Labor Day

So I am inside laboring on this gorgeous day while Dave is outside clearing brush. I just joined Facebook because I saw that Dave was Friends with a friend of mine and I got jealous. I also have lots of friends there, apparently, and hey, might as well join the 21st century.

Having three mostly unscheduled days off like this is both wonderful and slightly terrifying. Lily and I spent Saturday morning reorganizing her bedroom. It started because school starts Thursday and you couldn't see her desk, what with all the junk on it. And we had to bring out her school clothes, and then I decided I wanted to lose her bookshelf etc etc.

Dave brought up a long, stepped bookshelf from the family room (over the garage) and it fits perfectly in the hallway under the eaves. So all her books are out there now, except for a few over her desk. She now has a bedside table and CD case too. Shelves are satisfyingly empty or at least uncluttered, and I plan to help her keep it that way. Clean sheets, every surface dusted, and a vacuumed floor go a long way too. Maybe I should get her to wash her windows and mirror.

Yesterday we went to Quonquont Farm up in Whately and got picked some apples and peaches, the latter not quite ready but the ones we got arefabulous. I want to go back in a week or two and get a couple of pecks and freeze them, like we did last year: blanch/peel/quarter and put into freezer bags. Yum! The apples we'll just eat, and in two weeks go back for the cheaper ground fruit and make it into applesauce. It was wonderful last year.

Like many farms around here, this place had a terrible summer, with hail several times, a microburst that took down a dozen trees, inches and inches of rain, even a tornado. But it was a gorgeous blue day and we were all outside. We stopped by Nourse Farm to get raspberries but they aren't ready yet. So we went to a farm stand and bought 20 pounds of tomatoes, seconds, which I blanched, peeled, and chopped a little, and froze in about a dozen quart containers to use for making red sauce this winter. I also have a bag of frozen plum tomatoes now and I made what turned out to be a tiny little jar of oven-dried tomatoes. Dave likes to cook with those.

The big thing about our place is the rain rain rain and the lack of sunlight. I really miss the sun, and if I do you know Dave does. It's sunny now and he's in the yard, as I say. Even if we take down 10 or 15 trees we still will never have a sunny spot. But it would be great to have a little more air and space and not feel like the house is being devoured by the woods.

The other big problem is man-eating mosquitos, which was one of the reasons we moved from Brooklyn. Yuck. They are nasty and Dave and Lily particularly welt up.

More news TK, as they say in the publishing world -- To Kome. We visited Bondi in Portland in mid-August for a week and I could see why she's so in love with trees. We went to the Columbia Gorge, visited Dave's cousin who showed us a wonderful time -- note to self, send thank you! -- and then went on to Mt Hood, the Timberline Lodge (!), and Bagby Hot Springs. I'll try to get to that soon.

Also thinking I should keep these posts shorter and more frequent.

Recent favorite links

Ouch, it's been nearly a month since I've posted. Apologies to my loyal fan. This may be a boring post but here it is anyway,a collection I've been gathering all summer:

These are comments from a progressive Alaskan blog on Sarah Palin. Who knew there were progressives in Alaska?

This is an excellent argument against lowering the drinking age, which I think is the wrong response to a worsening problem. A cop-out by people who should know better.

This is Alice Bradley, author of the Finslippy blog, on the city versus the 'burbs. 'Course, we live in the country, pretty much. Or rather, our street is suburban but the country is a block away. (How do you define 'suburban'? If you can smell cow manure at your house is it country? Farm land? Not that we smell manure at our new place, but the Valley is full of farms.)

This is a GREAT LINK !!! It's a Danish department store's website. Trust me. Watch it.

This is Animator versus Animation. Another great link.

This is Einstein the Bird. What a smart bird.

I suspect a lot of us have been watching HBO's John Adams series, but if you haven't, I totally recommend it. There's some harsh stuff in most episodes, but then, those were very hard times. I've never really understood tar and feathering before . . . ugh. What a man! And what a romance. Rumor has it my mother's family is related to Abigail, but that may just be a rumor. I wouldn't mind that one bit if it were true.

Finally, I've been proselytizing Slings and Arrows all summer. Here's a review of the first season. It's a pretty recent Canadian series, 18 episodes in all, depicting a theater company similar to Stratford. It's very West Wing in its ensemble of quirky, strong characters, fast pace, and superb writing. Also really really really funny.

These are the lyrics to a couple of songs on Slings and Arrows:

CHEER UP HAMLET
Cheer up Hamlet
Chin up Hamlet
Buck up you melancholy Dane
So your uncle is a cad
Who murdered Dad and married Mum
That's really no excuse to be as glum as you've become
So wise up Hamlet
Rise up Hamlet
Buck up and sing the new refrain
Your incessant monologizing fills the castle with ennui
Your antic disposition is embarrassing to see
And by the way you sulky brat the answer is To Be
You're driving poor Ophelia insane
So shut up you rogue and peasant
Grow up it's most unpleasant
Cheer up you melancholy Dane

I DON'T PLAY MACKERS
Call me superstitious or cowardly or weak
But I'll never play a character
Whose name one dare not speak.

I'll play Hamlet
In doublet and hose
Or either of the Dromeos
But sorry, I won't play Mackers.

I'll play Richard the Third
With a hump and a wig
Or Henry the Eighth
That selfish pig
But sorry, I don't do Mackers.

Every soul who plays this role
Risks injury or death.
I'd rather sweep the bloody stage
Than ever do
Mac-you-know-who

So gimme King Lear
Cleopatra
Romeo, Juliet
Doesn't mattra.
I'll play them all for free.
But I'd be crackers
To take on Mackers.
You see, I'm skittish about the Scottish tragedy.
...Och, aye!


CALL THE UNDERSTUDY
Call the understudy
I can't go on tonight
I'm drinking with my buddy
I'm getting good and tight
Before they raise the curtain I'll be higher than a kite
So call the understudy
I can't go on tonight

Tell the cast and crew to break a leg (break a leg!)
Roll me out another bloody keg (bloody keg!)
I need to ease the pain that life can bring
And liquor is what will hit the spot
The play is not the thing

So call the understudy
I think it's only right
My diction will be muddy
I'll never find my light
Before the intermission I'll be pissin' on a sprite
So call the understudy
I can't go on (he can't go on!)
I won't go on (he shan't go on!)
I can't go on tonight (damn right!)

By Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison, who wrote The Drowsy Chaperone.
============

Finally, Pilobolus is a fun dance troup. This is them on Conan O'Brien recently. Summer in the city, indeed!

Wondertime needs your “First” holiday photos

Please feel free to forward this to folks who might be interested. Old snapshots are welcomed too.

Do you have photos of your child’s first experience of a holiday tradition? Think out of the (gift) box: First time eating latkes, putting up decorations, going caroling, writing New Year’s resolutions, hanging a stocking, lighting kinara candles, polishing the menorah, or watching the ball drop. Anything that says “holidays”—and don’t forget, these could even be pictures of you as a child. Email your photos and two or three sentences about each to firsts@wondertime.com, along with your contact information. Photos may also be mailed to Wondertime Firsts, 47 Pleasant Street, Northampton, MA 01060. Sorry, submissions cannot be returned.

Yard work

If you've been here before you know that our house is in the trees and that the forest is rapidly encroaching. It's gotten so overgrown that this summer I've felt overwhelmed, and, not being a gardener at all, unclear about where to start.

So on Saturday morning I was putzing inside and I heard Dave splitting wood. He and our neighbor had taken down a large pear this spring -- it was lovely but too close to the house -- and while he had chopped up some of it, he still had a lot more to split. I threw on my boots and went out to help him, and had to scold him for chopping wood in flipflops. At least he listened to me and put boots on.

We moved the firewood we had left over a bit so we make sure to burn that first when it becomes cold enough to have fires again. We had gotten a half a chord last year and used, oh, maybe. I love love love fires but they leach all the heat out of a room, so they're a real mixed bag. At any rate, we consolidated the old wood, built a new rack for the new wood so it'd be off the ground, and restacked that.

Then we had to clear an area for the canoe we're probably going to buy. So I did my best Ronald Reagan imitation and, using the loppers and Dave's fabulous Japanese pruning saw, cut back a lot of brush and chop it up. Then I dragged it back to the pile in the woods. I did this many times with lots of brush.

The thing is, once you start you see more and more and more. I cleared quite a lot in just a couple of hours and now I can see much more clearly what else to trim. We have a swing in the woods you can now see. Lily says it's not mysterious any more, but I think it still is, just farther back. I really want to make us a little yard, although what to do about all the damn pachysandra is beyond me.

Then we threw on our bathing suits, tied the borrowed canoe to the roof rack, and drove over to a bbq in Belchertown on a lake, where, as I said earlier, we paddled around. Fun.

