The end of the beginning

I think I'm done with the office now. I now have a website that has many of my writing and editing clips, as well as samples of my newsletters. I have PDFs and color copies of many of my Wondertime stories and other clips. (I also have a scanner at home, if need be.) Today when I left I took the last of my files and clips and I think I don't have to return. Oh, I do have to give back my parking and building passes, of course, but I think we can keep those until the end of March.

Today the former WTers spent a couple of hours at the local bowling alley throwing some balls and eating pizza. It will surprise no one to hear I am a terrible bowler. It took me a few times to realize that the balls come in different weights and that the lighter ones are easier to throw. With my typical beginner's luck I got some strikes and spares, but mostly I bowled gutter balls, or knocked down one or two pins. I like seeing everyone but I have to admit it feels a bit different from LIFE, where I grew up. I worked there for eight years and here it was just two. Still, the Wondertimers are a fine bunch of folks.

Oh, I have several blue fleece vests with the Wondertime logo. I want to send some to my regular writers, but I am happy to give away the rest, and there's lots more at the office. Let me know if you happen to want one, for old time's sake.

unemployment disorientation

This is an odd time. It's been a month now since I lost my job. I have been all over the map, emotionally. Sometimes I am charged and excited about all the opportunities this open-ended time offers. Other times I'm overwhelmed, and want to curl up with a book. Blogging is a middle ground: It's somewhat justifiable -- at least I'm writing, accomplishing something -- and it's fun. But here's what I really think I should be doing:

--adding another solutions-oriented bullet to my resume
--making two new versions, theater and community development
--finishing making PDFs of my editing clips
--finishing my website -- and do I want to design my own, and not use the google version?
--making color copies of some of my clips
--writing some scenes I've been thinking about
--contacting everyone I know in the Valley with my new resume and telling them I'm on the market again
--mucking with my new computer --revising contacts, reorganizing my documents, learning inDesign, stuff like that.
And there's perpetual housework and grocery shopping and cooking dinner. Plus I'm only a few chapters into the book group book and we're meeting in two weeks.

My day is truncated by needing to get Lily at school. I look forward to her being at JFK next fall! I just had a great lunch with the parent of a current classmate, and I am coming to the conclusion that Bement is simply too old-fashioned for me and has different values. There's a lot there that I really like, but I believe in addressing difficult feelings and, with the help of trained adults, helping kids work them out. My goal is not for her to get into a private high school, and certainly not Deerfield Academy, Actually, at this point I would rather she not go there; from what I hear, the teachers and academics are great but the families who send their kids there are mostly about success defined by money and power. Why would anyone want their kid to go to boarding school, anyway? I want Lily to go to the Northampton High School. I am excited about that, in fact.

And see how easy it is for me to get distracted from my real purpose? It's so hard to stay in the moment with my life right now. Here are the good things about not working at Wondertime: Well, nothing about Wondertime, specifically. But the good parts about not working in general are:

--It's lovely to sit in a cafe typing on my new computer, with people laughing and talking nearby.

--I have more time for Lily. I pick her up every day and I am more present when we are home.

--I am going to the Y almost every morning these days. I am starting to run again, just 14-minute miles, and just for two to four minutes at a time; then I walk a minute or so. But I do this for a half hour and I feel better when I get off. I've been worried about hurting my hips and knees and ankles, but I'm following the advice of my chiropractor, who says to warm up and then stretch, and to stretch afterward. And I am seeing her regularly, and paying close attention to what hurts, and when, and what makes it feel better. I would love to be able to run a couple of miles several times a week. Maybe some day. Easy does it.

-- I have more time to see friends for coffees and lunches. Had one yesterday, and one today, and tomorrow I'm visiting my friend Helene in Brattleboro. Nice!

-- I started a writers' group with two other ex-pats from parts southerly, and we are all mothers as well as writers, and I really look forward to seeing them every week.

-- I have more time to meditate and do other spiritual things. And I am doing those things, because I've seen what I'm like if I don't. Yuck.

-- Freedom from the nine-to-five grind. It was wearing on me, and it hadn't even been two years since I was back in it. It is very stressful, that daily grind.

-- Developing new routines: meditate, the Y, the office to job hunt, a cafe to write, get Lily, home for dinner, etc.

Here's what I miss about Wondertime, and working in general:

-- The people. Hands down. The community, the feeling I got when I went into the office every day. Arguing over whether it's a comma or a semi-colon, and how wonderful it was to work with people who know how important the answer is.

-- The feeling of accomplishment at the end of a day, week, issue.

-- working with writers, from looking at pitches to asking for pitches to assignment letters to working with the actual manuscripts. One of my last stories was going to be a spread about tree forts and the writer had answered all my questions and we were working collaboratively on making this a small but useful and fun piece, not to mention attractive. It's a pity, and very hard to stop that creative process cold, in the middle.

-- The nine-to-five grind. Or in my case, the eight-to-four. I really, really, really, need structure, and I miss it more than I can say. I miss getting in the office, turning on my computer, getting tea, maybe eating breakfast if I hadn't already had it, seeing folks drift in, getting things accomplished.

--Lily's enjoyment of my office. When she came in she'd check out the free table in the basement, get herself a hot chocolate, play with the Playmobile hospital, then curl up with a book or some drawing paper. She liked it there.

-- Offering leftover toys and games to non-profits who really needed them for the kids they serviced.

--The money. Oh yeah, the money.

-- The security, such as it was. I had a job in these uncertain times,

--Being able to say I worked for Wondertime, a fabulous magazine that I was very proud of and that most people really liked. Having this as part of my identity, part of the structure to my life. I wasn't my job, but it was a big part of who I was.

Mary Oliver is a god.

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice-
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen branches and stones.
but little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do
determined to save
the only life you could save

by Mary Oliver
from Dream Work
Beacon Press 1992

Four weeks later

I'm sitting in a cafe again, Cup and Top in Florence. I'm sitting by the window looking out onto Main Street, aka route 9, and the sky is a stormy gray with patches of blue. The clouds are moving very fast. The iPod is playing my song mix again--Bonnie Raitt, Helen Reddy, Gordon Lightfoot, Karla Bonoff, plus about 900 more singers and groups. What a mix.

I went to my chiropractor this afternoon--I slipped on the ice the day after I lost my job and fell flat on my butt--and feel better. But otherwise I've done nothing but play with my new Macbook. Sure is good to be back on a Mac again, and even though I'm importing all my old files and music, there's something about having a new computer that feels like a clean slate, a chance to reorganize my life and prioritize myself.

The trick for me is trying to make sure my days are structured, and that I meditate and do some writing every day. All week I've been spending my days going to the Y, then to the office, then trying to get some writing done. Today was a blow-off, as I get sort through my music, pitching stuff I don't listen to and cleaning things up. I am eager to be listening to podcasts again, and maybe put some TV shows (can you say West Wing?) or movies up here.

And those days in the office have been productive. I've set up my new website--www.sashanyary .com, and the live link is to the right of this post--and scanned up all my writing clips and posted them to that site. It's still under construction, but I hope it'll be useful in the future. All I have to do now is make PDFs of my Wondertime editing clips and get them up there too.

