Pics – Page 10 – The Hillhouse

Fine Day

September 14, 2014September 17, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Low Vision Life, Mommy Mind, PicsLeave a comment

Today Elihu and I made our annual trip to the picturesque village of Lake George, in the Adirondacks. Each year, just as school’s beginning and the summer is coming to a close, we head up north to enjoy a lakeside meal and a little adventure. On the docket for the day was watching an attempt to break the Guiness record for the longest parade of Ford Mustangs; they needed 621 to be successful. We saw but one Mustang on the way up, and when in town saw maybe two or three more. It surely didn’t seem a world record was about to be set. Elihu had wanted to earn some cash, and we’d thought busking for the crowd here might work, but when the cars – and the crowds – didn’t show up, and when we heard the sound of music coming from the bandshell, we knew it wasn’t the time. So we headed to the place we always eat, and enjoyed a lovely meal of steamed mussels and calamari instead.

After lunch, although Elihu was jonsin to play, I asked him to humor me and go hear the band first – from what we could pick out over the relentless onslaught of Jimmy Buffet covers from the duo on the neighboring restaurant’s deck – I thought I’d heard some real music. It had been way too long since I’d heard any good stuff (Saratoga is a town mainly of cover bands – in the summers the music that floats through the air sounds kinda like montage of never-ending wedding bands). The busking could wait. And frankly, when we got to the stage and learned this was the weekend of the Lake George Jazz Festival plus saw there was a tuba player – both busking and record-breaking lines of cars were forgotten. I admit that I tried Elihu’s patience when I insisted he meet the guy after the set – but Elihu was glad we hung around. The tuba player showed Elihu how he could play melodies on his mouthpiece, and that stuck with him. It was just the right inspiration at the right time, and he was psyched to have met the guy. The two of them chatted for a while, we took some pictures and then parted ways. Elihu felt Saratoga would be a better opportunity to make some cash, so after a couple more enjoyable and impromptu chats with folks en route to the car, we headed back.

Once on our turf, he had his plan. He hit both of his usual spots, and in between played for a bit with a fellow we’d not seen before on the street. I did my dutiful mom thing as he played, sitting off to the side, all but ignoring the kid (he’s eleven; he needs to retain his dignity. Who wants a hovering mom?) and waited. Elihu was playing well, and trying some new things. It made me smile to hear him playing well, and playing with such joy. I had a pleasant chat with a gentleman with whom I shared a bench, and shortly Elihu declared he was through for the day.

These days, Elihu and his classmates are rather consumed with the culture of Pokemon. I’d thought it might have passed by now, but no. Elihu gives a lot of mental energy to assembling his deck. He gets lost in thoughts of how he’ll battle his opponents, what powers he’ll use, what special EX cards he’ll need to win… I try to share in his excitement, or at least I try to show interest, but really, it’s hard to keep it up. My son is lost to me in the world of Japanese anime characters, and I can’t possibly understand. But I can support him, and when he’s worked hard all week, done the chores I’ve asked of him, finished his homework and practiced his bass, I feel it’s altogether fitting that he be allowed to buy himself a little treat. And especially when it’s with money he’s earned himself. In about forty minutes he’d made around thirty dollars, and so I took him to the store to get the newest release of Pokemon cards. He was beaming all the way home.

Elihu talked with his father on the phone for a bit as I made supper, and then afterward we watched a little ‘Simon’s Cat’ on YouTube for a quick nightcap of laughter, and then he was off to bed. “This was such a good day” he said as I turned out the light. Yes, it was, sweetie. It was a fine day, indeed.

Beautiful Lake George in upstate New York.

I’ve waited all week for a glass of wine. !

Here’s a gratuitous selfie with the same view.

Glad we brought these this year. Elihu really can’t see much detail beyond the deck without em.

And this is a shot of me, in the reflection of Elihu’s large, dark glasses. When I talk to him, I can’t see his eyes – all I ever see is myself – so I snapped a pic to kinda show him what it looks like.

This is the crowd…

And this is the event.

The view from the lawn. I grew up being part of really huge events, so this seems quaint by those standards. But hey, it’s been so long since I’ve heard any music at all that I’m thrilled to be here. You can’t beat the scenery, and a smaller venue is so much more pleasant in many ways.

The group? Billy Martin’s Wicked Knee. That’s Billy on the drums.

And that’s Elihu’s new pal Marcus Rojas on the tuba.

Showing Elihu how much you can play on a mouthpiece alone.

Elihu shows his djembe to Marcus’ little boy.

This is Will on the left, he plays accordion – and the yellow CD on the right is a brand-new project he and Marcus played on together (look for their group Musette Explosion). Will was going to be playing later on in the afternoon. It was a posse of NYC musicians there.

Peace out, Marcus! See you next time…

Back home in Saratoga Springs, Elihu stopped to leave a tip in this guy’s case, but instead, this man insisted that he tip Elihu, who he’d heard playing djembe across the street. How kind!

Then Warren invited Elihu to play with him for a bit.

Here’s what it sounded like.

In an alley on the way back to the car, we heard the most beautiful and plaintiff melodies from this harmonica player, and Elihu felt compelled to double-back and leave him a tip and a kind word.

Keepin it real. This is what all that cash was about! After pack upon pack of humdrum cards, Elihu lands a couple of good ones back-to-back. Love it.

A fine day – in so many ways.

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Our Way

September 10, 2014September 12, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Farm Life, Growing Older, Mommy Mind, Pics, Waldorf Life5 Comments

As so often happens with my plans for things, everything I had on my list for the day has changed. The cable company is working on the line at the moment, so there’s no internet, no phone. The builders are moving my driveway right now, so there’s no way to leave the property to do errands. Elihu’s home sick anyway, so everything I’d hoped to do today is postponed until the next window of available time. He’s put in some time practicing his bass, so I suppose I might follow suit and get some time in at the piano. By now I do have some experience with unexpected changes, so I’ve gotten pretty good at rolling with it. Might just be an opportunity today to do something I might not have done otherwise.

We’re not quite in our new groove here at the Hillhouse, but we’re on our way. It certainly feels this year as if we’re at the doorstep of a new age in both of our lives. To me, it feels like that past six years here were about learning this new way of living; being a single parent, raising chickens, beginning a garden, making some fixes in the house, figuring out how to go it on our own, and in general getting our feet firmly planted on our own soil, as it were. The neediest days of the tiny child are now gone, and so too are a lot of the unknowns that came with our new life here. Now I know how to start my furnace, how to butcher a bird, shoot a gun (not that I’ll ever do it again), and prepare my garden. I’ve learned how often I need to clean out the gutters so my basement doesn’t flood and how many mice I can expect to get rid of in a week. I’ve got skills I didn’t have when we started out on this adventure, and I’m far less intimidated by the varying routines that go along with the changing seasons.

Elihu has also got a good foundation for himself; he’s a good person, with sound judgement and a good heart who eats well, plays well, learns well and has a wonderful, witty sense of humor. With his tinted contacts in (the new pair just arrived!) and his braces off, his chickens, his sketching tools, a string bass, plus his new ability to ride a bike – it feels like he’s ready for anything. Finding the Waldorf School a couple of years ago was one of the most important pieces in the puzzle. Elihu loves going to school, and for that I feel beyond blessed (in fact he really didn’t want to stay home today, but his asthma was bad, so I insisted. He had done his homework early, so that helped in my decision). Lately I’ve been teaching him how to prepare some basic meals, and I feel he’s able to fend for himself in a whole new way. Truly, it offers me some relief now, and allows me to invest some of my energy in other directions.

Our new direction is becoming clearer, but it feels like it’s been hard to actually get underway – there have been so many small detours. Elihu gets his contacts, but the first time he puts them in, they rip. I get the supplies to insulate the Studio, but can’t find the time to do the work. I left my job to free up more time, but ironically, the few classes I play end up cutting my day in awkward sections, leaving me too little time to drive back to Greenfield and get any work done. Plus the cost of gas will just about match the income. Not good, but I remind myself, not permanent. Nothing is permanent. I just have to be patient, and prepared.