Yesterday Dave got the bug again and went out to the front yard this time, where the rest of the pear still was, along with a couple of hemlocks that had had to come down when they were backhoeing to find our electrical break, and some pruned stuff from the Japanese maple. We spent a couple more hours on that, chopping it up small enough to put in a large leaf bag and carry or drag back to the ever-growing brush pile. I also carried about six or eight armloads of trunk and branches big enough to save to dry out and use for firewood. We stored it all near the canoe and the woodpile.

I have to say it felt great. I felt like I was at F&W again doing hard manual labor, chopping and lopping and dragging and carrying and getting grubby and dirty and sweaty and disgusting. It was great. I felt strong like bull and it is wonderful to get that stuff out of the front yard at last.

Why we moved, why here, and why now

My mother's best friend, Pat (she's great, kind of like an aunt, whom I've known since I was 14), asked me this when we were celebrating Mum's 80th. I've been meaning to put it all in one place, so indulge me here.

Mary Oliver. I kept thinking of Mary Oliver, who writes such great poetry and lives on the Cape. Or E.B. and Katherine White, who lived in Maine. Or all the actors I've worked with or interviewed who live in the Hudson Valley. Or magazine writers and editors, or photographers. I realized that to be a poet, an artist, it helps to live in nature at least part of the time. That the people whose work I love the most have at the very least a country getaway. Maybe if we'd had a country getaway we'd have stayed, but that wasn't in the cards. My point is, I was out of balance; I needed more nature, more green, less concrete and steel. Fewer people. I needed to be waking up to birds and watch the woods fill up with snow while my little horse gives his harness bells a shake . . . sorry. . . I digress . . .

Mary Oliver, part 2: I wanted to grow spiritually. A lot of things went down for me in the early part of the 21st century. I examined and changed a great deal of how I lived and behaved and what I thought. I went through some pretty intense personal and spiritual growth, and I realized that if I wanted to continue to grow in those ways, I would be more successful -- and simply happier -- doing it outside of the city. I wanted some quiet. I wanted some quiet. I wanted some quiet.

I wanted more space. And I wanted to more outside. Ever since the city sprayed for West Nile, in 1999, the mosquitos have been fiercer than ever and we couldn't use our backyard. I wanted to be able to be outside occasionally.

I wasn't using the city. We tell ourselves we live here in order to partake of all its richness, museums and theater and art, but I just wasn't going, even to shows I was dying to see. It felt too overwhelming and expensive (tickets, babysitting, food, time) and too tiring to go all the way into the city. Odd, that last, but there it is. After Lily was born I spent almost all of my time in Brooklyn.

Whenever we were some place outside of the city I imagined living there. The Pioneer Valley is the only place that really stuck, and kept sticking. We visited Dave's friends several times, for a weekend, Thanksgiving, New Year's, lots of times, and always enjoyed ourselves. We had a perfect Sunday afternoon in August 2006 visiting Jay and Louise in Amherst. We had a late lunch at at really nice restaurant and we didn't have to wait. Then we strolled around town a bit, and later went swimming at a water hole in the Fort River just a mile from their house. One other family was there, the water was cold and delicious, and at one point a beaver swam by us, oblivious. It started to rain and we dashed for the car. Lovely!

Jenna's country house. A couple of years before we moved, our friends Jenna and Curtis bought an old one-room schoolhouse (it was later given has more rooms and a second story) out past the Poconos. They fixed it up really nicely and it's a great place to visit. I didn't want to live out past the Poconos, or even in the Poconos. Not Jersey, not upstate New York. I knew I wanted to be back in New England -- and Connecticut didn't count. But I was very envious of their lovely space, the quiet, the stars, the firepit out back, the stream across from their house. It's a lovely spot.

I missed the land where I was born, Oh, New England!



"People tend to move in their mid-forties, and they tend to move back to the place they grew up." Someone said this to me a couple of years before we moved, and I thought, god no, not Wellesley! And not Boston or Cambridge. But I really missed New England. When Lily was born we started taking vacations to a cabin on a lake in New Hampshire, and it made me so happy every time we crossed the border into Massachusetts. I knew I didn't want to live in New Hampshire, either, god forbid; Maine was too far. And Vermont was too far too. But western Mass. -- we'd spent time here visiting Dave's college roommates, and I remember visiting my sister Cate out here when she did a year as a visiting student at Smith. I liked it. We knew the area enough to know it was what we wanted.

The basketball arena. The huge arena and apartment/shopping complex the city -- our tax dollars -- is subsidizing five blocks from our condo depressed me on many levels. Living in the shadow of an arena would be awful, first of all. The light would be severely cut off. Traffic would get much worse. But more than the citification of our modest but friendly neighborhood, I was utterly depressed at the craven way the city, Bloomberg and Pataki, allowed Ratner to get away with it and forced the rest of the government and taxpayers to go along with it. I felt a real loss, a sense that, no matter how much I worked for my neighborhood -- and I was all about neighborhood those eight years after I had Lily and worked part-time and did a lot of volunteering -- a deus ex machina could still come in and wreck everything.

Cate's move to Connecticut. A few years ago my middle sister moved to Madison and I remember one time we were visiting and she said, want to go apple picking? Thirty minutes later we were at the orchard. We picked a bag or two and went home. All done, in about 2 hours. We did that with raspberries too once. We go to the beach, about two miles away. She could use the car to bring home her groceries, she didn't have to lug carry them herself. It's quiet.

Bondi's Brooklyn visit. The summer of 2006 my older sister paid us a visit for a few weeks, and more than anyone in my family, she understands the city's draw on me. She always says how much she loves it, and then she says how great life is away from it. How much easier, and calmer. This time I really heard her, and it stuck with me. It laid the seed.

The brown-outs of 2006. We had lots of black-outs in Park Slope that summer because the system was so overloaded, but poor Astoria had it worse so they got all the news coverage. Still, it was a miserable hot summer, with lots of brown-outs that made me feel like I was living in Managua. The a/c that we hardly ever used but really wanted this summer didn't work, fridge didn't keep things cold, the microwave hummed but didn't cook, the lights were frequently dim and the TV would go on and off spontaneously. The poor ConEd guys working below the streets at this horrible time told us it was because there was so much construction in the Slope and the old wiring wasn't up to all the new demands.

Farm and Wilderness Family Camp. After Bondi went home, we went there for a week and had a wonderful time. I first heard about F&W in a classified ad in the back of a very early issue , maybe the second, of Ms. Magazine in 1974. It talked about living in teepees with 40 girls. I was there. I couldn't wait. And I went, and I loved it. And for years I dreamed about going back. But we couldn't afford it -- Mum said, private school or F&W, I can't do both. I had a big scholarship at school, and that's how I could go there at all. I chose school. But F&W meant something to me and I longed for it in a visceral way.

I managed to get back there in January 1980 when I dropped out of Johns Hopkins after one semester and went to F&W to be a part of their winter crew. I loved it. I loved taking care of the cows and cleaning out the chicken coop. I loved the food and became a vegetarian. I loved the mountains, and the quiet. I got to explore parts of myself I wasn't aware of.

When we went to Family Camp that summer it was the first time for me in 15 years, when I gone to interview the co-founder. I loved being back. Some things had changed but the basic ethos hasn't. Camp is a way of life that I aspire to, a community full of fun, cooperation, hard work, strong women, kind men, lots of laughter, farm animals, and wilderness adventures. Family Camp isn't perfect but it's sure fun. I loved square dancing again, I loved being useful, and working hard. I remember walking in the woods seeing the light on the leaves, and thinking, I want this in my life.

September 11. We were driving home from camp after that first week, a few months before we moved, and it was pouring rain. A lot of folks at camp had talked about living in the Amherst area, and as we drove past the exit, I thought, "if you lived here you'd be home by now." I didn't want to go back to Brooklyn, another three hours in good traffic. I used to see that skyline and get so excited and happy. Now the closer we got, the more my heart sank.

We had a terrible trip. It rained all the way home and we had bad traffic. So we finally pulled over for dinner. Later, around 7 pm, as we zoomed down 684, we saw this weird flashing neon white light. It was really odd. We both knew it must be the Westchester airport, but it freaked both of us out. I kept thinking, we're being bombed. We're being bombed. I knew we weren't. I knew all the other cars wouldn't be speeding in the same direction. But I could not get that thought out of my brain. I realized that I was always waiting for the next shoe to drop, and the massive black-out of 2003, and the brown-outs of that summer, just made me tenser and more anxious.

More testing in schools. When we got back from Family Camp I saw an e-mail from the Department of Education gleefully announcing testing every six weeks. The terrible way the DOE is treating education, and how little they know about teaching and how little they support teachers -- they are trying to run it like a business -- along with knowing that I would soon have to navigate the middle school morass was a good reason to split town.

Chris and Elizabeth moved to Vermont. Late that summer a family we knew casually moved to Montpelier, which made me sad because their daughter and Lily had been in camp together for a couple of weeks and liked each other a lot. But more than that, their move put a big bug in my ear. People did that! New Yorkers I liked and respected left the city. I wanted to do that too.