It's odd being in the office. We're allowed to be there until the end of March, and some people are there all the time. Most people seem to have disappeared, though, but maybe they're just on a different schedule from me. I think this must be particularly hard for those folks who've worked here a long time. I was there just two years, and while I wasn't ready to leave, it hadn't become my life and my identity quite the way I know it can--at least, that's what I went through at LIFE. I couldn't believe I wasn't a LIFE magazine editor any more. But life went on, even though LIFE didn't, and I have had many new identities and ways to define myself since then.

It's also odd being out on the streets--I feel like I spend a ton of time in the car, driving to the Y, to the office, to get Lily in Old Deerfield. But's much better than two years ago. I know people now. I know the streets and the cafes, and I have a life here now. I asked Dave a couple of weeks ago if he wanted to move back to Brooklyn (outside of Lily's hearing) and he said no, he didn't. So we're here, and that feels good.

Looking forward to the warmer weather but I have to say transitions freak me out, and it's essential that I stay in the day, every day. Or even in the moment. In a few minutes I have to get Lily at her theater improv class. And we'll go home and see her dad and have dinner and hear how everyone's day went. Lily has had a ton of homework lately and it just got away from her these last couple of days. She had a test on ancient Egypt today that she wasn't really prepared for. She's barely practiced her flute this week. She has an essay due tomorrow, and something for science. I think there's a spelling test tomorrow too. Jeesh! She has a lot to do and it just can't all happen. Oh well.

It does leave me wondering what next year will be like. Will there be much less work? Will it be less challenging? Will she be bored? I think that'll be okay, if she is. She can take an art class, or get into a theater production, which she's dying to do. Maybe I'll get her to join the swim team. Maybe she'll meet some great kids who live nearby and she'll finally have some regular playdates.

Well, it's February. Sixth grade is a long time away. She's planning her summer now and in March we're going to visit DeeAnn and Steve and their kids, our closest friends from Brooklyn who moved to Phoenix the year before we moved here. We'll hit the Grand Canyon for a night, and I hope to see a long-lost cousin who lives in New Mexico, and my friends Rosemary and Harry from Oklahoma City. It's going to be great.

"The Producers" in Easthampton

So if it's February or March in the Happy Valley, it's not just sugaring season, it's high school musical time. This is when all those hardworking teenagers put on the shows they've been slaving over for the last three or four months. Last Saturday we were lucky enough to be able to get tickets to the went to the Easthampton High School's production of The Producers.

Now first of all, can I just say, how cool is that, that a local high school puts on The Producers? It's a risky piece in many ways, not to mention risque. The themes are sex and the Nazis and it pokes fun at just about every single group you can imagine, from gays to Jews to women to men to fat people to nerds to Germans to New Yorkers to theater people. Especially theater people.

And if you missed this production, all I can say is, poor you. It was fabulous. With the exception of one major character whose acting was hilarious but singing was often laughably flat, every actor was spot on. I wasn't thrilled with some of the changes, like making Roger DeVries a woman, Rhonda, but I understood why: There aren't many parts for women in this show.

Other changes were pretty understandable, like in Bialystock's I Used to Be the King song, the original shouts, "Who do you have to fuck to get a break in this town?!" and they changed it to "shtup." I get that. But they left in the line, after Ulla sings "When You Got It, Flaunt It" (god she was fabulous), when Bialy says, "Ulla, even though we're sitting down we've giving you a standing ovation" and then he and Bloom cross their legs. Got a big laugh.

I was a bit apprehensive; for this show to succeed it really needs a strong Bialystock to carry it. And their guy was great. Right from the beginning. Strong voice, strong character, lots of energy. Bialystock is basically on stage for the entire show, almost, and he's in almost every number except about three, Bloom's, Ulla's, and Bloom and Ulla's. This actor was a pretty big guy but he moved smoothly and fast. He didn't drop a line in a song or spoken, that I could tell. Before the show I thought, okay, Bialy has to be good or else this show is going down. And he knocked me out in the first song.

The other remarkable actor was Ulla. Again, I was waiting for her line, "Now, Ulla belts." She's gotta belt. This kid belted. She was awesome.

More than most musicals I hold The Producers close to my heart. And when its unbelievable reviews came out, in April 2001, I remembered the lesson I learned from my father when I was 13, and got tickets. The lesson was that he opened up the paper one morning and saw that "A Moon For the Misbegotten" had opened and the reviews were astounding. This was the 1974 Colleen Dewhurst/Jason Robards production, and we went down to the theater that morning and stood in line. And it was, indeed, incredible. They filmed it later and you can get it on Netflix, I think.

In 2001 I didn't go into town to get Producers tickets, I picked up the phone, and I didn't do it immediately; I waited a couple of weeks. The next available was for mid-August, and I still regret getting the $75 seats under the balcony, and not springing for the $100 ones on the floor. We offered them to my father and step-mother, who to my surprise immediately said yes. Don't know why I was surprised, because it all makes sense now.

We went to our favorite Times Square restaurant, a Japanese place in a brownstone right off Broadway at about 43rd Street. It's not there any more, unfortunately. The owner was Japanese and had trained as a French pastry chef, so desserts were outstanding. The place was decorated like someone's living room, with books lining shelves and framed pictures on the walls. Her son played the cello and if we were lucky he'd be there the night we were eating, serenading the diners.

We loved the show, of course; I remember not getting some jokes that everyone else did, like during Bialystock's first song, when he says, "I used to be the king" and someone responds, "It's good to be the king." I didn't know this was a standard Mel Brooks joke in all his movies. But then I got the theater jokes like, during Roger deVries' song where he introduces his creative team, and everyone has been really gay, his partner, Carmen Ghia, Shabu, the house boy, and his stage and costume designers. Until he calls out for his lighting designer, who is a butch dyke with a deep voice and a bundle of cable over her shoulder. I went to theater design school with a butch dyke lighting designer, and I burst out laughing and it felt like everyone around me was looking at me.

We were lucky to see the entire original cast, not just Nathan Lane, who was increasingly absent as the run went on, and Matthew Broderick, but also Gary Beach and Roger Hart and Cady Huffman. Really great cast, some of the best working today, and most have won Tonys, either for this or other shows.

I know this will come as a surprise to people who know me but I am normally an obsessive person. I have been known to watch a movie over and over in a couple of weeks, or a TV show, or, in this case, a CD. I listened to it constantly the rest of the summer. This was a particularly hard summer--my father-in-law was dying of ALS, my family was very stressed, I was miserable for many reasons, and I didn't know how to cope with my feelings and I was making everyone else miserable around me.

And on top of all that, 9/11 happened, and I truly felt like I was going to break into little pieces. I had almost no resources, and I didn't recognize the ones I had. I was trying to keep it together but really felt like I was about to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. One outlet was the Producers CD, which I listened to over and over and over. Lily came to know it very well. I gravitated to the line in the song "Springtime for Hitler," where Hilter sings, "you know we'll be going to war." Also the line, "the thing you gotta know is, everything is show biz." Those two lines rang in my head over and over.