It feels like we’re at the bend of a road now, but the straightaway is just up ahead… My neighbor came over last night with her three kids, and we chatted as the four children bounced on the trampoline. She too felt as if a big change was underway in her own life. Could be that we both see the new house that’s going up in between us as somehow symbolic – it certainly is for me, but there’s more to it than the changing landscape. She and her family have put their house on the market and hope to move. That means change for us, too. Two new families will soon be living next door. The dynamic of the neighborhood is yet to reveal itself.

Then of course, there’s the Weight Watchers adventure beginning anew. It’s not a complete unknown to be sure, but something feels different this time. At my age, I feel I have less time to horse around – with my health and with my happiness. So I’m thinking more about balance – I’m more about the long haul than I am about just getting it done. And I can’t help but see it as a metaphor for the way in which I might want to approach all the new projects coming up. Low and slow… Take more time if need be. Get it done, but take care to do it right. No more quick fixes.

I was eleven years old when my parents built the Studio. I still remember well running through the skeleton of the structure with my little brother, I remember first seeing the plans, then the cardboard model of the building, and finally, after one busy summer, there it was. It’s funny, but I don’t remember much of my life before the Studio was there. That means that in some way that my truly conscious life began at eleven; the same age Elihu is now. That thought intrigues me; both my son and I coming to know this new incarnation of the Studio in the same year of our lives. It gives the shift a certain symbolic emphasis, and it helps inspire me. And I can use all the inspiration I can get. !

I hear the earth-moving equipment busily re-directing the trajectory of my driveway as I write this, and it too seems like another metaphor. The next time we leave our property, we’ll be heading out in a new direction, and in the next couple of years, our lives will be going forward into the future in a new direction, too. Our plans might change from day-to-day, and we might sometimes take the scenic way over the highway, but in general, we know where it is we’d like to go. We have our destination in mind, even if we still don’t quite know our way.

Back to bass-ics. Sorry.

Okay, maybe this is overkill. But those ones are still showing up.

Dare I? I awoke last night, and this is what I saw. Ok. I’m done now, promise.

The sixth grade will be working towards their Medieval Games at year’s end. Here’s one of their first archery lessons.

I think it’s pretty funny, the blind kid shooting an arrow. He’s been successful in hitting the bag, now he hopes to get closer. Problem is that while he can see the circle, he cannot make out the tiny arrow tip in front of him, so lining it all up becomes something of a crap shoot. He’s not daunted, however.

Finally getting to the big burn pile. Local folks boast that they like to ‘burn things up, Greenfield style’.

This is high Greenfield style. Burning things up in my bathrobe under the light of the full moon.

This gal has a beard. She’s one of the new flock Elihu calls Sylvia.

Thumbs Up is not as innocent as she seems; if I hadn’t caught her she would’ve been pecking her way through the groceries. No kidding. She can ruin a loaf of bread while your back is turned.

We love our Baldy. He’s still king around here.

One of the new gals surprised me by landing on my arm from out of nowhere.

Now this is kickin it Greenfield style. On my last hurrah before WW, I’m enjoying a glass of wine and some salt and vinegar potato chips while still in my bathrobe. (Don’t we love Sundays?) Hoo-haw!

And this is Elihu kickin it with Austin, our crazy guinea fowl. He adds a great dose of comic relief to the joint.

Here’s the new house smack at the end of our driveway. We can see it from many rooms in our house. Oh well. Time to plant some trees, I guess.

The driveway as it looked this morning, by this evening it will have been slightly modified. That’s ok, it’ll still lead to the road. All that matters is that we can still be on our way.

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Panic 1-1-1

September 7, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Divorce Diary, Growing Older, Pics6 Comments

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It’s the infinite possibility that gets me. The unfathomable, unknowable vastness of situations that exist – the organic events going on, right now, in the very spot of grass beneath my feet, the goings on of people and commerce in my town, across the whole state, the whole country, and at the same time all the like going on in other towns, in other countries, even on other continents… It’s the weather systems that surround our globe and the super-heated action taking place miles below our feet… and then of course some similar sort of activity also taking place on some other planet so far away that you could never even begin to comprehend how far away it is, much less come to understand and know all that goes on there, too. Oh, and then there’s the microscopic, unseen world that supports and makes up the world that we do see; events of commonplace chemistry and basic physics taking place that have unto themselves limitless interactions, relationships and morphing outcomes ceaselessly going on – no matter whether you’re paying attention or not. The whole bloody lot is always moving, reacting, growing, decaying…. Life always moves. And life is e-normous. Limitless, in fact, many would agree.

Which of course is fine, and all is as it should be, I suppose. Everything nests somehow into everything else, and therein lies the beauty of it all, the Godliness of it all. It’s just that it’s so much. And perhaps I’m short-circuiting or something, but lately I’m highly inclined to want to get a grip on how all of it works. Now I realize how silly that sounds, honestly, I do. But that’s the thing with problems that arise from your thinking process; they can be downright illogical. And no matter how illogical, the thinking still appears to be real to the thinker. And so that hyper-awareness of the largeness, the unknowability of it all then helps to tip me into that most unpleasant state of panic once again. I hate it, but can’t seem to stop it. I’m walking a fine line here, even in the wake of Robin William’s depression-related suicide – because I do not relish the idea of people thinking I’m crazy. But having panic attacks is in of itself is a kind of crazy – as is depression, or being manic. And so many of us suffer in some way during our lifetimes from some kind of mental health issue. So many of us have lived our own kind of crazy at one time or another. Really, how in hell can you live on this planet and not lose it from time to time?

These days, in addition to the run-of-the-mill panic attacks which come on through obviously stress-induced and rather specific situations, I’ve been finding that unremarkable events are also acting as triggers for my panic. Because, as I’ve just pointed out, nothing is really all that unremarkable when you think about it. I even find that glancing at clouds can frighten me, because I realize how big they themselves are, and how high up they are too, and I begin to experience a mild fear of heights even at that line of contemplation. Sort of a sympathetic vertigo, you might say. Conversely, when I try to pull my awareness back into my immediate sphere of experience (as a means of calming myself), I cannot help but then become acutely aware of the activity all about me – the activity of cells, the movement of insects (they by themselves spin me off into a world of disbelief and wonder – how in hell can something so tiny have all those systems packed inside? And don’t get me started on nano technology – the subject can literally make me light-headed and slightly dizzy. Really.). So my challenge then becomes how to tame this mental mess. And believe me, I’m working on it.

Sometimes, when my life’s a wreck or I can’t pull myself out of an undesirable situation, I try to imagine what advice I would give myself if I were somebody else. An objective outsider. Because as we all know it’s much easier to tell someone else how to change their life than to actually make those changes for yourself. ! Using that tactic, I find it’s easy to coach myself. And so I make a list of categories which might benefit from a little assessment: Financial, Professional, Physical, Spiritual.

Ok, number one: there’s a lot of uncertainty ahead, what with the Studio, the lack of a real job and income – and so it’s easy to understand how I might be panicking just a little. So what can I do? What action can I take to mitigate the financial stress? Cut down (on what?!, the cynical voice inside me bitches) on expenses, be frugal with all food, drive as little as possible, take extra piano students as I can. Ok. Not much, but something. And The Studio? I’m doing what I can; bought my first rolls of insulation, watched some YouTube vids, consulted a few pros and have assembled my tools. I’ll begin installing it this afternoon. The new electric lines are in, and the heating units go in next week. There’s networking to be done, so I need to meet with a couple of folks over the next month. I’m still a bit overwhelmed, but what more can I do right now? (If I began to contemplate the legal issues ahead I’d feel as if I were back to square one. Maybe the lesson here is ‘one step at a time’). At least I’m doing something, and the situation’s in hand.