I grew up. I moved to New York City to be an adult, and to be a journalist. I loved my life there. I loved working for LIFE, and I was very excited to be a stage manager when that opportunity came. For many years I was a perfect NYC snob -- why would you want to live anywhere else, if you can live here? I also thought, "If you can make it here you'll make it anywhere," which is true, in a certain way, and I wanted to see if I could make it here. I can, I did, and now it was time to leave.

I am spontaneous. Those of you around me at that time will remember this: The idea that had been stewing for years in the recesses of my mind started moving into my consciousness that summer, in July with Bondi, then at Family Camp, and then solidified when we spent Labor Day weekend at Jenna and Curtis's place. I was ready to go right then. As school started I began to tell people we were thinking about it, floating the idea and watching their reactions. My friend Sylvia said, if it's meant to be, the universe will align (and then she told me about a friend who wanted to move and then all these obstacles came up and they decided to stay).

But once I'd allowed the idea into my brain the rightness of it knocked out all doubt and left me with a sense of urgency. We had to go now. And then once I slowed down and included Dave, well, the rest is history: In late September we had agreed to go and were discussing the move date (he wanted to wait until the end of school in June), when his company closed unexpectedly. In about 10 days we had sold the condo for more money than God. And by Thanksgiving we were in Amherst, Lily was enrolled in a new school, and I was on the job market. Did I mention I started at Wondertime the day Dave's unemployment ran out? We are supposed to be here, and I just paid attention to the signals, and honored them.

PS -- One of the first times I walked in the woods behind my house I was reminded of walking in the woods at Family Camp. It's the same woods, the same feel, the same light. I knew I'd made the right choice. And even Lily had a good day today.

9/11 reverberations

It's funny how this sticks with me. I was talking about this to my chiropractor yesterday. It hits at odd moments and I have odd emotional and physical reactions. Mostly I don't want to think about it, because it's too painful. Yet I find myself telling the stories, the where was I's, and the vicarious stuff I've heard.

I wasn't there, I was across the river in Brooklyn, taking Lily to preschool. I saw the smoke but I just thought it was a fire -- a brownstone had blown up from a gas leak recently and I thought maybe it happened again -- and said, Okay, where's the sirens? They started up on cue and I thought, cynically, it'll be on the news if it's a big enough deal. Ha. Little did I know.

It was the end of a kind of innocence. I went upstairs and a parent told me a plane had gone into the World Trade Center. Someone was hot-dogging it in a little plane, I said immediately. No, two planes, someone said a few minutes later. Oh, two guys, playing tag. Idiots. I wasn't thinking about what even a little plane might mean for the folks in the towers. Then a parent, a documentary film-maker, said, no, it's terrorism. I couldn't believe it. I had to see for myself. So instead of heading to the 8th floor, where I had a view of downtown Manhattan, I headed to the gym on the 4th floor, where I knew I'd find TV's for the treadmill users, and talking heads telling me what was happening.

I watched about five minutes and thought, I have to go home now. I remember seeing workmen as I walked down the street and thinking, how can they possibly be still working? Dave, thank god, was sick in bed. I had to wake him up. He had this awful 2-day headache thing that I had caught and passed along. He was spared being on the subway crossing over the Manhattan Bridge just about the time the planes would have hit, and he was spared having to walk home from Soho, and being scared, and maybe seeing unspeakable things.

We sat on the couch and watched. We saw the towers fall. The school called and I went to get Lily. I offered to keep any kids whose parents couldn't get them. At least one woman worked
in one of the towers, for the Port Authority. The story goes that she had lived through the bombing of 1993 and when the Port Authority told everyone to stay at their desks or they'd be fired, she thought, I have two sons who need me. I will find another job. And she left. And she lived, and many Port Authority employees died.

The corollary to that story is about someone who worked on one of the floors in the 90s, in the second building. When the first one was hit, she was told, go home now or you will be fired. Just one more e-mail -- No. Go home. do not turn off your computer. Take your bag and walk out the door. The people in that office lived.

And thank god my friend Kim's husband was home that day, too. His office was like a floor below where the plane hit. His colleagues who happened to be there lived because an architect said, I know this building inside and out, and I can be useful, and he went up to the upper floors and cleared the debris away from the stairway and rescued some 200 people, including those colleagues. The architect died, though, leaving a wife and kids. He was a neighbor. He lived in Fort Greene. I think Kim met his widow and said thank you.

The streets were jammed that afternoon, remember? Everyone walking down Fifth Avenue in the Slope, trying to hitch a ride. A flatbed went by crowded with people. It was an odd time. And for the next month or so we all greeted each other very kindly, asked each other if our friends and family were okay, said we loved each other. We were all so gentle with each other those first few weeks.

Sorry, kind of a downer post. But this stuff stays with me, stays in my body, and I find myself thinking about it from time to time. Today we were at a friend's on a sweet little pond in Belchertown. He'd barbequed some burgers and we ate and swam and took this canoe we'll probably buy for a test run. Then we swam some more and ate some more and the sky was blue and it was quiet and I was chatting with some friends, and I felt present. I thought, how fortunate I am to be here, alive, in this spot, relaxed, under this nice tree, not too hot, Lily running around with some new friends, Dave kind of snoozing and listening. This moment is good.

It was a good day, Lily said on the way home. It was.

Summer news

Yikes, I haven't written in ages. So sorry to all my fans out in blogdom. We are having a very busy summer, what with my perpetually busy work and Lily's camp schedule. Dave is interviewing for jobs, as well as doing all his usual volunteering. So we all gather together in the evening, exhausted and hot, often, and wanting to see each other before falling into bed. Dave still manages to make us fabulous meals -- the other night we had homemade falafel and tahini sauce. Yum!

Let's see: We have seen our usual quota of bears. For instance, a guy was over the other day giving us an energy audit, and at the end he walked out and walked right back in: Dave had left open the garage to air it out and a bear had climbed up a shelf to get at the empty bird feeder. He was still there, by the way. So that's kind of fun.

The other night I woke up to the sound of something crashing around the grill on the back porch and could have sworn I saw a bear licking the chicken fat. And the screen door into the kitchen area was open. Dave went down to close it, flipped on the light, and there was nothing there. I must have been asleep. Or maybe it was a raccoon.

Lily has been in three different camps: horse camp, where she shared a horse with a seven-year-old knowitall who said to her, "You're bossy!" to which she replied, "And proud of it! Unfortunately her horse show was rained out so I don't have any photos to share. Before that she was at Marian's Art Barn making great art.

After horse camp she's been going to the YMCA camp about a half hour from here. She takes a school bus every morning and they swim, hike, pick blueberries, do arts and crafts, and then they get to specialize. She's chosen theater and was Catherine, Pippin's girlfriend, in the first one. Now she's a smaller role in Schoolhouse Rock, and the last one is Grease. It's a nice camp.

One of the best parts about living here is being in touch with the weather and passing the time by the fruits and vegetables. We picked a million strawberries in June, I think I posted. Now we have to go get blueberries, and soon peaches. We've had wonderful corn already, and really lovely greens, flowers, and lots of other stuff from our farm share.

We've seen two terrific productions of some Shakespeare recently. The Hampshire Shakespeare Company uses the campus of the Hartsbrooke School in nearby Hadley as a staging area. The backdrop is the Holyoke Range as the sun sets. I have to say I have a new appreciation for Shakespeare. I can't believe how contemporary the themes are, and the language. I had never seen or read Romeo and Juliet (embarrassing, I know), and it was hilarious, until it wasn't, of course. We also saw As You Like It, also fun. The casts were mostly excellent and the productions really good. And they did a very funny schtick with the planes that kept flying over and drowning out everyone. (We live near an air force base, unfortunately.)

We've been away a few times, one weekend to Montreal, and last weekend to Helene's wonderful annual bookgroup on the beach in Hampton Bays on Long Island. We had read Personal Days by Ed Park (don't bother; awful) and we discussed the book on the beach while the kids played in the water and the sun cooked us. The water was really warm and Lily was in there for hours, diving for blow fish and baby crabs. Helene is the greatest hostess and her son John, almost 2, is beautiful. It was fun watching him play with Joseph, Margaret's son, who is three months older exactly. And contrasts! John is very blond and Joseph very dark.

We're going away some more. But this morning Dave and I finally did some yard work -- if you've seen our yard you know how much work it needs. It's utterly overgrown, too many trees, shrubs, saplings, and TOO MUCH PACHYSANDRA!! God I hate that stuff now. But, you start where you are, right? So first things first. Dave split a bunch of wood that was left over from a pear tree he'd taken down with the neighbors. We are buying a canoe from someone at work and we had to make room for it on the side of the house, so I cleared away a ton of brush, witch hazel, forsythia, etc. Then I had to drag the branches to the woods and couldn't get past more brush, so I had to clear that.