Eventually I stopped listening to the CD, and I found some resources and learned to cope with my feelings a bit better. But I still love that musical, it still resonates for me, and I was thrilled that this production could pull it off so well. Kudos!

You must read this

A wonderful piece by Maira Kalman about the inauguration.

I Lego N.Y. by Christoph Niemann.

Chance again

So today I was typing something terribly important and here comes Chance, leaps up on Dave's desk next to me, then leaps onto the meeting rail (is that the right word? the top part of the frame on the lower piece of glass) but it's really too thin even for her to stand on, and she's clawing desperately at the very top of the window, trying to get some bird or animal just out of reach. And then BAM she comes crashing down on the desk.

Need I add that the new window frame is all scratched up? And the glass in several windows, especially the glass doors onto the back deck off the kitchen, and the window closest to the bird feeder outside our bedroom, are covered with cat slobber. Yuck.

She's desperate for them birds. They're oblivious, of course, the stupid little things. We'll throw seed until it thaws and the paper starts to warn everyone to stop feeding the birds because they bears are waking up. We can start up again in the late fall. I can't wait to see what she does about the bears, once they start walking around. I am a bit concerned she'll claw her way up the screens, which will be ruined.

She still loves the water. She hears us start to brush our teeth or wash our faces and she comes bombing into the bathroom and leaps into the sink, staring up at us adoringly, pawing the sleek sides of the porcelain. It's really odd. I like to turn the water on a trickle and soak her a bit. She climbs out, then turns back and bats at the stream and sucks it up. There's hair all over the sink.

No cat baths lately, but she sure likes it when we're running the bath in the Japanese tub. And she likes to pace the edge of the upstairs tub in between the two shower curtains. She likes to crawl into every little nook and cranny she can find, pushing out books and bowls and whatever else is in her way, to get back into the dark spot.

Two other favorite things she does. I'm happy that she likes to sleep on the end of our bed, and I love that at around 8 or 9 pm, she starts looking for us to go to sleep. If we're watching TV she comes in there to snooze. Then when we go up to bed she climbs on the end of our bed and washes herself and curls up.

Unfortunately, this is also the time she, and all cats, apparently, is the most frisky, and we often have to dump her very impolitely on the floor to avoid being bit and scratched. She's torn between really wanting to hunt and really wanting to sleep. Eventually, sleep wins.

And then at about 5am she wakes up and stretches and makes her way up to me. She puts her head under the covers -- always on my left side; Dave hates her in bed and she seems to know that, she always comes to my left side and not in the middle of us--and curls up in there for another nap, purring and washing me. (I know I am supposed to pat her because she pats me and nudges my hand. Same thing she does when I come home at night and she wants some attention, and not just dinner.) About an hour later she wakes up and tries to wake me up to feed her. Grrr. Sometimes it works, however, and I do get up and feed her and then go meditate.

The second favorite thing is that she likes to talk to Lily when Lily is in the balcony looking into the living room. She says, Hi, Chance! and the cat just meows back with a very intense, almost anxious whiny tone. Not sure if she likes Lily up there or not.

That's all for now. More TK, as they say in the publishing trade. More To Kome.

Peter Sellers doing Laurence Olivier as Richard III doing A Hard Day's Night

You must watch this. This means you too, Mum:



This is Peter Sellers doing his version of Laurence Olivier doing Richard III's "Now is the winter of our discontent" speech through The Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night." The TV program was the "Music of Lennon and McCartney" from 1964.

And okay, here is the Olivier speech he's riffing on:



And this, Peter Sellers doing an Irish version of She Loves You:

Requiem

This was written Thursday but I didn't have internet access.

So now I am doing the ole’ freelance thang: sitting in a café typing and reading, while Lily is in a drama class down the street. My iPod is playing my song mix in my ear–Nanci Griffin right now, singing Woody Gutherie, Do Re Mi; how appropriate he is for these times.Followed by Meat Loaf, Paradise By the Dashboard Light--stop right there! I gotta know right now!

I feel like a statisic. Heck, I am a statistic. I am a number, one of many millions. I think there’s like 5 million getting unemployment, but we all know that’s a fake number, that lots of people beyond that aren’t working, or are working two or three jobs and still not making enough to live on. I guess W could get unemployment, eh? Or does he just get a pension. Obama has a job, at least, thank god (even though I voted for Nader). Not sure what I think about his economists. Well, I know what I think of them: Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner are big parts of the reason we’re here now. And Summers is a misogynistic turkey besides, which makes him a bad economist--imagine cutting out half your potential work force. Oh well. At least it isn’t Paulson and that crowd.

So yes, unemployed, laid off, jobless. I don’t want to lose my severance, so suffice it to say that I’m not mad at Disney. Truly I'm not. I learned at the age of 13 that it's easier to leave a place angry than sad, and I learned at 45 that the anger is usually covering the sadness, at least in my case. And the fear, although as long as I stay in the day I don't have much fear. And yes of course I'm very sad.

What I will say is, I was very proud of Wondertime. I've told this story before, how I didn’t even apply when I saw the first job listing. How I said phooey to the first ad I saw. Forget that, a Disney parenting magazine, yuck! But then I didn’t get another job, one I really wanted, so I applied to the yucky old magazine and I got an interview. And that’s when I bothered to read it. And then I thought, I’ll will be lucky if they even read my resume! It would be an honor to work with the people who put out this fabulous magazine. And I started praying to get hired.

Of course I did get the job, although those couple of months or so waiting and wondering and praying was scary. And wow, what a cool thing, to finally get a job as an assigning editor that I’d finally decided I wanted all those years ago at Time Inc. but then never really had. I was scared; I wasn’t sure I could do it. But I contacted writers and read clips and websites and helped them with proposals and wrote assignment letters and then edited the manuscripts that came in. I picked the brains of the other editors, and the art department, and copy, and fact. And I learned how to be an associate editor at a national magazine.

And I have to say, it was an honor to work with the people who put out the fabulous Wondertime. Every single person I worked with is an incredible professional. The women who started this thing are visionaries, brilliant, empathetic--poetic, even. They created this funny, smart, warm, loving publication that was always respectful of children and never ever laughed at them, only at ourselves as parents. But even that was gentle. Parenting is hard enough without pouring on the guilt, right? So lets teach people what we can, and commiserate and laugh and feel compassion and share what we’ve learned. It was described to me as a group of parents having a coffee after morning drop-off, talking about the latest challenges and joys. And I know that sounds like a press release or cover letter to a potential interviewer but I believe it. Besides, I'm a sap.

So as a response to my unemployment I’ve been watching a lot of West Wing and it makes me realize how lonely that job, the president of the United States, is. No matter how many advisors he has, it all comes down to that one guy, the one making the final decisions. Parenting is lonely too, especially in those very early months and years. I think Wondertime tried hard to bridge that gap, to connect with parents, to listen to each other, share best practices, have a laugh. Plus the writing and photography was extraordinary.