Next is of course, are the health issues. The arthritis in my fingers has accelerated rapidly over the past month, and where before it was merely unsightly, now my knobby distal knuckles are warm and painful nearly all the time. I’m only responsible for playing three classes at school this year, but even so, with my fingers getting stuck in between the black notes and aching as they do, I wonder how it’ll work out. I’m back on the glucosamine regimen, plus have added some Chinese herbal supplements, topical applications of essential oils, I’ve begun acupuncture again and will shortly try a few rounds of electromagnetic therapy. I’m not sure how I’ll sustain such treatments on such a tight budget, but at least I’m underway. Doing what I can.

Also, I’ve gained a lot of weight over the past few months, and I’m a little frightened by it. So, again, what action should I take? I know, join the Y. Check. Joined at a discount, no less, thanks to the scholarship program (some red tape and hoops to jump through, but I’ve come to understand that being poor is in of itself a part-time job.) Ok. Done. Now, what to wear? I donned my old sports bra the other day, but I’m so much larger than I was the last time I wore it, the damn thing ripped in two when I tried it on. Ich. Ok. Just gotta replace it. An unforeseen expense, but as my local health-nut and excavator friend Al said to me this morning (on his cell phone in the middle of a 20 mile bike ride) “Just get a new one and keep going. Keep going.” Mom’s underwriting my new Weight Watchers membership – and that starts Monday. I simply cannot imagine going back to such an austere diet. I once lost 55 pounds on WW, after the birth of my son, so I know the culture well. (Atkins is more fun, but WW is more realistic and its success longer-lasting.) But honestly, it comes with hunger pangs and an undeniable lack of satisfaction. I suppose the loss of extra fat on my frame and improved numbers (bp and cholesterol) should make up for the near-constant feelings of hunger… that’s the idea I guess. And hopefully, after I’ve made movement a part of my routine, I’ll just plain feel better. I know it’s true, I’ve experienced it before, but it seems ridiculous to me from where I stand right now. Life without a few glasses of wine each day? Life with portions a mere quarter of the size I’m accustomed to? Sheesh. It’s but a day off, yet I still don’t believe it’s coming. I don’t suppose anyone is ever ready for major change. Just gotta jump in. (Or as my buddy Al would say, “pull the trigger”.)

Now to the spiritual part of the equation. Got much of that down I think; I spend a lot of time in nature, I express gratitude all over the place and I’m always reaching out to people and spreading kindness and love where I can. But I can’t lie; I’m still dealing with feelings of betrayal and anger towards my ex husband – I’m still upset that he doesn’t support us better, that our poverty is just fine with him and his parents. It still angers and frustrates me that I don’t have a partner, a spouse, someone to take up the slack every now and then, help with homework, maybe even vacuum or make dinner once in a while… And I know, as a student of basic spiritual concepts, that ultimately that shit comes back to me. But still, it’s on my plate, and six years later it’s a larger issue than I’d like to admit. And in addition to the forgiveness thing, maybe some mental silence might serve me too. I think I could muster ten minutes a day concentrating on nothing but my breathing. Twenty, probably not. But ten, yeah. And perhaps in the realm of intention, a little more controlled thought also might serve me well… That is to say, replacing the doom and gloom imaginings with lovely visions of what the Studio might look and feel like when it’s up and running and inhabited by happy folk. Ok. Begin minimal meditation practice. Replace negative thoughts with positive ones. Good. Sounds doable.

The list seems so short when I see it here, so why does it feel so daunting? And good Lord, it seems I’ve been through all this before. How have I not made more progress, I wonder? I remind myself that if I could just live panic-free and enjoy both mental and physical fitness, life might be a lot more enjoyable. Cuz right now, it’s only minimally so (hence the comfort of food and wine. We all know that drill). As I watch people go through the activities of their day, I often wonder: what is life like on the inside for them? What are their demons, their challenges? To what degree would they consider themselves to be content… happy? One cannot judge a book by its cover; I’m fairly sure no one is quite as put-together and problem-free as they might seem. But then again, maybe there is a sweet spot on the other side of all this self-improvement. Maybe one can be happy, content. Fit. All at the same time. At least one hopes.

Yesterday I saw a man riding his bicycle down our road. He was loaded down with stuff – a bedroll, bags, pieces of cloth, a crazy-looking horn, baskets brimming… Clearly, he was not out for a day ride. Unable to forget the cyclist, I turned around a couple of miles into my commute and doubled back in time to see him tackling the great cemetery hill – a hill which even as a healthy young child I would walk my bike up, rather than ride. I carefully passed him, pulled over to the side of the road and waited. I watched as he rode up the steep incline in a serpentine fashion. Interesting technique, I thought. He was actually making it up the hill – and with a full load, too. This person was impressive, and I had to meet him. He might be just the inspiration I needed.

As soon as he’d come down the other side of the hill, the man pulled into a church parking lot and disappeared around a corner. I walked around to the back, and announced myself first, lest the poor rider be seeking a bit of privacy to relieve himself perhaps… As I entered the church’s back yard, I saw this slender, tanned man sitting in the cool of the shade at a picnic table, a veritable banquet spread out before him. He was digging into some bread and hummus when I joined him. I learned that he was from Oakland, California, and had left the day after Christmas, last year. He’d made it to the Canadian east coast, and was now heading back. Altogether, he was very unaffected and matter-of-fact about his journey; when I asked him questions he answered them directly, and for the most part he didn’t seem aloof or coy, just possessed of a quieter nature, and perhaps exercising just the tiniest bit of caution in the face of my enthusiasm. I had so many questions for him, and had I not needed to get Elihu’s bass delivered to him in time for orchestra, I might have been a bit more focused with my inquiry.

Among the many things I wondered, the most prominent question was: what occupies your thoughts as you ride? He admitted to a certain incessant, repetitive nature to his thoughts, and offered that it was in fact, one of his main challenges. What criteria did he use to choose his route? How could he afford to do this? What had he done before? He was a little cryptic with some of his answers, but I sensed he was the sort of fellow who would have declined to answer if he felt it beyond his comfort. He told me that he’d just turned 65, so there “was no job to go back to now” as he was officially retired, but that he had worked in the flower industry. Still so enigmatic. As a day laborer? As the CEO of a company? In what way had he worked? He said he was “used to being outside” with his work. Ok. That narrowed it down some. But so many more questions burned, and as we got off into tangential topics of getting fit, perhaps having a dog to inspire daily activity, what programs might exist to help pay for the cost of a dog if I did get one, how different regions of the country dealt with recycling and such, I got further away from my informal interview and settled instead for a gentle, enjoyable conversation. How I had come to live here, how Chicago had been so brutally cold when he’d ridden through it last March… There wasn’t enough time to learn from him what I’d hoped. But I suppose there is no possible way to truly understand such an enormous undertaking unless you, well, undertake it. And perhaps that was the most important lesson here.

I gave him my card and encouraged him to stay in touch by email when he checked in with the world at his next library stop. I hoped so dearly that he would, but even if he didn’t, no matter. Phil had added to the quality and fullness of my life just through this simple meeting, and if I never heard from him again, this would have to be enough. It certainly was a dose of inspiration come to me at a time of need. Maybe that itself was more than enough.

Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of ones popping up during my days – and my nighttimes, too. And while I’ve made an effort not to get too terribly esoteric in my writing here, nor to explore in-depth some ideas that have long been a part of my life – for fear of turning some folks off for good – I will admit a completely open mind when it comes to matters that our mainstream culture still doesn’t treat as legitimate. Like ghosts. Or apparitions that appear to people who are dying, and unexplained experiences like music in the air, or the scent of flowers – just as real as the real thing – arising from nowhere. Or like repeating numbers. I won’t go and tell you that I think God is directly communicating with me and offering me a personally targeted message in my time of introspection and need, but I will say that something is happening to me these days. I’ve seen the number 111 pop up in all sorts of places, and finally, it’s caught my attention. In fact, I’ve seen the number 111 appear so frequently over the past week, that I’ve taken to photographing it. I awoke last night at 1:11 and grabbed my camera. I am not nuts. It’s happening. A quick Google search helps fill things in, but still, I almost don’t even believe my own story. Have I been seeing what I want to see? Have I been exaggerating the truth? Am I just looking for help, in any form at all? Am I leading the witness?