Dave helped me move the brush to the woods and I helped him restack the woodpile and we are both now smelly and dirty but we have a lot more light on the side of the house near the screened-in porch. And more to come -- we need to take down a small elm, while it's still small, because it's too close to the house. And that will mean clearing more brush.

I am wondering about hiring a guy I know to just help with the grunt work, digging out forsythia stumps and helping clear the weeds and pachysandra. But I figure if I can do just a little every week it will eventually feel less overwhelming, less like we are being taken over by the woods. And I really want a space to put up our clothes line. I don't care about grass or a garden, per say, but I'd love some nice paths, a hammock under the trees, a place to be outside and enjoy the quiet.

Sasha’s New York City tips for Michelle

A woman at work is leaving to take a job in Manhattan -- Dave said, "she's taking our place!" -- and this is my good-bye present to her:

Trust your instincts
The number one most important thing I learned in New York. If you don’t feel safe, even if you can't figure out why, you probably aren’t. Take action right away. Switch subway cars, change seats in the movie theater, get out of the cab and find another. You’ll figure it out later. This goes for every possible situation, really, not just the obvious ones.

Don’t get cynical
So many people are too cool for school, especially in the city. But there is still beauty in the world, even in New York. Don’t forget about love. In the end, it's all that matters.

Get enough sleep
Yes, it's the city that never sleeps, but that doesn't mean you have to up all night, every night. Be sure to get your beauty rest. You’ll need it and the city will always be there (although it’s definitely fun to take the subway home when everyone else is going to work).

Remember, you can do or be anything you want in La Grande Pomme
New York is a great place to try on different identities. I’ve been a 6th Avenue magazine editor, an off-Broadway stage manager, a PTA volunteer, a budding chef. Once I decided I wanted to be a contra-dancing Vermont hippie, and sure enough, I found those folks too. It didn’t last, but it was reassuring to know they were there.

Look for your heart's desire
New York has at least one of everything. Don't settle. If you look hard enough you’ll find what you are looking for.

Never pay full price for a bag on the street
Or pretty much anything you buy on the street, other than food. But do not give your money to the Three-Card Monte guys. You will always lose.

Visit unusual places and get out at odd times of day and night
There’s nothing like a foggy Village street at 6:00 a.m. Take the ferry to Staten Island. Go to a city pool—the one in Red Hook is enormous and on the weekends there’s an array of Central American food for sale along the soccer field across the street. It’s a huge city and the nooks and crannies are surprisingly wonderful and wonderfully surprising.

Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge
You must, must, must do this at least once. It’s a lovely walk and a stunning view. Dusk is perfect time, with the lights all twinkly and pretty. Think of us—that’s where Dave proposed to me and we often walked it with Lily, or friends, or visitors.

Get to know your neighbors
Half the city was born in another country. Got a hankering to travel? Ever wanted to visit Russia/India/Italy/Central America/Asia/ Greece/the Middle East but couldn’t afford it? Jump on the subway and head for Brighton Beach/Jackson Heights/Arthur Avenue/Sunset Park/Flushing/Astoria/Atlantic Avenue. Eat, shop, and just sit and listen. You can travel very far in just 30 minutes.

Go to the Atlantic Antic, the best street festival ever
Just a little Brooklyn ethnocentricity here, but this happens to be true. In a couple of miles on a Saturday in late September you go through about 20 different communities. Get off at Pacific Street and walk the entire length. Pace yourself! There’s a lot to take in. When you get to around Bond Street, look for the PS 261 table and say hi for us.

Eat everything you can
One of the great reasons to live in New York is the incredible food. If you are interested in expanding your palate, here’s the place to start. Love your corner pizza place/café/bar, but be sure to venture outside your usual culinary boundaries. Street food is safe, and usually interesting, especially if there's a crowd.

Check out the classic sights
Living in New York can be wearing and sometimes it’s important to remind yourself why you do. The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are totally worth it. Take a Circle Line tour. The Metropolitan Museum, Lincoln Center, Broadway shows—it’s all really fun and you get a thrill no matter how jaded you are. Check to see when museums are open late—and offer free admission. They can be a great place to unwind after work.

Spend an afternoon at Coney Island
Ride the Cyclone and the Wonderwheel (get in a swinging car), stroll the boardwalk, eat at Nathan’s, walk down the pier and watch the kids fish. Check out the Mermaid Parade in mid-June.

Find the parks near you
All that concrete and steel can really wear you down. New York has among the least amount of green space in any city, but what it does have is extraordinary, especially Central Park and Prospect Park. But there’s lots more than just that, from community gardens to vast open spaces in the outer outer boroughs.

Don't stare at the celebrities
And for god’s sake, don’t ask for autographs. They’re here for the anonymity, just like everyone else. They do seem to like being recognized and admired from afar, though, so feel free to gawk discretely.

Appreciate New York's long, deep history
It really is unlike any place else. It’s an odd and interesting mongrel mix of commerce and high finance, much of it non-Christian, non-white, and non-European, as well as amazing arts and food and music. It's old, by American standards. All of that helps make it unique.

Read books, watch movies, listen to music, look at art about New York City
A lot of people have had a love affair with the city for a very long time. Some of my favorites are E.B. White, of course, Russell Shorto’s The Island at the Center of the World, Luc Sante’s Low Life, Billy Joel’s New York State of Mind, Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie—and the movies! The Naked City, West Side Story, Sweet Smell of Success, Taxi Driver, Hair, Annie Hall . . . Wikipedia even has a list called “New York destroyed on film.” New York is an endless topic and many artists have explored it. See what pulls them here.

Remember, if you can make it here you'll make it anywhere
And if you find you don’t care for it, you’ll be in good company. There’s no shame in trying it a year or two and then finding you want to move to, say, San Francisco. Now there’s a livable city.

Godspeed, Mitch.

Montreal trip

Just to say we were in Montreal this weekend, a much quicker trip than from Brooklyn. Still, it was still about five hours. We broke it up with a visit to some other recent Brooklyn ex-pats who moved to Montpelier just before we moved to the Pioneer Valley. They fed us lunch on Friday and showed us their lovely, lovely house, and lovely, lovely gardens. Really nice.

We were visiting our friends Glenn and Su in Montreal, where we visited in 2005. Their move to Canada really inspired me to move out of the city, and I thought long and hard about moving to Montreal or Toronto. Not sure I could ever get Dave to do that, though, and my mother would have balked too.

Su and Glenn have a great house too in a really nice neighbordhood, Notre Dame de Gras. But I realized driving in, with the lights and the structures and the steel and concrete -- and the traffic! -- that I really don't miss the city. I am thrilled to live in the country. We made the right choice.

It was a short visit and we were all pretty tired, and the weather was gray and rainy on Saturday. So mostly we hung around the house. It was great to talk politics and the state of the world and what it's like to move out of the city -- that was a big topic of discussion. They moved in June or July 2004, we moved in November 2006, so they have a longer perspective on the transition process, naturally. Moving throws everything up in the air: friends, family, work, play, leisure time, food, shopping, noise, weather, doctors, service providers (had to find a new dentist and eye doc after nearly 20 years of happy service), school, etc., etc. Change is good, though, right? Keeps you young.

The four of us walked into the city in the evening, a very nice walk but long, eight kilometers, Glenn thought, along the canal, and by the end I started feel really sick to my stomach. It was hot and humid and we had had a big dinner topped with ice cream and it all felt like to much for me. We got to the jazz festival around 9pm and I got a call from Lily, who was home with their son. She was homesick. Lonely for us. So I turned around and came home. Su kindly escorted me and I took a hot shower and went to bed.

Lily was thrilled to see me and went right to sleep while I showered. She woke up on Sunday morning -- we all slept late; great sleeping there in their basement guest room, dark and cool -- with a crummy cold. She gets cranky when she's that sick and tired, so the rest of the day wasn't great. We had a lovely brunch the five of us and then we drove home.

So, a short but fun visit. Montreal is just a lovely city and all that French made me feel like I was in Europe at the very least, if not France (what do I know, I've never been to France). The houses in their neighborhood were all different and interesting in ways that NYC can be similar and boring. A lot of what we saw reminded me of parts of Queens, but nicer.

Still, we made the right choice. Glad to live in the country. Also glad we have such thoughtful, interesting, and loving friends like Glenn and Su and their kids. Really helps me keep my faith in things knowing they are in the world.

Three things +

Three things of recent note:

We have a resident snake, a ribbon snake about 18 inches long, and I have named her Sylvia. She lives in the rocks between the front door and the driveway and likes to sun herself when it's warm out. Well, who doesn't. I promise a photo. When I was cleaning the cars a couple of weeks ago she kept me company most of the day.

I saw a scarlet tanager off the deck this morning! (Dave called it our scarlet teenager.) I thought it was a cardinal, exciting but a bit blase, until Dave said no, that's not a cardinal! And I realized he was a much more brilliant red and his wing was quite dark, almost black.