At any rate, we get very generous severance, followed by unemployment, and I have a couple of months to find work in these troublesome times. I go into the office almost every day (not yesterday, with its 8+ inches of wet snow and sleet) and work on my resume. Well, first I called and emailed all my writers and arranged whatever payment they were due. Then I went through all my files and sorted stuff, passed some on to those staying on and tossed the rest. There's quite a loss involved here, one I hadn't quite prepared for when I imagined losing my job for whatever reason. My feature in the April issue was shaping up nicely, plus my departments, and I know my writers were also disappointed that their work is not to appear. I had several things in inventory too, for later issues, and they will not appear in Wondertime, of course. It's painful, and sad.

We had our second annual housewarming last Sunday--mark your calendars for next year; the weekend after Martin Luther King Jr. holiday (and did you know that some parts of the south celebrate Jefferson/Lee Day the Friday before this holiday? Sick). So my little family spent Saturday cleaning and scrubbing the entire house. Dusting, vacuuming, mopping, laundry (lots and lots of laundry), emptying trash, sorting toys, clearing clutter, scraping snow off the walkway. Yes it’s cathartic but there’s still so much more to do, the files both external and computer, the piles of junk mail that have no place to live but seem so essential, the big house-chores, the projects, the projects, the projects.

My dear sister Cate came in Saturday night and was a huge help. She made a rice salad on Saturday night and went shopping with me on Sunday morning. Mum came in and she helped cook too. Here’s the menu: curry rice salad from the old Bread and Circus, pesto pasta salad that wasn’t so great, a ham, a turkey, a so-called Greek frittata (anything with feta is Greek, just like anything with avocado is Californian), several cheeses, including my fave (and Cate’s), manchego, and lots of breads. Oh, and cookies. And I actually got potato chips and onion dip. Haven't done that in 30 years, but I felt like junk food.

The house was warm and full -- lots of folks came, maybe 30 or 40, over the course of the afternoon, kids, adults, retired, unemployed (several former colleagues came), plus my family, of course. It was fun, and affirming—yes, life goes on. It just does.

Something about that. It goes on. Life goes on. Some folks are really scared, and drinking, and eating. I’m scared when I am not in the moment, in the day. I have to stay in the day. Wiggle your toes, my friend Dee says. Where are your feet? Wiggle your toes. Stay in the day. Normally I can get scared, and these are not normal times. But it’s one day at a time, right? Can’t live in tomorrow. Live in the day emotionally. Plan for the future in a practical way, sure but live today and don’t freak out because Dave might lose his job next summer.

So yes, Dave could lose his job. He just started at UMass this October and the state is facing a huge shortfall and they are talking about reorganizing the entire university, which means big cuts. His boss reassured him he’d be safe, but you know, you never know. He’s the only programmer for 300 people, but you never know. These are scary times.

At any rate, you never know. Brooklyn friends have just bought a second home in southern Vermont so we're going to visit them and welcome them to New England life. It'll be lovely to have them local some of the time. I am enjoying FaceBook, even though I'm just a statistic there too, one of 150 million (!).

And the snow is lovely and thewinter light is incredible, especially when I go into Lily's room at 6:45 am and pull up her shades and look out the skylight at the trees, their branches silhouetted against the pre-dawn sky. They look like skeletons with their leaves off, stark and severe but also, you can really see their structure, see how they are standing, how graceful and serene. I want to be like that.

Unemployed

I have so much else to write about here--now maybe I'll have the time to do it! Disney closed Wondertime today, suddenly but not entirely unexpectedly.

It's the economy, stupid.

We've stopped publishing--March 09 is the last issue--although they are paying us through March 31, and they are not kicking us out immediately.

This too shall pass.

How to tell a New Englander

A friend sent this to me in an email:

Here's what Jeff Foxworthy has to say about New Englanders . . .

f someone in a Home Depot store offers you assistance and they don't work there, you live in New England.

If you've worn shorts and a parka at the same time, you live in New England.

If you've had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed a wrong number, you live in New England.

If 'vacation' means going anywhere south of New York City for the weekend, you live in New England.

If you measure distance in hours, you live in New England.

If you know several people who have hit a deer more than once, you live in New England.

If you have switched from 'heat' to 'A/C' in the same day and back again, you live in New England.

If you can drive 75 mph through two feet of snow during a raging blizzard without flinching, you live in New England.

If you install security lights on your house and garage, but leave both unlocked, you live in New England.

If you carry jumpers in your car and your wife knows how to use them, you live in New England.

If you design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit, you live in New England.

If the speed limit on the highway is 55 mph you're going 80 and everybody is passing you, you live in New England.

If driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow, you live in New England.

If you know all four seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter and road construction, you live in New England.

If you have more miles on your snow blower than your car, you live in New England.

If you find 10 degrees 'a little chilly', you live in New England.

If there's a Dunkin Donuts on every corner, you live in New England.

If you actually understand these jokes, and forward them to all your New England friends & others, you live or have lived in New England.

FaceBook

FaceBook is incredibly addictive in a fun way. Here's my page, friend me. But also in a bad way. It's fun to goof on my status, see what gets a response and what sinks to the bottom. I like putting in my book reviews, and of course, reconnecting with old friends. I love to see what everyone else is writing too.

But Dave says it's so easy to use it could mean the end of blogs, and that I really don't want to see. FaceBook as a substitute for a blog entry seems just more of this steady progression of more and more superficiality in our society, and a lack of intimacy. Not that a blog entry is so deep, and maybe blogs are a sign of the end of civilization because no one writes books any more. You don't have to get into a topic with any depth.

I guess my feeling is this: If you don't have a FaceBook page, get on the bus. Get an account and mess around with it. It's just taken off, for some reason, in the last six months or s, with people my age and older flocking to it like crazy all of a sudden. People I never thought I'd see there now have accounts and are updating their status every two minutes. It's way better than myspace, I hear. It's fun, it's easy, and it's really weird the way you reconnect with people you haven't heard from or of in 30, 40 years. I recommend it.

And, note to self: Yes, it's fun, but don't stop reading and writing blogs, or books for that matter. Don't think it's a substitute for real communication and friendship. Don't be fooled by the instant intimacy.

Snow again

So is it a sign of global warming that we have so much snow? Although while it feels like a lot; I don't know if it actually is. Lily's had two snow days so far and work has let out early at least three times and it's only early January.

The trick to living in it is not ignoring it, getting out and enjoying it. Dave dropped Lily off at her Star Wars game today and was going to go skiing on the bike path. I just went snowshoeing and it was a lot of fun. I only had a few minutes so I took the loop out our back door through the woods to the main trail, and then followed that up to what we call Fairy Rock, a huge boulder where we took our Christmas card photo last year and followed the loop back out to the parking area at the top of Marian Street.

I have such good feelings about this trail now, after living here a couple of years. You may remember that we first found it in early January 2007, when we were living in Amherst and Lily was at school and I had a sore back. Dave had picked up a great book on hiking in the Pioneer Valley and found me a hike that sounded lovely but not too strenuous. It was a great hike, maybe a mile, mile and a half, to Fitzgerald Lake. We ate lunch on a big boulder and marveled at the 70 degree weather (depressing).

