed or externally, I might have a more intellectually fulfilling life. I'm not complaining, mind you; my childhood and young adult years were complicated, I did the best I could, and today my life is glorious. But sometimes I want more for my child -- if she wants it, that is.

And then I keep coming back to, there are worse things for her than to have an easy, relaxed year here, settling in, making friends, grieving her losses of Brooklyn and PS 261. It has gotten better. Tonight in the car she let me play Wonderwheel by Dan Zanes on the iPod and although she warned me she would cry, I was the one who couldn't choke out the words because of my tears, not her. ("All the best friends that I know are on the wonder wheel...") In this past month she's made a couple of good friends that I think she'll keep even if we move away. One or two more like that and she'll be okay.

She spent Saturday afternoon with one of them, the fourth grader from next door. She's learning how to live in this new strange place. It was bitter cold but the two of them spent the afternoon mucking around in the frozen mud and collecting kindling for their woodstoves -- the family heats almost entirely by wood. Lily had refused to dress warmly, even though Dave, who was helping the father put up some fencing, had warned that it was chilly. Eventually she came back, hands like ice, and I bundled her up with gloves, scarf, and hat.

Later, I looked out my door and there were Lily and her friend herding Rocky the Rooster and his half-dozen hens back to their coop on the other side of the fence. They like to root around in our yard, for some reason. I suppose we have more interesting bugs.