Went with work to MASS MoCA, which was great and the journey there was worth the entire trip. We took route 2, aka the Mohawk Trail, west to North Adams. It is gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. Lots of ohs-and-ahs views, and a great hairpin curve that made me yawn, after driving in Crete. This museum is a wonderful place to bring kids, too. Come visit us and we'll make a day of it. The drive is worth the trip.

Oh, here's a fourth: We went strawberry picking today. Had to go southeast to Granby, east of South Hadley, because the berries up here aren't open for PYO until next week and I was hot to trot, er, pick. Thank goodness we didn't have to go all the way to Connecticut.

Strawberries (did you know they are really grown in straw?) aren't nearly as fun to pick as raspberries, as you have to crouch to get the buggers, and they are very hidden in the leaves. But we got about 15 pounds in an hour, and I now have to clean and freeze then. The place was also selling their own yellow cherry tomatoes, so we got some of those. On the way home we got asparagus, at the farm across the street from Lily's horse camp, where she's going in a week. And of course we found some rhubarb. Yes, I have strawberry-rhubarb crumble or crisp or pie in my future.

But then we went to Websters Seafood on Damon Road for lunch and now I can't even think about eating. Remind us to take you there, when you come. Dave had scallops that were pretty little but the lady said they only get them for about a month every year, and he said they were great. I had a piece of broiled scrod. Lily always gets chicken finger-type food. And they have great fries.

Thank god for Summer Fridays. They are time-sucks on the job but they really do help me regroup and recharge. I used mine yesterday to meet a new friend for breakfast, straighten the house, and get to the gym for a strenuous workout. Oh, and we watched Once, a really interesting indie movie from Ireland. I liked it a lot. Dave says he's doing his best to find me chick flicks, because by the time we start watching, after Lily is in bed, it's 9pm and I fall asleep. I also am not so into the recent thrillers and such, although sometimes one sticks to me. I liked the bank heist one, Inside Man, which I just learned is a Spike Lee movie. And I didn't care for Michael Clayton, or let's just say I couldn't stay awake for it, or The Good German, either. I'm a total lightweight these days.

Tonight we go to party nearby with the theme of the Beatles. "No Yoko," the invite says, so of course I am going as Yoko, which is really simple: black and white clothes, a short pendant necklace, a hat, and sunglasses perched on your nose so you can peer over them. I'll probably wear a white shirt with black pants and jacket. I don't have quite the right hat, but mine'll do. She's so heavy.

I have to admit it's getting better.

The Pema report

So my mom and I went to Omega last weekend to hear Pema Chodron, and I had a really interesting experience, starting right from the beginning: The campus didn't feel all that different from my home. I left a home full of lovely green forest and flowers and fresh, rich air, and two hours later I was walking around hearing the same birds and seeing the same view. I think it made the weekend a lot less dramatic, and that troubled me, a bit.

I worried that I didn't get it, that I wasn't appreciating Pema enough, that her message was so simple, almost too simple, that I wanted to hear something more complicated or deep. Or intellectual? Nevertheless, she was extraordinary. Quiet, smart, very funny, topical, and yes, deeply spiritual.

I remember hearing a criticism about Eat, Love, Pray, that the writer, Elizabeth Gilbert, just does yoga and then has a latte, like this is something bad, or it means she's not having a spiritual experience. Never mind that being in an ashram in India for months at a time, meditating and working hard, isn't exactly like taking a yoga class. But whatever the valid criticisms of this book, I think whoever said that doesn't understand that even the Dalai Lama likes iPods. That deeply spiritual people can also be fun and fun to be with. Pema Chodron knows what's happening, she gets the joke, she's a part of this world and her Buddhist world, and that's why she's so extraordinary. She's an emissary to the other, a path to finding a way to live in this increasingly tense, insane, violent world.

We are so trained to be anti-spiritual that only in very specific, formulaic ways, a bar mitzvah, say, or a baptismal, does our embittered society accept our attempts to get out of ourselves and find love and compassion for ourselves and the world. And often then many of us don't accept it. We judge it and think the people who do those seemingly meaningless rituals are just stupid or blind or traditional, god forbid. I remember going to the funeral of the mother of a friend in high school and it was at a church, and I realized why people believe in a god, or go to church or temple. Who wants to be alone, in good times or bad?

Speaking as someone who prided herself on her intellectualism, her precociousness, who was entirely of the rational, Enlightened world, I see now how dismissive I was of any hint of spirituality because I thought my thinking brain was all-important, all I needed. I didn't understand that people are both, left brain and right brain, that spirituality is the way of strength, not weakness, and that to live with a strong spiritual life is to live fearlessly. Not entirely, not always, but I do not live in fear the way I used to, and that is largely because of prayer and meditation and my other spiritual practices. I was taught several years ago to find someone who has what you want and do what they do, and I don't want cynicism or cruelty or judgment in my life.

Pema had a co-leader named Tim Olmsted, an old friend of hers and also an incredible teacher, who talked to us about meditation specifics and we practiced with him at the beginning of every session. I kept falling asleep. I meditate just about every morning (weekends can be hard) and I've never had that problem. I know it was partly because I had gotten up early and was eating big meals (the food at Omega is amazing) and not getting much exercise and the room was full of people so it was really hot. But still part of me felt like I had done something bad, which I know is not the point of meditation. Omega offers an hour mediation in the mornings before the programs start, and I did that both days. Twenty minutes of sitting, 20 minutes of walking, and then another 20 of sitting. That went better for me.

I told Tim that I knew this was sacrilege but I felt like his teachings were more helpful to me in a practical way at that moment than hers. He said, yes, that's sacrilege! But it was true. I loved being in her presence. I really like hearing her. But I think I also felt like, I keep dipping into Buddhism around the edges, like Geneen Roth, who reportedly has a long-standing Buddhist practice and tries to carry it onto her disciples without calling it Buddhism, necessarily. She doesn't even call it mindfulness. She's wonderful, I like her a lot, but at this point in my journey I don't want watered-down Buddhism, I want Buddhism. Being at Omega the audience was clearly not all Buddhist. Such a mix meant a simpler message, I suspect, although I am sure no less authentic.

As part of being a Buddhist retreat we were asked to be silent from after Friday night dinner to just before Saturday night dinner. I was looking forward to it, and Mum and I brought pads and pens and were prepared. And yes, for practical purposes, writing is okay. It was excruciating and scary for me at first. When I got back to my dorm room that night I felt totally alone. I wanted so much to talk and chat, and process -- to connect, to be understood, to be heard. But I wasn't supposed to, not that way. Just try it, see how it feels, I've been taught. People who have what I want do this all the time. So I tried it. I watched how hard it was for me not to have someone to process things with, and how I actually avoid my feelings and my experience, even, by talking. I am not in the present, in the moment, when I talk. Or maybe it's that I am much more in the present when I don't. I saw immediately that I have two new spiritual tools, not speaking, and listeningm which of course is an entirely different thing from not speaking.

But by breakfast Saturday morning, not even 12 hours later, I could already hear murmurings from other participants, and by lunchtime I moved my table twice and still heard whispers. I thought, what do they have to say that's so important? And as Tim said Saturday evening, when you don't honor the silence you rob everyone else of the experience too. You mess it up for everyone else. I was angry, resentful, at first, and then accepting. Oh, well. It is what it is, as Kim says. And it made me want to attend a true silent Buddhist retreat. No more watered-down Buddhism. Or maybe, more, but also add some direct Buddhist experiences. Who knows when I will get a chance to do one even a short one, given that I have two weeks of vacation and a family. But I will. But maybe I can do a weekend some time. And next weekend I am going to hear Sharon Salzberg talk about meditation (thanks to my new friend Brigid, who told me about it), so I know I will find it where I can. I am being taken care of.

I was given a lovely gift on Saturday morning, because of my silence. The Omega morning meditations are held in a building called the Sanctuary, a really lovely space with wood and stone and several pools. I was leaving my shoes and my pack when I noticed one of the pools, which had fountain spraying up and coming down in little waterfalls, like mini-drinking fountains. And in fact, because I was quiet and calm, I noticed a hummingbird fluttering underneath one of those fountains, drinking. I moved and she flew away and sat on a branch, and then she flew away entirely. But the image stayed with me all day, a gift, a reminder to slow down and enjoy the scenery.

It was great being with my mother over the weekend. When I said, as we were almost there, oh, we should talk about how we are going to be this weekend, she said, we're going to be independent, and that's what we did. One moment really stands out: I was looking for her in the café and a woman I didn't know said, your mother already left. I cracked up! How did she know she was my mother, and I was looking for her! When I told that story later at a meal, folks said they could totally see the resemblance, which never happened to me as a kid; my sisters used to tell me I was adopted because they looked so much alike and I looked so different. I was the youngest, and given the context of my family it was actually kind of yucky to hear.

I am thrilled my mother wanted to come, even though she didn't have any idea who Pema was at the time she registered. Not bad for an old broad of almost 80! July 8! She hits 80! Wow!