Coming from Amherst we had driven to the Marian Street entrance, so in April when I saw the new Northampton listing on Marian Street I knew that if the house was even remotely nice, I wanted to live there. I knew right where it was.

The funny thing was, we had been looking hard for a house that spring and just not finding anything, and my friend Anne said, you'll know it when you see it. She said she could walk into a house and know if it was right or not. If it didn't feel right in the first five minutes she wouldn't even bother to check out the rest of it. I took solace from that, trusting that I just hadn't seen my house yet and trusting that I would know it when I did. When the new listing came up, so new they didn't even have time to declutter it for the inside photos, I had a sense. And I was right. With all its faults -- the latest is that Dave keeps tripping on the stairs so he finally measured them and it turns out no one is the same distance, they each vary, some by many inches -- it's still a great place to live, and I have found the neighbors I was looking for.

Just a digression there. At any rate, every time I go into the woods alone I feel apprehensive. I don't have my bearings, I don't feel at home, I don't know what to do if a bear comes along, say. I have raced down to the lake and back in 45 minutes just out of plain fear (and of course I don't tend to get motivated until late in the day, when I've only got an hour or so of daylight left. Duh.

But today, and last weekend, I snowshoed around on my new snowshoes, and maybe because there's so much light and you can see so far through the leaf-less trees, I wasn't frightened. Last weekend I was following some ski tracks to see where they'd gone. Today I just did this loop, as I say, but I could have gone on for ages. It was quiet, peaceful, beautiful white fluffy snow, the branches of the trees heavy with it, the air still and quiet. The kind of moment when you wish you were a poet and could describe it all. Where's Mary Oliver when I need her?

And it's giving me a sense, not of ownership, quite, but familiarity with the woods. I feel like I know where I am, I am starting to know the rocks and trees and dips and sways of the trail. When I got the snowshoes I also bought these telescoping hiking poles and they are actually really handy in the snow. I like them a lot. I feel much more confident.

I am trying to get out and do some sort of exercise every day, and to me that usually means going on the treadmill for 45 minutes or swimming 1,000 yards. But now I am fat and old and stiff and out of shape (yes, I really am) and I am starting where I am. And where that is today is walking in my quiet, snow-filled woods on snowshoes.

By the way, if anyone knows about snowshoes and wants to fill me in, that'd be awesome: Mine keep falling off, at least of them does. Today I adjusted them and tightened them, and then readjusted one of them, and I think I have it. If I keep it very taut above the lip on the heel of my Sorel boots I seem to be okay. Last week the left one fell off 10 times in a half hour, this time it fell off once and then not again, in 15 minutes. Makes it much more fun that way.

PS -- my friend Kim has started a blog, which I recommend. See the link to the right.

PPS -- house to do list, not in any order:
--new siding and repair all hidden rot and put in insulation where there isn't any (there's a lot of places, it feels like)
--new roof, sigh
--replace all the stairs?
--re-carpet or something else the basement area by the coat closet
--wood-burning stove of some sort (maybe glass?) in the fireplace
Not to mention landscaping and gardening, now that the hemlocks are out of the front yard. Big sigh.

Happy new year!

Today I am home sick. I came down with a cold on Sunday but we were putting March to bed this week and I couldn't not go in. Last night felt like the old days at LIFE, except there was no time to get dinner; I got home close to 11 and folks were still there. Thank god I have a short commute, and thanks to the folks who brought in a couple of pizzas.

It's also a snow day for Lily and Dave (ah, the benefits of being an employee of the state) and driving is terrible. I am resting and updating my facebook page and posting here.

We had a fun new year's -- Northampton is the perfect town for First Night:
-- it's small enough to get to places but big enough to have lots of different venues
-- the Valley is very arty so there's loads of really good artists of all kinds--musicians, magicians, artists, actors, improv folks.
-- it's also a very kid-friendly place, so everything, pretty much, is family entertainment--but that doesn't mean bland! It was about 15 degrees so we spent the evening at Smith's Theater 14 watching three performances of improv. One woman forgot and used the F word and took an opportunity to supplicate herself in the next show, begging forgiveness for swearing at a family show. Very funny.

I worked that day, which was stormy until the late afternoon. But then it cleared and we went to Viva, a pretty good pasta place in town. Very nice service and we got out in time to see the fireworks at a family-friendly 6:15 pm. We were all three in bed by 11, I think.

Two more things I wanted to blog about:

Half way into my third winter here, I have learned that New England winters are far worse than New York City, even though we are only 150 miles north. It's colder, darker, more isolating, and of course snowier. In the big scheme of things I am okay with all that, but it's good information to keep in mind next fall. It means you really do have to plan things, parties, getaways, dinners, date nights, so that you can not get too lost in your home-work-home routine. It's too dreary for that.

The other thing, apropos of nothing, is that I am fascinated by all the latest discussion about Obama helping the middle class, and everyone clambering to be considered part of it, and everyone talking about how it's defined today. Was it easier to define in the past? Maybe, because there wasn't as much stuff, and of course people made more money, and good-paying jobs were more easy to find.

I read a blogger, I forget where, who was saying that a reader was calling for sympathy because their income was only $250,000. "Can we please put to rest that old saw that $250,000 is not middle class?" he was saying. Well-off, maybe, but not rich. Not wealthy, not after tuition and taxes and car payments and childcare etc. etc.

Phooey. Of course phooey. It is rich. It is rich, especially compared to what most people in this country live on, and it ain't any 250. He doesn't have to have all those private schools and cars and all that. But I realized that that's what people feel entitled to now. They feel entitled to full cable, for instance --well, that's a hundred bucks right there, or more. They're left out if they can't watch HBO, so add on that. Everyone has to have a car, and not one that costs two grand but a nice one. Everyone needs a flat screen TV to watch that cable, and private school, iPods all around, and cell phones, and, and, and.

And what? Dave and I make a good living but not anywhere near $250 k (although we don't have a mortgage and that's a huge gift that we got simply by living in our condo for 11 years). I don't know what I'd do with that kind of income. We might make some improvements to the house, I guess. We might travel more. We'd donate more. What I really want, materialistically, is a new Macintosh computer, a really good camera for Dave, to do some home repairs so we can use our winter rooms more easily, and maybe, yes, a better second car. And to be able to retire comfortably in 3o years, hahaha, not with this stock market tanking, right? Maybe if I really had the money I'd get a weekly massage.

But that's it. I find as I get older I need less and less stuff. Oh, I know, I'd hire someone to clean my house. That would give me what I really want: time. I want more time, time to read, to be with my family, to see my friends, to go to the movies and canoe on the Deerfield River. I guess money can buy time, but then I think, would I quit my job if I won the lottery? That's a hard question but I don't think so. Not right away. I like my daily routine, and the seasons, yes, even winter, and being with Dave and Lily and my sisters and other family. I could see traveling more, maybe.

I think the middle class is a state of mind and labels don't work any more, especially not on the other end, with the definition of povery so out of date and minimizing the truly desperate poor. Obviously it also depends on where you live: Living on 250 in New York City is not the same as 250 in Northampton, that's certainly true, although our particular living expenses in Brooklyn were lower than they are here, what with the food coop, the ridiculously low property taxes, and no school tuition.