In the end, who really knows? No one. It’s just one more event taking place in this endless maelstrom of life. And happily, it doesn’t make me panic. Instead, it gives me a tiny seed of hope. And that’s something I need to cultivate these days. So who cares where it comes from? I’m going to take it as a little knowing wink from the universe telling me that things are going to work out just fine, and I’m going to keep on moving forward into this worldly adventure, taking each moment one by one… by one.

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Sixth Starts

September 4, 2014September 5, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Birding, Farm Life, Growing Older, Mommy Mind, Pics, Waldorf LifeLeave a comment

Going from fifth grade to sixth is a thing. It’s more than just another grade level, it signifies a whole new era in a child’s life. No matter whether you call it Junior High or Middle School – we all can agree that some big changes are about to happen now. Neither small children anymore, nor yet the older, more adult-like children of high school, but playfully somewhere in between; now they’re better able to learn more challenging lessons in class, to grasp more nuanced concepts and techniques for doing things like making music or playing sports. They’re a bit bigger than they were before, and yes, they’re a bit smellier too.

And on top of that, soon they’ll be wrestling with much more: all those agonizingly embarrassing moments as mistakes are made and as jokes find their targets, the ongoing awareness of social strata, cliques and what it is to be popular (or not so popular), and, of course, the real beginnings of romantic expression. How this thing works in such a small and static group of kids, I don’t know. I’ve been told that Waldorf kids will often ‘date’ (!) up or down a grade to relieve the tension of ‘dating’ within their own small class. (Please folks, understand how very loosely I use this D word.) As a sixth grade girl, I myself remember ‘going’ with a young man, but that simply consisted of being made to feel sick in the stomach from a mixture of horror and intrigue as my girlfriends made me walk next to my ‘boyfriend’ on the way home from school.

Here at the Waldorf School of Saratoga Springs, the middle school years are also marked by a physical separation from the younger grades; their classrooms are now on the ground floor. It’s a metaphor none can miss. And I, as a parent, find a certain, stinging nostalgia to this time; no longer do I watch the class eagerly bound up the stairs, listening to their many feet rumble on the creaking wooden staircase. Now, they slip to the back of the building and are gone… Gone to those new places, gone to meet all that new learning, all that life… Now my child is just that much less my child – and more a child of the world. But that’s ok, I know that’s what’s supposed to happen. And hey, my son even turned to kiss me – on his own – after getting out of the car this morning. So I have it good, I know. And so does he.

Everything in life is constantly moving and changing, but one doesn’t always see the change in distinct, clearly-defined ways. This year, however, there’s no doubt about it. The change is easy to spot. Yes, this is different. Because this is sixth grade.

He’s up super-early, but still moving swiftly to get stuff done before it’s time to go. Loading a couple final Pokemon cards into his binder (which, btw, is not going to school. It was just on his mind).

Gettin that backpack zipped up quick.

Elihu appears a bit thoughtful in the backseat en route to his first day of school, but we’re listening to polkas, his very favorite kind of music. Hm. Can one be pensive and listen to polkas at the same time?

On the move..

And being greeted by Mrs. Maguire, once again, at the door. She knows every last student and has the lovliest, warmest way of making everyone feel truly special.

He’s on a mission; there’s no looking back now.

I’m not the only one watching with bittersweet emotions on this first day of school.

Such bright and gentle weather this morning.

This is the Rose Ceremony, in which the 1st graders ceremonially cross over the rainbow bridge and are welcomed to the Lower School. Here the faculty sings to them as they enter the space.

Here they come – the new 1st grade, led by their teacher (who will be the group’s teacher all the way through 8th grade). She was the school’s well-loved handwork teacher in years past, and it’ll take some getting used to her ‘belonging’ to one grade and not the whole school.

A dad and a grad. Adam is a baker par excellence and West-African-schooled drummer, and Kai just spent his freshman year of college in Norway, studying violin. (Adam has two younger boys at Waldorf.)

Here the new 6th grade teacher (in blue, with tie on the right) expresses his wishes for his class through the coming year. Elihu’s previous teacher left her post at the end of last year, as she’d done the 1st through 8th cycle twice before and felt a shift in career focus was what she needed at this time. The transition from 5th to 6th is a good one for such changes. Btw – while we dearly loved Abigail, my son is beyond thrilled with his new teacher. And I’m happy for him to have a male presence in his life on a daily basis now.

The boys in blue… of course, mine’s the one with the dark glasses.

As with years past, we celebrate the first day of school with a visit to the Congress Park ducks. Soon they’ll take flight and migrate.

With a half a loaf of bread to work with, Elihu easily snatches up several ducks in our short visit.

He’s getting a better grip on this one.

And now he’s savoring having her in his arms. This never gets old.

I suppose this doesn’t get old either… Some boys come home to a dog, Elihu comes home to a hen.

Sometimes even two. Yup, things are off to a fine start this new school year.

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Saratoga Streets

September 2, 2014September 5, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Mommy Mind, PicsLeave a comment

Well, it’s here. The end of the tourist season in Saratoga Springs, New York. Elihu was away for much of the summer, but he still got a little time in busking and meeting folks. I keep telling him to rake it in while he’s still relatively little and cute, cuz the tips just don’t come as easily when you’re a pimply-faced teenager (or an adult!). But in the end, he does it because he loves it, and the money is really just icing on the cake. He will likely continue to play into the cold months, but the sweet season is over for this year. Here are some highlights of our final weeks on the streets of Saratoga…

I’m always extra proud of my son when he tips the other street performers without a word from me (and he always does).

This is chalk art by Alexis Broz, now billing herself as the ‘original’ chalk artist of Saratoga. You go, sister, we know you are!

Here Alexis left her imprint on a T-shirt artist’s street space.

We ran into some fellow Waldorf School students and everyone hung out for a bit.

Here’s the charismatic Eryn (and also a former student of Elihu’s teacher at Waldorf) doing her thing, shortly before jetting off to attend The American University in Paris.

Another view of the same scene.

Cecil Myrie’s a Jamaican banjo player who’s been a staple of the Saratoga street scene for the past three decades. (Here he’s showing Elihu how to play this resonant bass box.) He has bone cancer now, and in spite of his desire to, he just wasn’t able to muster the physical strength he needed to join us out on the town. As we chatted about life – and about Chicago – imagine my surprise when he recounted for me his memories of hanging out at the “Step-Hi Lounge” on Wabash… the very haunt in which I myself passed away many hours in my days as a film student at Columbia College. (CCC is right across the street, but the Step-Hi is now no longer: a parking lot takes its place.)

Cecil’s trying to give me a lesson, but I’m having a hard time here…

Okay, I’m pulling it together now…

But my lil man has it down. Just look at that left hand!

And speaking of mentors, here’s our dear pal Ed, at Saratoga Guitar, giving Elihu a little impromptu lesson.

Looking good Elihu! Maybe next year you’ll have another trick up your sleeve when busking season arrives.

Here he is on the final day of racing at the track (the major tourist attraction here since 1863).

Here Elihu is playing alongside Skidmore music degree grad Paul, who plays the Gyile from Ghana, West Africa. It’s tuned in a crowd-pleasing pentatonic scale, and thanks to Paul’s great feel, he rocked those five notes hard all afternoon. Goodbye til next year, all you fellow buskers… it’s been a lovely season.