PS -- Pema is coming back to Omega next year on the first weekend in June and they are putting names on the wait list now. I recommend it if you are interested. It's an extraordinary opportunity.

Saturdays are hard

Jeesh, it takes a long time to clean a car -- the inside, I mean -- and we have two. That's the major chore I did yesterday. It was so humid I was dripping in just a few minutes and it took a couple of hours to carefully vacuum everything and wipe down all the dusty, grimy surfaces, clean all the winter gloves and old books out, stuff like that.

Saturdays I am often so tired I just want to veg out. When it rains during the week, as it did much of this week, I hope and pray it'll rain all weekend so I have a good excuse to stay inside and do chores. Once Dave finds work I have no idea how we will get everything done. And the conflict is that I should be outside enjoying this lovely place we live in, and Dave of course wants to get outside and have family time.

Chores to do: rebuild my iTunes song list and update all my music. My computer has crashed so much it's all screwed up, about 60 mg of music, which I gather is a lot. At one point I was trying to put all my CDs on my laptop, but if my computer is going to crash all the time, and until I get a Mac, maybe that's not the best idea.

Go through all the papers on my desk and sort and pitch. Clean my office/studio. Go through the papers in my kitchen office -- for some reason the WiFi signal in my office is so poor it can take quite awhile to send and receive email or get to a website, so I set up in the kitchen, and the papers accumulate there. It's not a good system, really. Also my office is so peaceful I really should be spending time out there. Hummm.... Solve the WiFi issues, which is more of a Dave task than me, unfortunately.

Clean something most weekends, and laundry, and cook, per usual. I try to clean the bathrooms every week and change the sheets every other. I think my sister thinks that's way too often, but I really love clean sheets, not to mention towels. The grim that accumulates in the daily use of the bathroom depresses me.

Then we have the other house chores, like putting all the plants outside some place and cleaning the garage and sorting through the camping gear and going through all the storage shelves in the basement and sorting stuff into save and pitch piles. And then take the to-pitch stuff, mostly clothes, some place.

And then what I really want to do is pick strawberries, or whatever might be in season. And hike, even though it's really hot. And borrow my colleague's canoe that's for sale and take it for a spin and see if we want to buy it. And find a new place to swim in this 90-degree humid weather.

And ride my bike. My new personal trainer, the awesome Pamela, wants me to do cardio daily, and the issue is how to build that into my life, especially on the weekends. Biking to work is awesome and one-stop shopping -- it takes me about as long to bike as it does to drive -- but I am not so dedicated as to do it even when it's pouring out. Thursday I rode to work, about three miles, then rode into Florence, about 5 miles? for a meeting, and then rode home, about three miles. That last ride was awesome because it was all downhill except for the last half mile or so.

And the air smells incredible, especially on the bike path. When I got home that night, about 7:30, I was struck by the incredible smell of the yard by the side of our house. Odors are a strong memory trigger, and smelling the deep lush green of the woods, the dirt, and the stream, I immediately flashed on getting out of the car when I was, say, camping, or vacationing some place in the woods. You get in the car in Park Slope and drive, drive, drive, maybe stopping at a rest stop to pee, and several hours later you get out of the car at your cabin or your camp site or your trail head and you can't believe the difference in the air. It's a different world. And now I live in that different world.

I went to the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York last weekend to hear Pema Chodron (that's the next post) and getting out of the car and walking around I was struck by how similar this environment is, rather than how different. I mean, I've been to Omega a couple of times before, when I lived in Brooklyn, and walking around the grounds I always felt that incredible sense the quiet beauty, the birds, the air, the incredible green of the trees and the grounds and the amazing flowers everywhere. Now I live in that. We don't personally have the grounds or the flowers in Northampton but lots of my neighbors do, and especially when I'm on my bike I get whiffs in the air as I pedal by. Lovely.

I really enjoyed Omega, but that visceral, physical difference was not part of this weekend's experience, and I think that threw me. My experience at Omega didn't seem as dramatic or extraordinary, even though I was hearing Pema all weekend. I think one thing that struck home was how Omega had really inspired me to change my life. I am now living closer to that serenity I found at Omega. That's kinda cool. You can change your life, should you choose to. I did.

PS photo

This is Lily and Ruth yesterday. Note the "I Heart NY" t-shirt. This was Lily's FIRST car wash! Do you remember your first?

Oh, she corrected me; it's her first in Massachusetts. I gather she used to help her uncle wash his car on Long Island. But in Brooklyn we always just paid the $8 to go through the wash. It was quicker and cleaner, especially the inside. And of course, entertaining.

Videos

You must watch these two videos.

This woman was profiled in the Times yesterday. Jill Bolte Taylor. Extraordinary story and speaker.

Memorable Memorial Day

Not really so memorable, just calm, relaxing, peaceful, productive. Work very kindly gave us Friday as an extra bonus, so I've been off for four whole days, a kind of mini vacation. What a luxury. It's a big change to work five days a week; even after a year I'm not used to it. Plus this weekend the weather was perfect the entire time. What more could you ask for?

When we were in Brooklyn last weekend the room we stayed in was very dark and we all slept a lot longer than we usually do -- it's a cacophony here, what with all the birds, although Brooklyn birds certainly do chirp a lot, too. Margaret our host happened to mention her room-darkening shades, which I sprung for in Cambridge but haven't had since, for some reason. I love them. As soon as we got home Dave got them for our three big windows and for Lily's skylight. It makes a difference.

Let's see -- Friday was Grandparents Day at Bement so my mom and Dave's showed up for Lily and had a great day, it sounds like. I told my mother that even as recent as a month ago Lily said she'd move back to Brooklyn tomorrow if she could. When she was at school, my mom talked briefly to the amazing Theresa Mullens, Lily's teacher, who has been saying all year that we have really thrown a lot at Lily this year, that we are really asking a great deal from her, in terms of moving here and then moving again, and two new schools, and all that.

She told this to my mom, too, and told her the story of Lily's first day: Lily saying to the class, "I was not consulted about moving to Hicksville" or some such word. Theresa said she had to leave the room to avoid cracking up in front of Lily and embarrassing her. My mom kinda got it, I think, how huge a change this has been for Lily, how lonely she's been for much of it, how much she misses her friends, and our apartment, and Brooklyn in general, and how she's had to adjust to a considerably new way of life here (maybe it's good we didn't go to Montreal).

Anyway, my mom asked Lily if she would move back to Brooklyn, and Lily said, she'd live one month here and one month there. And then she said, two months here. And then she said, what was it, no, she wouldn't. I think it's going to be okay. But it's been painful for her, I know.

She's so grown up now, so leggy and tall and pretty and stylish, so polite, and apologetic if she acts up or does something annoying. She's learned so much in school, academically and otherwise. I am so proud of her! And I hope she never tires of sitting in my lap.

While they were at Bement, Dave and I went for an extra-long hike around the Fitz Lake conservation area, the land behind our house. I'd never seen the meadow so we walked over to it. We saw a lot of scat, including some the Internet suggests was coyote, and some quite fresh moose, which is a bit more preferable than bear. We saw two snakes, one ribbon and maybe a garter. Using his memory and a book Dave was identifying wildflowers all over the place. We saw a lot of jack-in-the-pulpit, and we even have some right outside our kitchen window. We saw ladyslippers today, incidentally. Also bluets, star flowers, wild geranium, wild lilies of the valley, graywing, and lots of stuff I don't remember. Fun!

Saturday we went with the grandmas to the Paradise City Arts Festival, a biannual event that people all over the east coast look forward to. Then they took off and we went home and snoozed some more, me and Lily, and then showed Lily Groundhog Day, which she liked, and got: "Oh, he doesn't know how to love." BTW, I've discovered the trick to getting your kid to eat: Use those dinner trays with the compartments. She had rice in one, chicken in another, asparagus in a third, and when I said, there's nothing for the fourth little one, she said, I'll have apple. She ate it all, too. Yikes!

Sunday was busy. In the morning I went to the Y with Lily. She went into childcare, which she really likes, and I did my weights. Back home I showered and we ate lunch and rode our bikes to a nearby entrance to the conservation area. We rode over to the nearby Moose Lodge (no shit) where we met about 25 other people to hear our guide talk about wildflowers.

Lily didn't last too long but I'm really happy she wanted to go in the first place and she really wanted to ride bikes over there. I was nervous about riding on the very busy King Street but I talked to a friend who said what worked with her son was that he rode in between her and her husband and they played follow the leader. So we did that. Lily's pretty slow, and it was just me and her coming back, as we left early. But she did great! She's going to be a great bike rider. She said today, "I'm not so much of a runner, I'm more of a bike rider." I just love that she's trying new things and enjoying them. Then we went to Amherst for a friend's graduation from UMass bbq.