I don't know. I just want to stay grateful and peaceful, and I worry far more about the folks living on 50,000 or 75,000, never mind 10,000 and 20,000, like some of my neighbors, than I do the folks who make 250. They have choice, is the thing. They can make choices. That's what money gets you.

The day before the day before Christmas

How 'bout that snow storm, eh? We only ended up with a couple of feet, but it basically snowed for three days here, starting Friday and didn't really stop until Sunday night. We all left work early to get home. I left at 2pm and that was a mistake; should have left closer to one, when the roads were still okay. There was tons of traffic and it was slippery and nasty.

We stayed in most of the weekend, although Dave got me and Lily out on Saturday afternoon while there was still some light to sled down Hospital Hill, the local awesome sled spot. Really, really fun. We need to upgrade our sleds, though. We've moved up in the world from saucers found at the dump for free. My last run I went down on our plastic toboggan face first and got a mouthful of snow and nearly broke my arm. That's just like me.

I'm sorry I missed the Solstice celebrations and the seasonal sings, but we had lots of fires, and did some cooking -- Dave made bread, and soups. By Sunday afternoon I was climbing the walls and Dave suggested friends for dinner and the next thing we knew we had eight of our neighbors for a potluck dinner. A true potluck: whatever you have in your fridge. Dave made some massaman chicken and rice and I made challah, but late -- we ate our fabulous meal with our fabulous neighbors, and the bread came out just as we were done. I cut us all pieces anyway -- I took my sister Cate's idea and made one big loaf instead of two smaller ones -- and it was steamy and warm. Our friend Doris said it was maybe the best challah she'd ever had, which I take as a supreme compliment, especially given that a) my challah is usually too dry, b) she's older than me, which means she's eaten a lot of challah, and c) she's Jewish, see "c."

We really have great neighbors. It feels like the game on this block is to see who can be nicer. Someone bought a snowblower a few years ago and now someone else uses it to clear everyone's driveways. Not ours, since we have a machine and Dave uses it, but during the last storm last winter he left me half at my request so I could try a little snowblowing myself. I got lazy though, and didn't get to it, and when I did, it was already cleared: Our neighbor had done it. Turns out he thought our machine had broken so he did it. And after they all left Sunday night, as the last of the snow was falling, there he was, clearing the last of our driveway. Really lovely.

I know this sounds out of touch with what most people already know, but this is my blog and my experience: Having two parents working full-time and a school-aged child is a really big deal. I had yesterday and today off and it was wonderful: I did laundry, Christmas shopping, grocery shopping, and took Lily to the dentist and for her annual physical. We didn't even put up a tree this year; we're worried the cat will tear it down. And I am off sugar so I didn't make toffee, either (sorry, all!). But we've been really busy, nonetheless.

The great thing about these two days was that I had had nearly three days already to read, listen to music, make a Christmas mix CD (not a good toffee substitute, I know), and sit in front of the fire. So I was ready to do errands with Lily. And I realized this afternoon as I dropped her off at some friends that we haven't had such concentrated time together, just the two of us, in a long time.

Now Beethoven's ninth is on, loud, and I just listened to Carmina Burana, loud. My end-of-the-year traditions used to include listening to these CDs, and Handel's Water Music, loud, and maybe some Aaron Copeland, and The Planets by Holst. Very joyful music. And then I'd cast some runes and see what was coming in the new year. I'd write in my journal about all the things I hoped to accomplish. And just take stock, in general.

It's really, really nice not to be alone any more, to have a family to share all this with. I was lonely for a long time. I wanted a partner, and a child or two. I wanted someone to take care of, and to take care of me. And thinking about those days now, pre-Dave and post-everyone else, I can see that I was really longing for something. I hope whenever I get frustrated with my commitments, my family, the emotions and the ties that bind, the sheer struggle of sharing your life with other people, I remember how wonderful it is to be with Dave and Lily. How we are a unit, the three of us, working and playing and being together. It's a wonderful life.

Green Potatoes

Lily sang in her first concert on Thursday night. One small-town thing I've noticed is that everyone assumes you know where something is located--and me too, once I know where it is. Case in point is Smith's Helen Hills Hills Chapel (yes that's the name, two Hills). The choral instructions said, meet there an hour before the concert. No address, nothing. And ditto with the next concert, at a nursing home in town. Just, meet at the Calvin Coolidge Nursing Home.

Not a big deal to google it and all, but it's an interesting phenomenon. And also interesting to note that yes, I do it too, as I say, if I know where something is. "Take a left at the Y." "It's just past Serio's." And there aren't a lot of places to learn, so yeah, you do figure it out pretty quickly.

I remember being 19 and going to a theater in Chelsea with my sister Bondi. We were meeting beforehand to have dinner and she said, let's meet at the corner of 23rd and 8th and see what's to eat on that block. I love love love that about New York City.

Anyway, the concert was really fun, lots of groups doing just a couple of songs. The kids went first and they sounded great. Adult and school groups sang, including several a capella groups sang. Last was a hilarious rendition of the 12 Days of Christmas sung by the boys group from a local private school. Here's the University of Michigan doing a version of it:



Hilarious. As usual we saw people we knew who we weren't expecting to, including my friend Peter's from Milton's son. Thank goodness Lily didn't do the local Nutcracker this year, she'd have had to race out of that performance to rehearsal (this was the big performance weekend).

Those of us in Northampton seemed to be okay with the awful rain and ice this weekend, but just five miles out of town it was really bad. People all over western Massachusetts and southern Vermont and New Hampshire don't have power. One woman I know in Colrain, Mass., has no heat and says she can get her house up to 50 or so with the fireplace. Yikes! Her street has only five houses on it so even though they lost an entire telephone pole they are not a priority.

And my poor boss! The ceiling caved in on our top editor's desk, right above her computer and all. She wasn't in, thank god; several of us spent an hour early Friday morning carting everything and trying to find places to dry it out. I have no idea the final damage total but at least her photos seemed okay, and other memorabilia. We've had a terrible time with our roof, which is flat, and apparently one of the drains must have frozen and the water built up, eventually leaking in and soaking her ceiling tiles. Of course those are essentially made of sawdust and paper and when they get wet, yuck.

Oh, the other yuck of the week: On Tuesday Dave made us a lovely dinner with homemade chicken fingers and oven fries. The fries tasted weird, but we ate them, unfortunately. Note to self: If food tastes bad there's probably a reason. These were green under the skin. Second note to self: Do not eat green potatoes. I mean, I knew that, and we couldn't tell that the flesh was green because we didn't peel them. We were sick, sick, sick. We didn't throw up but the two of us writhed around all night, passing each other on the way to the bathroom (no further details, I promised. Suffice to say we were miserable). Thank god Lily didn't eat them.

Today we did house chores, which typlically includes cooking for the week now, so we have lunch and dinner covered--or at least thought of. I did three or maybe four loads of laundry, cleaned the bathrooms and changed the sheets. Dave vaccuumed and made two soups, butternut squash and turkey chili. I made chicken paprikash yesterday and a beets vinegrette today. And we always make enough for leftovers. Tomorrow I have to cook a pot roast because it was out all day by mistake. But yes, Virginia, there is life after green potatoes.