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Cool and New

September 1, 2014September 5, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Growing Older, Mommy Mind, Pics2 Comments

It’s a lovely, late summer morning. A cool, humid breeze blows gently in from the east, causing the still-green trees to gently nod and twist. The temperatures inside and outside match, at a comfortable 70 degrees. For the first time in a long while, one can detect the season that’s coming in a few weeks. Though still green, the leaves are not the bright, lit-from-within green of spring, nor are they the rich, full green of a tree deep in the middle of its growing. Now, they are what I call a tired green… Just the faintest hints of olive and yellow begin to emerge when the light is just so. As I sit here this morning, the light itself is gray, the skies heavy with a coming rain, the green still looks like summer. But the rays from a setting sun would betray what’s really going on. This is that time of year in which we must all make our internal goodbyes, our quiet inventories of all that we’ve managed to do during the brief time when we didn’t have to wear anything extra to go outdoors… This is when we sigh, we surrender ourselves to the inevitable change. We shrug our shoulders, declare to friends that whether we’re ready or not, fall is just about here. School, after-school programs, the tasks of making lunches and cooking planned, sit-down suppers… Routine is coming. And soon after, colder weather.

Although I’d given notice at the Waldorf School back in June, and was assured mid-summer that I did not need to concern myself at all with the possibility of being needed again at school in the fall – that there was already an interested prospect for my replacement in the works – plans changed, as I had suspected they might. Apparently the ‘new’ gal who’d been enthusiastic about the post came to realize that the time it actually represented (yeah, I know, how hard could it be to be a musician? Ya show up and just play, right?) wasn’t worth the lousy money they were offering. Coulda told her that. For me, however, it had been worth it, as I had wanted to be with my son, I had wanted to get my reading chops up again, I had wanted to make driving him into town every morning worth the gas money. But it wasn’t enough for her, and I’m back on the hook. Which is a lousy thing at this particular time. I have a lot going on with the Studio – much of which I must do with my own hands – and this job will interrupt my workdays in awkward ways, blacking out entire mornings or afternoons, causing more delays in my progress. I wasn’t able to work this summer because I had things backing up here at home, I had a few house guests, many large-scale outdoor projects, and at the end of the summer I had a child about. This fall I’d planned to hit the ground running… But now I’m stopped. I can’t see an entire movement program at the school hanging in the balance should I refuse to play. I can’t do that to the kids, or the school. I had promised I’d help if they absolutely needed me, and disappointingly, now it turns out they do. They assure me it’s only for the first quarter. Yeah, the quarter in which I begin to teach my class at the high school, start up again with piano students, begin a new diet – plus it’s the quarter in which I must get both the Studio and my home ready for winter. Pretty lousy timing to be sure.

This afternoon we dropped our house guest Ken off at the train. He is setting out for an unknown adventure of his own, going to live somewhere new and turn to the business of tending to his health and even more importantly, his painting, his peace and his sanity. I feel like Elihu and I are also embarking on a new life; middle school, playing in a full orchestra and wearing contacts for my son, restoring and building the Studio while still working part-time, keeping a supportive home life and a full teaching schedule for me. I’m a little afraid, to be honest. It’s a lot on its own, and on top of it I’m planning on beginning another weight loss campaign at Weight Watchers in a week’s time (sponsored by my mother) and that will be an enormous challenge, I’m sure. The Atkins diet, while allowing me great and relatively fast success, assured I was seldom hungry (yet it also assures one gains it all back when eating as one did before). I know well enough – from having lost 55 pounds after Elihu’s birth – that WW is not as easy-going as Atkins. And me, I’ve been finding my solace over the past few months in chips and wine – exactly as Elihu had predicted I would over the summer – and this will not be an easy habit for me to break. Yeah, I have no friggin clue how I’ll pull through. Some folks have suggested the ‘humiliation’ diet: admitting – to the pound – on my blog how much I weigh each week, how I’m failing or succeeding – in real-time. Naw. I don’t have the stomach for that. So I’ll continue to share my experience, and at the risk of seeming catty, will casually fail to mention any hard and fast numbers. As you may see, I’m trying to give myself a bit of cover, a bit of safety to withdraw into should I – in the words of sixth grade boys these days – experience an ‘epic fail’. As of this moment, I really don’t have the confidence that I’ll make it. Still hoping against hope that I’ll find it in me to pull the motivation out of thin air.

As soon as the train had slid north out of the station and our friend was safely off on his journey, we turned to go and in our path found a young boy with caramel-colored skin standing beside an enormous, broken duffel bag, a faint smile on his face, in the middle of the pavement and looking lost. Happy, but lost. Like he could use some help. I asked him where he was going, and he told me Skidmore. “A student?” I asked, feeling almost silly – he was clearly too young to be anything else. Man, he looked like a lost doe in the woods… “Yes” he answered – with a gentle voice, and some vague, hard-to-pinpoint sort of accent. I spent the next fifteen minutes trying to figure out what kind of accent it might have been – or even if he had an accent at all and maybe I wasn’t just confusing it for a relaxed conversational style. I asked him where he was from and he told me New York. “Well, Brooklyn, actually” he added. Hm. “We can give you a ride to campus, would you like that?” “Oh yes”. He was still all smiles, despite having to move his broken and uncooperative bag to the car. In a short ride through town I got a few answers from him and his profile began to flesh out a bit. Raised by a single mom, one of three kids, the last to leave home, and in possession of a flip phone almost out of minutes and just a handful of change to his name, he was undaunted and ready for his new start. “So how were you going to get to school? What were your plans?” I asked, mystified. “You were my plans, I guess.” he smiled his response. What an interesting person, I thought to myself. What an interesting adventure is this life…

We found his new dorm and there was a cheerful crowd of students there to not only meet him, but to carry his bag for him and welcome him with handshakes and pats on the back. Byron (who liked poetry and computer programming and answered with surprising enthusiasm for an eighteen year old when I asked if his first name was Byron, “as in Byron Keats”) had made it to the end of a long day’s travel, which had started very early that morning on the subway, where he and his mother had parted ways. All I could think of was: what if this were my boy? Left to find his way on his own, not enough juice left in his phone to let me know he’d arrived and not enough money left to eat? I felt maternal towards him and wouldn’t leave until I was satisfied that he was safe and sound and at his destination. Just as he was about to be swept away by the welcoming committee to his new room – room 222, another seemingly serendipitous nod from the universe that things were all as they should be – I opened my arms to hug him goodbye. I kissed his cheek and held him as his mother would have if she’d been there. It was the least I could do for her, so far away from her baby. I insisted he get in touch when he was able, and then, not entirely sure that he ever would, made a mental note of the dorm name. Then off went Byron, on his new adventure, leaving us in the same, cool-headed manner in which we’d found him. Off to his new world. It started to rain, and we turned to head back the few miles left to our place, where soon we would be starting off on a new life of our own.

It did indeed rain today. It rained so hard that I could hardly see to drive, so hard that when I pulled in the driveway I found its entire surface one large, moving sheet of water. All my new landscaping was a few inches under fast-moving water, and our creek bed was finally living up to its name. I called Elihu away from his video world and had him join me outside. We followed the stream of water down the yard and into the woods onto the steepest part of the hill. Down it tumbled, making wonderful gurgling and rushing sounds which excited us both and drew us farther along its path. We passed almost an hour making dams, pulling up leaves and roots, freeing up the water here, stopping its progress there… We both fantasized, as we have done for the past six years, about what it might be like if we could one day afford to free up our stream bed again. How exciting it would be to have a real pond, a real creek… But then again, would we necessarily enjoy it so much more than we were now? Our lives were so simple, yet it didn’t diminish our enjoyment of what we had. As I listened to my son’s still-high child-voice, I realized that perhaps next year things might be different. He might not enjoy passing an hour in the rain with his mother as he did today. That our life, just as it was right now, was delightful and precious. And that one day, in the not-too-distant future, I might well look back on this time with a sigh of longing. No matter if our water ran in nothing but a grassy ditch across the yard, no matter if our schedules were scattered and a little too full for our comfort, no matter if money and heating oil would be scarce again this year, I knew that we still had it good.