Today Dave and I cleaned house while Lily was at school (for a Memorial Day thing) and in the afternoon we hiked up Sugarloaf with her friend Ruth. That's the mountain in south Deerfield, not far from her school. The weather was gorgeous and we had lunch on the top, sitting on big piles of igneous rock in the sun, with the wind really strong. Dave was admiring the trees, how strong they were, how they just swayed in the gusts. "Think you could do that?" he asked me. "Just stand there swaying in the wind, for hours? If your ankles were buried?" Naw.

The view is of the whole valley -- this is where we went with Jenna and Harry after we had first moved here and it was so warm that January. Lovely! On the way home of course we had the required ice cream, and after we came home Dave and I snoozed on the lounge chairs on the screened-in porch while the kids played.

But then they were hot and I was feel re-energized, so I got them to wash my car. They started on the Subaru but petered out pretty quickly. I didn't get to the gerbils -- boy do they need cleaning -- but I washed my bathrooms today, did lots of laundry, and changed our sheets. Dave vaccuumed, and we had Ruth and her mom for a bbq. I actually, finally, made our family recipe for potato salad. And Dave liked it! All these years I thought he'd hate it because it has mayo and pickles. Go figure.

So now it's bedtime. Watch out for those suicidal robins -- anyone else have those? They fly right in front of my car, right at engine level. Oh, saw a rabbit tear off across King Street, was it yesterday? Really fast! She made it. Sat there looking at my car drive away.

Back from NYC

Nice to be there this week and see some folks. We drove down Friday night in pouring rain and traffic -- yours truly drove the whole way, and felt like a Hick with a capital H. I have forgotten how to drive in the city, but my friend Kim says I should keep doing it to keep up my skills. Ha.

At any rate, many potholes later and a couple of very close calls where I was on the triangle between the highway and the turn-off ramp, we got to Margaret's very comfy house and all went to sleep immediately. Dave went off to the theater with David F, lucky dog; I had brunch with Kim and then hung with Margaret, and Lily spent the day with Georgia-Rae and her mom at PS 261's talent show. I made it over there a lot later in the afternoon and had a great time chatting and saying hi to old friends, parents of classmates, the amazing principal, etc. The talent show was also really special. And it all really struck me as to how WHITE our lives are here in western Massachusetts. Very.

Saturday night I slept better than I've slept in a long time, surprisingly. She has shutters on the windows and even though the room is on the street I didn't hear any noise. It was lovely to sleep until 8am, which I never ever get to do. And on Sunday we went to a luncheon in honor of Dave's cousin, who was being feted by her temple. The food was surprisingly good -- excellent Middle Eastern-- and I had a great time belting out American Pie with a crowd of 40- and 50ish folks.

Got back to Dave's mom's around 5, and Lily went to her room and turned on her TV and I went to my room and turned on ours -- god I love cable -- and dozed while watching Law and Order reruns. God there is a LOT of awful violence on TV. Reality forensic shows, and one shows the dead woman's actual skull. Another is a competition between logging companies in Oregon. Weird stuff.

Then on Monday Lily and I took the train into the city and went to the natural history museum for the afternoon. That was a gas. It feels great to be back at some of these places. I can either pretend I was a tourist or a native; I guess I'm both, at this point. (I was stopped in the subway by real tourists trying to find their way to the World Trade Center; they asked if I lived here and I hesitated. But WTC I can do from Columbus Circle. From where we were standing, A to Chambers.) We saw the new exhibit on the horse, which I noticed had nothing about black cowboys (did I miss something?) and said in one place that horses had been domesticated for at least 6,000 years and in another, 5,000.

But I also was a bit cranky about the Discovery room, which wasn't open when the sign said it would be, until I turned back and read it more closely and realized it had summer and winter hours. So maybe I read the horse thing wrong. It's possible.

Then we went to the Katharsis Theater Company's benefit and saw Ruth and Emily, which was lovely, along with some of the theater folks I knew back in the day. And dear Henry, of course. We ducked out at 8pm and Dave drove us all home -- we picked up his mom for the week, so she came with us. Lily and I slept the whole way but I am still zonked, head-achey, recovering from being in NYC and what an emotional thing that can be at times. So I took a soak tonight in the tub and am going to bed.

There you go, Mom, there's my report!

I'll try to post weekly. hahaha.

birds, trees, and electricity

Birds -- the thrush -- a thrush; any thrush -- is back and all is well with the world again. We had a blue jay who made a nest at about 5 feet off the ground and the couple was hanging out all April. Now they're gone and we don't know if it's to raise their fledglings or an evil cat got them. It's really wicked noisy out there these mornings, and the light is so bright so early I've been waking up at 5, 5:30.

Trees -- a week ago we could still see well into the forest. Now, nothing. There's a wall of green that starts at the end of our yard behind the kitchen. It was even denser and greener tonight than it was on Friday morning -- We were in NYC all weekend and came back late last night. More about that in a minute.

Dave was learning to split the pear chunks he'd taken down a few weeks ago. And we are down a couple of hemlocks in the front yard because we came home a couple of rainy Saturday afternoons ago (first Saturday in May, it was) all excited to watch a family movie with popcorn and we didn't have half our electric, including our heat. The house was still in the 60s so it was fine, and of course we turned up the pellet stoves to take the edge off.

It seems your house, or at least my house, has at least two legs of electric coming in from the street. Today it has to be encased in conduit but not 30 years ago, when this place was built. One of the legs deteriorated, natch, and we faced the prospect of a backhoe in our front yard and them having to cut across our driveway, which the electric crosses on its way to the box on the street.

Long story short, we had half electric from Saturday afternoon through Tuesday morning and ended up with about 10 guys at the place on Tuesday, Dave said: the electrician we hired, Dig Save, who was marking up the yard with all our buried stuff, the backhoe guy, the National Grid guy, and who knows who else. The backhoe made its way across the lawn to the edge of the house, taking out the smallish (and diseased) hemlocks on the way, dug for about three feet, and found the break. The National Grid guy came back to check up on stuff even though he didn't have to, took one look and said, I'll fix that, even though he's not supposed to, and it was all over in a matter of minutes.

The wife (that would be me) got a little anxious that this cable just buried in the ground without its conduit will just rot again, and shouldn't they just finish the job? And everyone agree not to bother, bury it all up now and if it breaks again they'll come back. What do I know.

At any rate we have electric now. And a good story, and Dave had a lot of fun with all the guys. It was a bash -- party at the new guy's house! Everyone piled on.

Notes from April

I was driving to Hadley this morning to see a friend, or maybe it was taking Lily to D&D in Amherst in the afternoon, when an ENORMOUS bird flew over me, about 20 above the car. I swear I saw a white head, but who knows. Could easily have been an eagle, but usually when I think I've seen an eagle it's a turkey vulture. Raptors, yes, but not worth as many points as an eagle. Any eagle.

Last week, once we got past closing the June issue and I figured I wouldn't be as leaving as late, I started riding my bike to work. It's about 60 in the morning and lovely. The light has been extraordinary, for some reason; maybe it's reflecting the soft green of the new leaves. Dave said this morning that our forest is disappearing -- it's being taken over by leaves. Soon the light on our house will leave, too. But for now it's lovely.

We are still discovering our yard -- we moved in late last June, so we are still learning the terrain -- and the magnolia out our bedroom window is a great red and white color. It's next to the forsythia, which is in bloom, and that's in front of our neighbor's pink azalea. Everything is color now. Our street is lined with yellow and white daffodils, and occasional tulips. All the yards except ours -- the previous owners here were even less gardeners than I am.

Dave's working away at the yard, though -- he's got 15 years of city living to make up for, and 30 years of neglect here! Today he and our neighbor took down a tree, I think it was a pear, that towered over our houses. It was growing too close to our house in particular. There was lots of humor and jokes -- I could see them outside Lily's bedroom window, so they asked me to catch it when they chopped it down, etc. Now we'll have lots of firewood to burn next year. It's a shame to lose a tree, except we do have a ton of them, and it was so close to the house I guess ants and squirrels and other wildlife could and did easily climb over.

I've been raking like crazy, raking the edges of the yard by the street. And Dave's been buying or getting plants as gifts, like from his mom, who was visiting, or freecyle, and planting them. His mom really knows her plants and the two of them toured the backyard and she identified all kinds of things, like, we have trillium, and trout lily. And who knows what else. Pretty!

We've also walked to the lake a couple of times. It's still a bit muddy but not too bad. Wednesday we walked left at about 5:45, after I got home from work, and ate roll-ups in the birdblind. The lake looks lovely. One morning Dave and I walked down and back, briskly, so I could get to work at a reasonable hour, and the lake was like glass it was so calm. Lovely.

So I've been riding my bike and last week I hired a personal trainer for a few sessions, and those guys give you a ton more weight and a thousand times more reps! I did weights twice during the week, and rode my bike several times and by Friday night I was exhausted. But we were all out Friday night, and neither Lily nor I got enough sleep, so yesterday the two of us were kind of in dazes, lazing around the house, snoozing and reading Harry Potter. I went to bed at nine and only today do I feel a bit rested. So I cleaned the upstairs bathroom and now I'm doing some laundry. The weekends are so short! I barely recuperate before it's time to go to work again.