Oh, one last thing: We saw Slumdog Millionaire and were blown away. Go see it.

I hate driving

I got my first speeding warning a couple of weeks ago. Several times I've not seen pedestrians wanting to cross the road, who fortunately know enough not to try to cross until the car driving down both sides have stopped. I worry a lot about my driving. It's a constant battle to stay present.

I want you to know I no longer talk on the cell phone when I drive. I always used a remote when I did, but I read recently that talking on a phone, even if you are on a remote, is like driving drunk. And it played a part in my getting my warning too. So I ain't gonna do it.

I have no excuses. I mean, I could have: I got my license late, when I was in my early 20s. I didn't get a car until I was in my late 20s and I only drove it a year or two. I've lived in cities most of my life, where driving mostly means moving the car to the other side of the street twice a week for street cleaning. I've never had an accident -- well, I nicked a retaining wall two summers ago and took off the side of our brand-new Subaru, so I guess I can't say that any more. I had to file an accident report and it cost $2500 to repair the thing. Insurance paid for it but then our rates went up, natch.

The speeding warning was lucky and I was stupid. Ignorant. I was in the left lane on I-91 trying to get to Lily's school. Well, true confessions: I was talking on the remote. I hung up and noticed an unmarked police car behind me. I had no idea how fast I was going and I made sure to go 65, the speed limit. There are a lot of state police on this stretch of I-91 weekdays at 4 pm. I notice them all the time, waiting, stopping someone, cruising. This one was cruising.

But then I made a big mistake. A big, ignorant mistake. I panicked a bit and decided he wanted to pass me. He was right on my tail and I hate that. So I sped up. A lot. I had to pass the car in the right-hand lane beside me. I got passed the guy, and slowed back down to 65. And noticed the cop behind me again, but this time his blue lights were flashing. Oh, dear.

So I signaled and pulled over and pulled out my registration and license. He surprised me by coming up on the right-hand side. He immediately asked, have you ever been stopped before? For a ticket, a warning, anything? I said no. No, no, no. Keep it that way! I clocked you at 81. I was sufficiently terrified and nervous.

So I got my warning and I was properly scared. I said I was trying to get my kid at school and he said it wouldn't take long and it didn't. Of course I went the speed limit the rest of the drive. And as I drove, I got to thinking about it. I figured he'd stopped me because I might have been speeding when I was on the phone, but then it occurred to me that maybe it was when I consciously sped up to let him pass me.

As some of you know we live right by a state police barracks, so on the way home Lily sat in the car while I ran in. I figured someone would be there to ask questions, and there was. A really nice trooper was sitting dispatch, it looked like. I handed him my warning and said, I moved here recently from New York City and I need to know, is there an outer limit I can drive, and not get a ticket, like 70, 75? He looked at me a second, to see if I was serious, I guess, and said, I usually give people 10 or 15 miles, but it's up to the officer. Anything over 65 is speeding.

Okay, I said, so what if I'm in the left lane trying to pass someone on right, can I speed then? He really looked me over this time. But I am nothing if not sincere, and I guess he saw that because he just said, No. Anything over the speed limit is speeding.

And yes, even though I haven't figured out cruise control yet, now I never talk on the phone and I always go the speed limit, at least never over 70, and almost never much over 65 unless I'm not paying attention. I go the speed limit on local roads too, which actually scare me much more, in some ways, because of pedestrians.

Pedestrians. So in New York City they have to have a walk sign to cross a street, and everyone knows what to do. Of course there are jaywalkers, but mostly you're okay there because they know they're being bad so they're watching for drivers. Drivers have to watch for legal pedestrians, of course, but you know they're crossing because when you have the green, they have the walk sign. Here, pedestrians have the right of way no matter what, especially in crosswalks, of which there are many, many, many in the downtowns around here.

I try to be really polite as a driver. When I see someone going the other way waiting to get across my lane, I usually stop and let them turn, especially if there's a line of cars behind them. It's so easy to do and so helpful to the folks behind the turner. Today, on my way to get Lily, I saw such a car, and I stopped and let her turn into traffic. She didn't wave her thanks, but she had Jersey plates and looked about 12 so I figured she was a college student.

A couple of blocks later, a car turning into traffic from a street across from me caught my eye. I slowed but didn't stop because they could turn without my doing anything. But then I look to my side of the street and see a woman carrying some stuff, waiting to cross. Thank god she didn't start out. I screeched to a halt, right across the crosswalk, and felt really stupid. I figured I'd better get out of her way, so I started up again, looking in my rear view mirror to see if she was okay. She was, and she was staring at me a bit incredulously. The car behind me had stopped for her.

So, clearly I am at fault here, and thank god everyone is okay. I've been in this position before, and I hate it. No matter how careful I think I'm being, I still miss stuff, especially pedestrians in crosswalks.

Now my question is, how do I avoid this in the future? I think the answer is to creep through town and to always assume that someone is in the crosswalk, even though there usually isn't. Which I do! I really do! but this time there really was someone, and I hadn't seen her and it scared the spit out of me. I hate cars. I hate driving. I miss subways. That I miss about New York.

Thanksgiving trend piece

In the newspaper world they call a story like this a trend piece: What's the trend this Thanksgiving? Here's my idea, use it in good health:

Everyone I knew who was on the road this Thanksgiving had a HORRIBLE drive home, partly because of the awful rainy weather, partly because it's always bad on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, partly because many more people weren't flying, probably because flying is so expensive and gas is so cheap. Eamples:

-- we spent 6 hours on the road from Plainview, Long Island to Northampton and it should have taken 3.
-- Dave's niece left Long Island at 2 am on Sunday and she had a terrible and long ride home.
-- a colleague came back from South Carolina and said it was rainy and bumper to bumper through 10 states. She said the 15 hour ride took 20 and they got in at 2 am Monday morning.
-- another colleague said they refused to drive to southern Jersey, and the rest of the family got annoyed at them, but they just wouldn't

And here's the trend: Another colleague had Thanksgiving with family the weekend before. Everyone gathered and had the same meal and a great time, and the traffic and shopping hell of the holiday was if not entirely avoided, at least lessened a lot.

Thanksgiving is becoming like Passover, in that everyone wants to have the meal with everyone, so you end up having several meals, like several sedars. We had two, one on Thursday in Northampton and one on Saturday on Long Island. Dave's family didn't even get into town, all of them, until Friday afternoon.

So I am going to propose that it's not going to get any better, so let's do it the weekend before and be more relaxed and have more fun. That's what I'm going to suggest for our family next year. Wonder if they'll go for it!

Lily the swimmer

So the swim team thing with Lily is kinda cool. She takes lessons on Saturdays at the Y and each 6-week session has a different teacher, with a different style of teaching. Her latest teacher makes them swim a lot of yardage, like 400-500 yards at a lesson, and my drama queen is complaining. She says she gets a cramp, and she's tired, and she can't breathe, and she hates diving off the starting block because her goggles get mushed onto her face (I hate that too). I said I'd talk to the teacher.