The year coming up looks more unfamiliar than any of those that have come before in our six years here at the Hillhouse, but somehow I know it’ll be ok. I’m not saying I’m not scared, cuz really, I am. In all honesty, I think I feel more frightened than ever before. Yeah, definitely. I am. Yet somehow, I’m not sure quite how, I’m managing to keep my cool as I face down this new life of ours and watch the old one disappear behind us in the rear view mirror. And like our new friend Byron, I guess it couldn’t hurt to keep a smile on my face along the way.

I can’t believe my artist pal’s been living in this kitchy, Americana barn for the past two years. Cute, but enough already. Time to move on, indeed.

Engine’s here…

One final selfie…

Elihu spreads his wings as Ken departs.

Next thing we know, it’s “Welcome, Thoroughbreds!” Here we are at the lovely, wooded campus of Skidmore College.

A cheerful coed with a clipboard is here to meet us…

A whole team is here to meet us! I unload one of Ken’s paintings – done when he was about the same age as these kids – so that we can unload Byron’s bag.

I feel better when I see such a great reception.

After a hug, he’s on his way. All the best to you, happy freshman year!

We spy a hawk on the way home. Always a thrill.

This, however, is not such a thrill. My heart still sinks. I know we’ll adjust in time. Just one more new thing to accept.

After a vigorous rain shower, our place looks tidy and clean.

Spreading our wings now, ready to fly off into the new school year.

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Summer Flies

August 31, 2014August 31, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Farm Life, Low Vision Life, Mommy Mind, Pics2 Comments

If a picture says a thousand words, then this might just be my longest post ever. So much has happened in the past few weeks, I can hardly recount it all but to look back over my photos. These are our final days of summer, and we’re savoring them to be sure. This photo barrage may try the patience of some, and if that happens to be you, please skip on ahead and we’ll see you next time…

We’ve reached a first here at the Hillhouse… Not enough eggs for breakfast (all but three of our older gals have all died, and the new pullets aren’t laying yet). This is our first store-bought egg in a long, long time. Confirms for me the benefits of happy, free-range hens. Our gal’s egg is on the right. Could ya tell?

That crazy guinea fowl of ours, Austin, has just learned a new trick. I know it’s ‘bird’ seed, but we meant it for another kind of bird here…

Thumbs Up and me.

The ALS bucket challenge comes to Greenfield… Ken, right, videos his old pal Walter. Now retired, as state troopers they were once partners and shared some amazing stories together on the job.

Mid-ice bucket dump. The Greenfield Mamas are next, whenever our schedules will finally permit (my donation’s been made, so the challenge is additional, I realize, but still important.) We’re having a backhoe dump its massive bucket of ice water on us. No doubt we’ll need to plan it carefully for safety’s sake. The goal is to amplify our challenge by reaching a broader audience. Stay tuned.

Elihu enjoys a little RC heli time. What’s significant here is that it is the last photo ever to mark the driveway sans house at the end. Sigh.

Friend Ken’s also a pilot, and here he’s showing Elihu what the controls look like on a plane preparing to land.

Hopefully, after we log the property this winter, we’ll restore a panoramic view closer to this than the one we currently enjoy (this spot is another hilltop property in Greenfield). When our house was built in 1970 it looked like this, now we see the horizon mostly in between the trees.)

This is our old family friend Ruth Lakeway’s house. She was a soprano who sang regularly in dad’s Baroque music festival, and she died some seven years ago now, but no one’s lived in the place since. As a child, I had many happy memories in that home. (I even had visions of living here when or if I returned to Greenfield one day.) As of this writing, only the barn and garage remain. We Conants speculate that the house may have been built atop a spring; it suffered from constant water in the cellar, a problem no professional could rectify. This spot will always be special to us, house or no house.

On to happier things… Ah, the county fair. Pure America.

Ready, aim…

…and for the second year in a row, Elihu wins a goldfish!

Elihu and friend Roger have the swings all to themselves.

A word of caution…

…which neither one of us heeded. !

We know this Emu hen – she is twelve years old and in the pen with her mate of many years. See that white membrane over her eye? It’s her nictitating eyelid, and her closing it like that is an expression of trust and pure enjoyment. I’m smooching her neck and she’s actually leaning in to me. We love her so. For me, this is one of the highlights of my entire summer. Elihu’s too.

Okay. It’s official. I am the crazy bird lady.

Elihu gets to hold a blue ribbon-winning hen. He’s kinda crazy for birds, too.

Talk about a sub-culture. So much to know. A bird can easily be disqualified for a poor comb. !

This guy looks well-qualified to me. IMHO.

I miss having homing pigeons. It’s on my list for future adventures.

Yes, Ken’s an equine artist, but ironically he’s very allergic to horses. This brief up-close visit resulted in tearing eyes all afternoon.

Here’s a sample of Ken’s work. And yes, his art is for sale – plus he does commissions. If you want to immortalize your pet, Ken’s your man!

Here we’re passing the farm on which our old goose, Maximus lives. He’s one of the white dots just to the right of the two yaks and horse. Really. See for yourself.

We received a little emergency septic attention. When you live on your own – with no city sewer system – it’s your job to get rid of your waste. As the old saying goes, ‘out of sight, out of mind’… It’s easy to forget to keep on top of such mundane business. (The guy who pumped the tank was thrilled to have me as an audience as 7:30 am and he gave me all his best material. He assured me that when it came to his job, he knew “his shit”.)

Look – that’s my foot! I’m actually making this thing move!

Al, our friendly local excavator (pilot, nature-lover and bicyclist), gave me a little lesson at the controls.

The Studio’s last summer program. (Mom’s house is on the right – she’s just up the driveway.)

They’re wrapping things up…

…and taking home their work.

So beautiful.

This one too.

After Al did some work on our septic system (I accidentally deleted the cute shot of Al and Elihu standing over the open septic tank and holding their noses – but I think you get the picture without, well, getting the actual picture) he let Elihu ride on the tractor down the long driveway and back to the road.

Look what awaits us at the driveway’s end. Ich.

The guy building the spec house has kindly agreed to give us some leftover cement for our front step. Getting the huge cement truck back here without hurting our great maple tree was a feat. The driver was good about taking care not to break any tree limbs.

Nick helps skooch the cement into the frame. Afterwards, we two screed it (yes, ‘scree’ is a verb; a ‘scree’ is a tool one uses to settle the cement into place), and then I put a broom’s brush finish on it. Always more stuff to learn how to do. Nothing is as simple as it seems. !

Now we visit the sight and take a look at the plans. I’m relieved to know the house will be finished in dark, natural tones.

A view down the old farmer’s road on our property…

..and a gorgeous study in light and dark. So much beauty in our little corner.

We visited grandma’s house (the Studio’s on the same property), just a driveway down the road to the west. See the house taking shape down the road? My heart positively sinks.

Ich. It’s getting taller.

But at least we have a nice new front step.

Elihu has a friend over. They’re happy to sit, side-by-side in a virtual culture. (Don’t worry, I got em outside too.)

We’ve brought out the country in our city friend!

Elihu loves those amphibians. This is a particularly robust specimen. Cute, too.

Neighbor Chad gives Elihu a spin on the zero turn. All that RC piloting has given him a usable skill!

We brought mom to the animal auction. This is where our avian adventures all start.

A donkey was up for bidding when we arrived. Sold for $25. No kidding.

Next up, a Llama.

One of the regulars.

“Backstage”, mom talks with another regular at the auction house. He’s a nice guy, always helpful, and very knowledgeable about the animals.

At these bargain-basement prices, it’s easy to talk yourself into taking home a new friend. It’s the morning after when the real adventure ensues.