We also spent much of the weekend helping Lily finish her Wrinkle in Time board game for school. She came up with a great concept, and was decorating it, and perfecting the rules, and we played it several times to iron out the kinks. I think it's going to join Eco-Fluxx as our new favorite family game. Some other neighbors came over to help test the Wrinkle game and said they'd be happy to play Eco-Fluxx. So, cool!

I made soup yesterday -- the corn bisque from Sundays at Moosewood is very nice, even if you don't make the corn cob broth -- and Dave made pad thai. He loves the Asian grocery store in Hadley just over the bridge because it has many different countries, not just strictly Japanese, or Chinese, or whatever, and even some Latin American. He says they have four kinds of satay sauce. What's not to like?

Speaking of food, the new food coop is opening up here on Wednesday. A couple of weekends ago we had an envelope-stuffing party that ended up running two days instead of the expected one. About 10 people, maybe more, came over and stuffed massive mailings into envelopes for the coop members. The first day I organized my CDs and raked, but the second day I cancelled everything and helped. What fun! What great people!

Lily met some awesome kids, four kids who spent the Sunday here. What a gas to play in the woods and jump over the stream and climb on rocks. One of the kids, 4 years old, burst into tears when it was time to go home. But that night Lily couldn't get to sleep because her head hurt, and I found a bump and just then Dave came home, very late from his poker game (and he won this time! First time in 18 months!) and found a tick. Thank god he found it because I was sound asleep and unable to be too effective. He took it off and there seems to be no problem, so that's a relief.

The weather went from quite warm, 80s, to 50s the last couple of days, and it's supposed to rain all day tomorrow. A jeans and sweater kind of day. Yesterday I made a fire and Lily and her friend Ruth made s'mores. Sometimes I feel like I'm living someone else's life. Do people really live this way? We are so lucky.

The Weekend Report

Am still amazed about the birds. I can't get over their singing, and how I can identify one or two calls. I hear a loud hammering and I look around for the woodpecker -- there it is! The goldfinches are really gold now; three of them crowded our birdfeeder this morning.

This weekend has been gray and a bit raw, although I saw occasional blue sky yesterday, and in the high forties/low fifties. Still, two days in a row we've spent a lot of time outside. I have to consciously make myself go outside, now that the weather is remotely nice out. It just isn't part of my m.o., and to learn how to go outside -- to develop a sense of wanting to go outside -- is a big part of the reason I wanted to move to the country.

So, yesterday we biked with friends on the bike path for about three hours. We went up the path to the end, into Look Park, the town park, biked around, came back down the path, drove to the Hungry Ghost, the Buddhist bakery, got good French bread, went home. Lovely! As long as I was moving I didn't mind the occasional snow flake. When we got home I gathered kindling and brought in firewood. I want to have fires as long as it's even remotely cold enough.

And today we finally made it to the Sunday pick-up soccer game I've been hearing about for a year. It takes place on a small field downtown and we all three ran around with kids and adults for about an hour and a half. Again, as long as I keep moving I'm not so cold. I made some good saves but am not a very good goalie. I did okay, though, considering I haven't played in 30 years.
I am also starting to confront and get over my fear of being cold. Yes I was cold but I knew I'd be home and warm in the shower soon enough.

Oh, and this morning before we played soccer I raked a tiny section of leaves for about a half hour. Dave and Lily came out and helped scoop them up and dump them in the woods. We saw tons of worms. If you've been here you know we have a million oak trees, so the leaf raking will be never-ending. Still, it's nice to have a reason to be outside. I can also see there's a lot to do in the yard, even though we don't have a lawn and the entire thing is covered with that damn pachysandra. I don't really know what to do, though, so I am going to start with raking.

Friday night we went to the Northampton high school production of Anything Goes and it was hilarious! I hadn't realized it was co-written by P.G. Wodehouse, every line a killer, and they did a ton of great stage business, too. The leads were all quite strong and hey, you can't beat a show full of Cole Porter classics. You're the Top, You'd Be So Easy to Love, Blow Gabriel Blow, I Get a Kick Out of You, and of course, Anything Goes. I was really impressed with the entire production.

Glad to be here.

Rumi, birds, homemade maple syrup

In reverse order:

-- Go to Dave's blog for the latest on our homemade maple syrup! It's delicious!

-- I can't vouch for its accuracy but this site has a great list of bird superlatives. What's the biggest bird, for instance? It all depends on how you define it. The North African ostrich is, but does that count as a bird? The Andean condor is the biggest raptor and the albatross is the biggest sea bird. Cool!

-- About Rumi: Actually, more about Colman Barks. I really love The Soul of Rumi, the book I linked to in my previous message. But it does seem really modern--surprisingly so. Surprisingly accessible. Then I find out Barks doesn't know Persian. What he does is "translate" from direct translations. I guess you could say he modernizes the language. I don't know enough about the art of translation; is someone really a translator if they don't know the original language?

This Amazon discussion (scroll to near the bottom) was really interesting to me. The first guy says, look else for Rumi's essence. The second guy says, stay right here for his essence. The third guy says there's some essence in Barks' books:

As a Persian I felt I can write some illuminating remarks here. I came to this verse from Mowlanaa Rumi in this book: "Let the beauty of what you do be what you love" and I looked a lot for the original poetry. It seems to be like this originally:

Today we are drunken(=in love) like everyday
Don't start worrying and start playing instead
For whom the beloved face is prayer-niche
There are a hundred ways of prayer.

and Barks' translation:

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don't open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a
musical instrument
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

you see they are quite different and the translation seems to be distorted.

Rumi on Spring

The Music We Are

Did you hear that winter is over? The basil
and the carnations cannot control their

laughter. The nightingale, back from his
wandering, has been made singing master

over the birds. The trees reach out their
congratulations. The soul goes dancing

through the king's doorway. Anemones blush
because they have seen the rose naked.

Spring, the only fair judge, walks in the
courtroom, and several December thieves steal

away. Last year's miracles will soon be
forgotten. New creatures whirl in from non-

existence, galaxies scattered around their
feet. Have you met them? Do you hear the

bud of Jesus crooning in the cradle? A single
narcissus flower has been appointed Inspector

of Kingdoms. A feast is set. Listen: the
wind is pouring wine! Love used to hide

inside images: no more! The orchard hangs
out its lanterns. The dead come stumbling by

in shrouds. Nothing can stay bound or be
imprisoned. You say, "End this poem here,

and wait for what's next." I will. Poems
are rough notations for the music we are.

------------------
from The Soul of Rumi translated by Coleman Barks

Birds

If you live in New York City, or any city, do you notice the birds? I had no idea a) there were so many different kinds of birds or b) they came back in the spring or c) that I actually missed them and am glad they are back.

I mean, I knew all that, in theory. But here I am, noticing them, excited to see a nuthatch, or the gold finch's coat turning more golden as the weather warms, just like the books tell me. The winter has been so long and cold and dark and snowy and now it's still cold but we have sugar houses to warm us -- Dave is boiling some gift sap as we speak, and we will have homemade syrup in a day or two -- and the light is different and the trees are starting to bud and most of the snow has melted. I am delighted it's still chilly enough for a fire in my fireplace, and I love the warm sun that reaches our house and isn't blocked yet by the leaves.

I walked around the yard on Saturday because I wanted to be outside, but I didn't know what to do. Lily was playing with a friend. Should I rake all the oak leaves? Lots are still soggy. The sides of the street are full of sand. I ended up collecting kindling and bringing in some of the split wood -- we've burned about half of our half a chord.

This just in: Dave says the liquid on the stove tastes like very watery maple syrup.

Anyway, back to the birds. They are really cool, although I confess I feel a certain disappointment that we don't have anything terribly exotic. Not sure what I had in mind, probably a bald eagle or something else that wouldn't really be happy in these woods. Nevertheless, I thrill every time I see our cardinal with his very red coat, and his lovely wife with her orange beak. I love those yellowing goldfinches. I am very attached to our chickadees, especially because they have hung around all winter, so I'm loyal to them. And I hope and pray we get a wood thrush again and the evil cat next door doesn't eat it this time.

I remember sitting in my bedroom in Brooklyn in the winter, knowing it would be roasting hot in a few months. I feel the same way now. I can't imagine swimming in one of these local rivers. But swim we will, and hike: I just got Lily a cool backpack because I want to do a lot of hikes this summer. It has one of those hydration systems so she can carry her own water and suck on it as she walks. As an extra splurge I got her a pedometer. Maybe we can keep track of how many miles she walks when we climb Sugarloaf, and chart the difference between that and, say, Mount Toby. I can't wait!

You should smell this sap, guys, my kitchen smells like syrup! Those Indians were just amazing. As Dave says, they must have been really bored in the late winter, too, to invent this stuff.

Thanks for coming back, birds! It sure is great to see you! Chirp chirpity chirp!