So yesterday before I went on the treadmill, I talked to the swim teacher. There happen to be two Lily's in the class, and the teacher was trying to get clear on which one I was the mother of. I kept telling her my Lily was the taller one, and she kept saying, which one is she? which one? like she couldn't believe me. I was like, uh, yeah, that's my kid, the taller one, what's the big deal? I didn't get it.

Then along comes my Lily and the three of us chat a bit and she appears to feel reassured that she won't be pushed too hard. Go swim a 50 back, says the teacher, and Lily gets in the pool and starts to swim the back stroke. A 50 means two lengths of a 25-yard pool, up and back. And she takes off like she's being chase. Within a few strokes she's ahead of the (big) boy next to her who started out before her and was a half a lane ahead of her. She has this gorgeous, smooth stroke, and it looks incredible on her perfect swimmer's body -- all legs and long arms too, strong shoulders, and no body fat. The teacher and I are watching her swim down the pool and I started laughing and the teacher did too. Now you see why I was surprised! she kept saying.

Have you considered the team, the teacher asked me, and that gave me pause. I've been waiting for someone to mention it, but I wasn't sure Lily was ready or in shape enough. Truth be told, I am dying for her to do it, for many reasons: First of all, she loves, loves, loves to swim. The discipline of a team and a coach would be fabulous for her. She's really good at it now but she would get much better. She'd met a lot of other girls around her age, also all drama queens, the teacher tells me, and she'd get to go to meets and have fun.

We talked about it after class and Lily was excited by the idea, although she said she wanted to improve her breast stroke first and get comfortable enough to swim a 500. Makes sense to me. But then she switched, almost imperceptibly, into, naw, I don't want to, and kinda whiny. Yes it would be a ton of time and work, getting her there for a 90-minute practice two or three times a week,not to mention meets, and when would she do her homework, and when would she sleep, and she's been struggling with those tasks so much already. I obviously have my own ambivalence, but it was almost funny how quickly she went from excited to scared and tried to pass it off as something else.

I kind of think it might be good for her in other ways too, like help her become more organized and on the ball -- does she have too much open-ended time right now, too much unscheduled time? I thought I would never be a sports mom. I might be a theater mom, and it looks like I'm a chorus mom (her first concert with the Northampton Children's Choir is Thursday) but sports? Who knows. Stranger things have happened.

First snow

Stop me if I wrote this already: Did I mention that all the hemlocks in our front yard are gone? When the guys were here digging a trench across our yard in October so they could repair the electric, I mentioned that I wanted to redo the yard. They got to talking, the excavator and the electrician, and they said we could give the oaks to a lumber company for the price of taking them down and carting them away. They are very straight, tall, gorgeous oaks. We declined but I mentioned I'd like to get rid of the half dozen hemlocks scattered around the yard.

That's when the electrician said he'd take down those down himself, to heat his home, and I was all over that. A couple of weeks later he zipped through and now our front yard looks like a construction zone, with this swath cut through the pachysandra, and the fresh stumps. That happened to be the week all the oaks dropped their leaves, so we aren't exactly sure the reason for the sudden light in our living room, but I'm hoping it's the missing hemlocks. I love the light; it pours into the room in the morning. Lovely!

All by way of saying that we woke up to the first snow this morning but the hemlocks that always looked so cool covered in the stuff are now gone. Oh well! Small price to pay. Dave recently got us an indoor-outdoor thermometer -- you put a little monitor outside -- and it also predicts the weather. It had little snow coming down on the graphic this morning, kinda funny.

We need to grind up the leftover branches, and dig around in the yard and maybe start thinking about what plants and paths and other stuff to put in there this spring. But meanwhile we pull down our shade at night now, because you can see in from the street, and enjoy the light. We aren't doing much in the yard right now because of the season and the ground being frozen and all, but I did get to pitch our four or five pumpkins into the woods. We had one big one, 25 pounds maybe, and a big long green squash thing with several little pumpkins nestled inside. They've been there since before Halloween and someone has been noshing on them. There's seeds and pumpkin guts all over the path to the house. So I pitched them into the woods. I think deer have been at the big one because it was eaten away at the top. But I could be wrong.

Going to and from Lily's Star Wars role-playing game this afternoon we passed through some of Hadley's gorgeous farm land, with the Holyoke Range to the south of us, and all we could see was this expanse of sky, with heavy puffy fierce gray clouds. Nothing like living in the country to make you feel small and inconsequential. Whenever we go over the Coolidge Bridge into Hadley I tell Lily to look at the mighty Connecticut River -- it's always striking, no matter the weather -- and we try to come up with vivid descriptions. Nothing ever quite captures it, although Lily comes close. Today, as Lily said, it looked gray-blue and calm, and with the fierce clouds it was quite a sight.

It's so not calm tonight. The snow has stopped but it's roaring outside -- it sounds like a train's been going through for the past couple of hours. It's the roar of the wind and when I opened up the window to get a real listen it felt like I was inside it. "Doro-thee! It's a twister!" It unnerved me so that when I ventured out this evening to meet some friends and a branch flew into the car, I turned around and went home. I've seen what the wind can do to 150-foot trees here. And it spooked Lily enough that I had to put on some quiet music to drown out the roar and let her sleep.

I'd say we aren't doing much of anything at all these days except go to work in the morning, and try to get to bed at a reasonable hour. I'm not sure if it's the holidays, or the lengthening darkness, or the cold, or what, but we are really going to ground lately. Which isn't to say we aren't busy: Every weekend now we have things to do. Small-town living is really, really different from city living, and one thing I've noticed is that it's a lot easier to get involved, in a way. I have decided not to sit on the board of that theater company, but I could. And that this is not the time for Lily to join the Y's swim team (it meets either monday-wednesday-friday or tuesday-thursday from 6:30 to 8) but she could (see the other blog entry).

Right now the focus of our family is to adjust to Dave and I both working and Lily adjust to fifth grade and boys and social stuff and increasingly demanding academics, not to mention hormones that send her up and down the emotion meter. And that's about all I can do, that and do my own work. We're managing to keep the house relatively clean. Dave went out today and did some food shopping while I took Lily to her Star Wars game, and he's been cooking up a storm. Lily had two birthday parties this week and we could have joined the Mayor's Hot Chocolate Run, a fundraiser for Safe Passage, a local battered women's shelter. But we had to make some choices and that one was the only option.

I've been trying lately to be more present with Lily, to really pay attention, to focus on what she's saying much more, and to be with her at the times that are hard for her, like getting ready for bed or getting ready in the morning. If this weekend is any example it's better when I do. She likes the company and the attention and she doesn't act out as much. I'll ask her to brush her hair and get ready for bed, for instance, and if I don't go up with her, I'll find her a half hour later reading a book. If I do, I can putz in her room, put away clothes, straighten things, keep her company, and keep her on track to be getting to bed on time. (Sleep is so crucial! She needs 10 hours at least, if at all possible, which means bedtime is 8:30 on school nights.)

Sleep is so crucial. For all of us.