A little inside fun…

…a little American Gothic humor…

…and finally, a new view on things. This is the first photo ever of Elihu outside with his eyes wide open, no sunglasses. He’s wearing his new, tinted contacts here. But the story’s not over… He got home, put them in for the first time, and they RIPPED! He was so good about it, and even though I wanted to cry, I didn’t. If he can be strong, then so can I. The new contacts will be in soon…

To finish, here’s a little video of Elihu’s first moments in our home with his new contacts…

There will be more to come, no doubt, on Elihu’s new life with contacts as our adventures continue…

Cape Cod Scrapbook

August 28, 2014August 28, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Mommy Mind, Pics4 Comments

“Cape Cod Scrapbook” is a companion post to the previous one, entitled “Two Weeks Gone”

Finally…

My Uncle Paul and his sister (my mother) Nancy, my son Elihu and my Aunt Sandy.

Cousins Elihu and Rusty take off in search of sea life without a word of goodbye.

This is the dock behind their house; at high tide the water comes much closer in.

This is the small neighborhood beach. Just perfect at low tide to find critters.

After our first brief visit, we all headed out to this local eatery.

While we waited for our food, Elihu and I went out to the pier to hang with the fishermen.

I think all eleven year old boys get a kick out of live fish.

Aunt Sandy, Uncle Paul and mom at the end of a fine dinner of fresh, local seafood. The harbor is just outside.

Elihu points out the location of the restaurant on this mural of what Wareham looked like over a hundred years ago.

As painted by Nanci. Love it.

A picturesque New England dock scene from the restaurant window.

If you’re ever in Wareham, Massachusetts, stop by Narrow’s Crossing and get the whole fried clams.

The following morning we found a nice little breakfast joint in the neighboring town of Onset.

We’re at the Pier View Restaurant. The bay is right behind mom and Elihu.

Note the Linguica. It’s a Portuguese sausage, usually kinda spicy, always tasty. (Dig the great prices, too.)

Mom’s not usually down with me making changes to the menu, but I requested that my Eggs Benedict be made with the local linguica instead of ham. I suggested that they might want to call it “Eggs Elizabeth” should it become a hit.

And here’s the handsome man who carried out my culinary wish.

We’re not at our family’s beach here, but rather another, more expansive stretch of coast about two miles away to the Southeast. I preferred it as it was much more wide open than the small neighborhood beach, it was sparsely populated and there was lots of sand.

We fed the seagulls earlier, and when we left the beach to go into the water, they ransacked mom’s bag. The gall of those gulls!

Mom on the beach. She spent much of her youth here.

My Cousin Janice, in the middle, is about to undergo her third year of chemo for an unrelenting cancer. She’s got a great spirit, and both children and grandchildren to live for. She’s ready to kick its ass once again.

Elihu shows his Great Uncle Paul his catch from the day.

Uncle Paul is in his chair, on the right. Since his stroke in ’91 he still gets around well – drives too – but speaks very little (might be due in part to his wife – she kinda makes it hard for the poor guy to get a word in edgewise, stroke or not!).

Sandy gave mom a history of the Jackson side of the family, compiled by Paul and Nancy’s paternal grandmother. I know mom doesn’t have great feelings about this side of the family (her father left her mother and never supported them in any way, nor did her father’s family help out), but nonetheless it’s nice to have this information.

This is a letter from Uncle Paul’s paternal grandmother, describing in part the contents of the book. Dated November 11th, 1963. There’s a fascinating amount of detail going back a couple hundred years. Both the Conants and the Jacksons have been in this country for over three hundred years, so when people ask me what nationality I am, I tell em that I really am American more than anything else. But hey, at this point in the game, aren’t we all pretty much mutts no matter what our lineage?

Uncle Paul and Cousin Rusty. Rusty likes to say in his local accent that I’m his “Cape Cawed Cahzin”.

This is the shack where Rusty keeps his stuff and works on various projects. His father was a shop teacher, and it seems he has the tinkering gene too.

There’s a lot of stuff here… certainly more orderly than my own brother’s mess.

Sadly, since Uncle Paul’s stroke, his boats have languished here in the back yard. If only I lived nearby! I dearly miss the sailing era of my life.

We discovered these very odd-shaped fungi poking up through the ground all around the house. The craziest part is their smell – super funky bad, almost like skunk.

This is Gertrude – or Gert, as locals know her. She lives directly across the street from my family in a house painted the color of tomato bisque. She knew my mother’s mother, Lydia, and is thrilled to meet Lydia’s great-grandson. Gert’s in her early nineties.

We’re enjoying a visit with Gert in her breezeway. (I just love these time-capsule homes – nothing’s changed in forty years.)

A sweet good-bye.

Gert sang with big bands in Boston in the ’30s and ’40s and regularly appeared on live radio programs as well. We have both those things in common! She has difficulty remembering what day it is, yet she remembered me well from my visit two years ago – she even remembered that I ‘was the singer’. I was impressed! She’s one spunky lady. She zips around the neighborhood in her motorized wheelchair and seems to know just about everyone in town.

The boys on their second and final search for critters.

What’s this?

A tiny crab!

One more cast of that magic trap…

And look! A flounder! Crazy looking creatures they are, with both their eyes on top like that. They swim flat along the bottom and usually don’t come in this close to shore. Rusty assured us this was a really lucky catch.

These folks invited us over for a drink. Mom’s on the right.

The world proved itself to be a small place once again; the woman on the far right has a brother who lives in our town. !

Crane spotting.

Mom, pulling away from her brother Paul’s house, as he watches from the porch. (Note Gert’s tomato bisque-colored garage door in the side mirror.)

After she waved, mom noted to me that that might well be the last time she would ever see her brother. What is there to say? Poignant, and quite possibly true.

Later that night we had one of the best dinners I’ve had in a long time at Mezza Luna in the town of Buzzards Bay. Great music played, the vibe was elegant, the food expertly prepared. Highly recommended by all three of us. Their house clam sauce was spectacular.

The next morning we set out for home – the long way. This was the house in which my Auntie Helen (mom’s Aunt) lived – in New Bedford, Massachusetts. High class, high style.

This is the front hall. !

Mom indicates the large staircase…

…and Elihu investigates it.

This was the office of my mother’s uncle, who was a doctor. She remembers getting a vaccination under protest in this room as a young child.

This is our host (yet another Nancy!) in the grand foyer.

The new owners have put together a small history of the house and their progress with the restoration.

As a child, mom used to think these decorations looked like door bells. We all agree. They do.

How about this garage. Not too shabby, huh?

Now we’re off to see if we can find Auntie Helen’s summer cottage. But first we’ll have lunch at the harbor.

We’re eating at Sail Loft, just behind the marina in South Dartmouth, Mass. I’m enjoying the iconic “law-b-stah” roll. I am not kidding when I tell you these were among the very best french fries I have ever had. Really. This place has a cozy vibe, plus live music. I’d go back if I were a local.

The house on the right at the end of the pier was Auntie Helen’s.

My son is clearly comfortable here.

And there’s an osprey nest here too. A little bit of heaven for each of us.

An ‘almost’ selfie of us on the new pier with the yacht behind.

As a child I remember walking down this yard and path to the beach.

Inside Auntie Helen’s old house, Elihu zones right in on the bird art.

Elihu and Grandma look out over the bay to a view I marveled at as a child.

We passed a lot of boats and bridges on this trip.

Now we’re visiting the house mom lived in for her middle school and high school years. She had a lot of happy stories to recall for us as we drove around Fall River. Her bedroom had been upstairs on the left.

And this enormous structure was where she went to high school.

On the steps that she once scrubbed with a toothbrush (see the previous post for the backstory on that).

Durfee High School, Fall River, Massachusetts. Long-time drummer for the band Steppenwolf, Ron Hurst attended Durfy HS too, years ago. The grand building is no longer used a school; it’s a municipal building now.

Now we’re in Barrington, Rhode Island at mom’s very first home.

Eighty years ago it was all farm land. The house on the left side of this picture is the same house as in my photo above (sans the addition, which is on the right in the first pic.) Both mom and the current owners knew the family that still lives in the small house on the far right side of this photograph. Mom knew the generation that came before, but still the same family. I thought that was a sweet thing to learn. In this photo it was all wide-open fields and orchards – it looked just like this when mom was Elihu’s age – but now the area is heavily wooded and houses are everywhere.

Here’s the view of the ocean from the front door. In the old days there was only an orchard of fruit trees between this house and the water.

One quick stop to get directions…

…and to smooch a pooch.

Now it’s goodbye until next time. Thanks, you lovely ocean, you. You feel like home to me.

Bright Eyes

August 13, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Low Vision Life, Mommy Mind, Pics, Vids4 Comments

When Elihu was teeny – just barely a toddler – I’d take him to a home daycare in the northern Chicago neighborhood of Rogers Park for one day a week so that I could catch up on domestic chores and in general have a couple of hours off (his father wasn’t around a lot as his teaching job took him out of town nearly half the week, and gigs often took up the remaining days). Miss Loretta, the gal who ran the place, was a tall, grand black woman who appeared a little daunting at first; her large ponytail and huge frame towering over us as she stood at the top of the stairs to her front porch waiting for her charges to arrive. Although she could be all business at times, she could also be the sweetest, most caring woman. She had nicknames for some of her favorites; babies whom for some reason or another stood out from the rest. What with Elihu’s eyes and bizarre vision issues, you can be sure he was in that population. And I’d always kinda liked that Miss Loretta had called him “Bright Eyes”; it had a charming, hopeful quality to it. It wasn’t derogatory, it didn’t sound sinister, yet it recognized both Elihu’s challenge and his beautiful spirit all at the same time. I liked it. “Well hel-lo, Bright Eyes!” she’d greet us each Wednesday morning in the open porch door. Once inside, in the dark wood paneled interior of her living room, he must have felt safe – I know that as a mother, my heart filled with relief the first time I saw it. With a child as light-sensitive as mine, it just wasn’t possible to leave him – much less bring him – to many places. (Another reason for the weekly visits; we two hardly ever got out – the world was just too bright.)

Bright Eyes passed a year of his life visiting Miss Loretta, and I think about her from time to time; I wonder if she’s still in the business of tending to a house full of tiny children and babies. I wonder if she ever thinks about her kids, and where they are these many years later. Next time we’re in Chicago, we’ll have to pay her a visit, because’ Bright Eyes’ now has a whole new meaning, and I think she’d be very pleased to see it for herself.

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Here we go… off into a brand-new era. No kidding. The world has opened up to my son. Hope begins to grow, as does a new realm of possibility. It’s just the very beginning of the journey. Ironic that through Elihu’s dark tinted contacts he can now see a brighter future. ! You go, my beloved Bright Eyes!

Before our visit to the eye doc.

These might help Elihu’s vision to shake less. Jury’s still out on them, but they do offer something worth checking into more thoughtfully at a later date.

The BIGGEST moment of his life so far.

Back inside with the contacts in and the shades wide open. He can’t get over it. I can’t either.

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Our most heartfelt thanks go to everyone at Family Vision Care Center in Saratoga Springs. They had no ego issues, there was no battle for control, they simply rose to the challenge and helped us out. They’ve listened to our needs and responded to them. We couldn’t find anyone else in the area to be so cooperative, proactive and upbeat about it all. We love everyone there!

Day With Dad

August 9, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Divorce Diary, Mommy Mind, Pics3 Comments

It’s been about a year and a half since my son’s father has spent the night – and consequently the following afternoon – with us. I’ve had my questions as to why this has been so; perhaps his new wife didn’t approve, maybe it’s just been a question of time, maybe our last fight kept him at bay. In any case, I’m glad he was able to be here this time, as it made the transition so much easier on Elihu. The abrupt picking up and dropping off of dad at the train within the span of a couple of hours doesn’t usually end well. Thankfully, today my kid is feeling refreshed and glad to be home. He had a good long stay with his father this summer and a day to share with him here at home, so he’s feeling happy. And that, of course, makes me happy too. In spite of a bizarre and very unpleasant hiccup in our evening together, overall the visit went well. Here are some pics of the few hours Elihu shared with his father here at the Hillhouse.

Elihu shows off his new skill. Hard to believe, but his dad doesn’t ride a bike. In our two decades together it was one thing that always really bummed me out. (Can’t wait to go riding with lil man now!)

High fives.

Elihu visits the newly painted bridge.

It’s good to see Stanley again.

A little model plane building (this kit has been in progress for nearly two years. !)

Got Elihu his favorite fennel seed – made by the “Hoque” company, a phonetic cousin of his one of his own last names.

They bust out the hexbugs.

Now time for a little lunch.

Thumbs Up has joined us at the table. If this was testing dad’s patience, then he didn’t show it. His own father is a microbiologist and used to freak out a lot about the tiniest possibility for infection, and I’ve known Elihu’s dad to express concerns where I saw none.

Elihu has Cece (our ‘C section’ bird – she had to be peeled out of her egg) on his lap, which is a good step; the young chickens are still rather flighty as Elihu hasn’t been here to get them accustomed to contact with people.

All of a sudden a front came in. One of those exciting summer rains. Heading into the house in a hurry.

Elihu is almost to big to tussle with like this. I remember how much fun they had wrestling and playing dinosaur when he was smaller. His dad makes the best explosion sounds – I can’t come close. I kinda think that might be a guy thing.

These are the only windows in the house without tinted cling film on them – I’m not sure if Elihu is able to actually see much, as even a 75 watt lightbulb is way too much light for his eyes (he calls that ‘hospital bright). It’s raining like mad outside and it’s kind of a thrill to hear it even if he can’t really see it.

We go out when it stops raining to assess the water situation. This isn’t really a good outcome here – it seems my edging job was done well, but with pooling like that nothing can grow. Barring the expense of gutters, I think the quick solution might be to drill holes in the boards for drainage.

Man, it’s a lot of water.

Elihu always insists he can jump a lot higher when the trampoline is wet. Okay, I guess I’ll believe him.

The crazy crab jump.

Back inside, Elihu shows me this clever puppet that he got while on the road with his father.

What a goofburger.

I think sixth grade will be a fun year with this guy.

His dad played bass as a kid.

A quick visit to the Studio en route to the train.

Elihu loves his dad.

Like father, like son.

“Family” selfie. (An errant couple of hairs make me look like I’ve got a painted on eyebrow.)

I dunno, maybe this one is more like it.

The summer storm blows in.

Elihu and dad play All Blues. At first I wasn’t going to include this because it’s all blurry, but then I realized that Elihu’s regular vision is like this – or worse – plus it’s in black and white. It’s about the music anyhow, right?

Dad and Elihu play Flood in Franklin Park. (Nice to hear my cheapie garage sale guitar being played.) So glad that Elihu had a bass over the summer. He’s gotten so much better; I’m so impressed with his strength (this bass has a higher, tougher action than the one he played over the summer, it’s also a smaller size/scale, plus the strings are for a larger bass, which makes it harder still) and I’m also impressed with his his ability to follow the form. It’s a long vid, but I couldn’t just stop recording. I might need to do a little research on where Elihu can play with some other musicians around here – he got that valuable opportunity this summer with his dad; I can’t quite give him the same experience. We’ll figure it out as we go along. Lots to do, and so much coming up in the new school year that’s just ahead of us.

The Hillhouse

The Journey of a Mother and Son

Category: Pics

Fine Day

Our Way

Panic 1-1-1

Sixth Starts

Saratoga Streets

Cool and New

Summer Flies

Cape Cod Scrapbook

Bright Eyes

Day With Dad