Best Friend



    
     Brownie, a sweet rescue dog who came north about five years ago from a construction site in Arkansas, is the sweetest girl in our house. We could not ask for a more loving dog. She takes me for walks daily and sits on my lap (all 80+ lbs. of her). She loves everyone, but no one more so than our boys. I think she likes them more than stealing a whole pizza or even a chicken—and that is saying a lot!

"Summer Belongs to You!"

 

 

 

     We have long been fans of Phineas and Ferb and all the ways they try to make the most of summer or make a summer day last forever. The brothers' attempts to create "the biggest, longest, best summer day of all time"—in the words of Phineas Flynn—involved flying around the world with stops in Tokyo and Paris and the Himalayas. We'll soon be stopping in Paris (twice) en route to and from a wedding in Prague. I'm not sure that even Prague or Paris, amazing cities of castles and cathedrals, can beat a trip to the shore, a day at the lake with a friend, or a water balloon fight in the yard. I love my youngest son's smile and the itchy fingers and mischievous Mona Lisa grin on my oldest son's face while he readies his water balloon?

 

 

The Road Most Taken

 

     Early this morning I viewed my life and home through the lens of my rain-spattered windshield. I have lived my life as both a city mouse and a country mouse (another story I love), having lived everywhere from Montana to Manhattan to Boston and Paris to these New Hampshire woods. Perhaps living on this little dirt road, my life echoes Robert Frost's well-known words, now almost 100 years old, but still fresh in my mind, having stood in his Derry barn last night:

          "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
           took the one less traveled by,
           And that has made all the difference."

     The "less traveled" dirt road, seen here, with only five homes on it, is my most traveled road. Paradoxical? Perhaps.

Yesterday's "One Today"

     I am vain enough to want to post this photo of myself with the poet Richard Blanco, who wrote the heart-full poem "One Today" for Barack Obama's inauguration, and the late Robert Frost (photo in background), John F. Kennedy's inaugural poet, whose barn we were in last night in Derry, New Hampshire. However, I must not be that vain with my bedraggled fly-catcher look (doesn't anyone say, "Say cheese!" anymore?). Still, to be in the presence of the first inaugural poet (or at least his farming implements) and the most recent ...
     Here's a link to Blanco reading his poem at the 2013 inauguration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJQeBgfzVgg
    Blanco's poetry can be whimsical or serious, cultural or nature-oriented, and often autobiographical. I recommend his volume, Looking for the Gulf Motel. I use some of his poetry in a college literature course I teach for which my campus received an NEH Crossing Bridges grant, a course that blends themes of literature, diversity, and mindfulness. I am using some of Blanco's poems on naming, culture and identity, on being gay, and this inaugural poem. My students also return again and again to Robert Frost's "Mending Wall" as we consider notions of building bridges and dismantling the walls that separate us from each other, a theme these two poets share (not just the "bushy eyebrows" that Blanco said they have in common). I'm glad I could share yesterday's "today" with Richard Blanco and Robert Frost.

A Carrot a Day . . .

 

   Life is  good when the major dilemma of the week is whether to choose the oh-so-tasty Swiss chard or the fragrant basil at the CSA. (I will gloss over the fact that choosing a dress to wear to an upcoming wedding was far more fraught.) Yes, every Wednesday, we pick up our amazing vegetables from the local CSA (community-supported agriculture), often stopping at a local farm on the way home to add to our canvas bag.

     Rather than photos of the beautiful array of carrots, the red stems of the chard and summer tomatoes, the best testament to the deliciousness of these vegetables is this smile, accompanied by the nub of what used to be a carrot. The carrots didn't make to the car this week before being devoured. The iron-filled beets made it to the dinner table. Perhaps I shouldn't mention that my youngest, shown here, also has a major sweet tooth and a cavity the dentist discovered this week.

     We stopped at a farm on the way home and bought peaches (they're ready!!!) and blueberries, too (and mushroom ravioli that are not locally grown). The peaches didn't make it home intact either. I like to tell my October baby, seen here, that he is made mostly of summer peaches and fall pumpkins.

     En route, we had stopped at the library and took out this fun book: The Eleventh Hour by Graeme Base, a mystery we also devoured that evening. And we renewed The Maze of Bones, the first book in Richard Riordan's 39 Clues series. My sons are good at feeding their minds and their bodies!

 

 

 

Open Doors

     Something about this sign in a café window drew me in, perhaps the clouds in the reflection just over the words or the yellow-orange light shining through like the sun, echoing the oranges and yellows in the iced tea with lemon I was drinking. I like to think that I have a spirit of openness, and I liked the slogan "Open Minds, Open Hearts, Open Doors" for a campaign I was part of a few years ago. I also like summer's feeling of openness, opening windows to the outdoors, opening the calendar to out-of-the-ordinary adventures.

Brotherhood

 

     My sons love the Montshire Museum in Norwich, Vermont, on the border of New Hampshire and Vermont, one of our favorite science museums that is not too far from home. We stopped there yesterday to pass a couple of hours and found ourselves enjoying the new exhibit on time and perception.

     We also raced through our usual activities—sending ping pong balls down the man-made river to observe water currents, building our own fountains, observing the leaf cutter ants and looking for their giant queen, seeing the firefly exhibit, using the wind cannon, peddling the bicycle to see how much energy it takes to raise an elevator one floor, sending pennies circling down the gravity well, exploring how xylophones work, studying the planets, and learning about physics from fun hands-on exhibits with lots of spinning and gears. Whew!

     Seeing people and landscapes change in fast motion in the time exhibit was nearly as disturbing as watching the three of us blow raspberries into the camera in slow motion. The day also made me realize how quickly my boys are growing. We had too much fun to share only one photo, so here are three more:

 





My proud fountain builder

 

Physics is fun

 

 

The gravity well

 

 

 

Lewis and Clark

    
     Sunday we paddled nine miles down the beautiful Contoocook River, one of our favorite paddles. My sons—aka Meriwether Lewis and William Clark—paddled part of the way admirably, begging to do so. My husband and I last traveled this stretch sans children because our sons were too small at the time to sit a) still and b) in the center of the canoe.
     I've read pieces of journals from the Lewis and Clark expedition (1803-1806), a great read full of mishaps. No leather-clad members of our party were shot by their nearsighted colleagues, mistaken for deer. We didn't even capsize!
     We did see strange and amazing sights—a great-blue heron, kingfishers, sleek otters swimming, a leach in the swimming hole of the island where we ate lunch, a bat climbing a tree, many mosquitoes, and a deer lying in the river just looking around (injured? staying cool? avoiding those mosquitoes?). The boys thrilled themselves with a rope swing and cannonballs after the quiet river of the heron gave way to the raucous scene of smelly pontoon boats and tattooed guys diving into the river between cigarettes. Trust me, no snacks taste as good as the ones bought from the market you paddled to under your own power.
     Of course, we have no photos of all those marvels—only this one of our well-rinsed canoe in our yard after we returned home—because we've had bad experiences combining cell phones/cameras and water both in rivers and washing machines. Perhaps old dogs can learn new tricks.

The Wonder of Creation

    
     I sent off a chapter of my dissertation today even though hitting the send button always fills me with dread, and I await the inevitable comments and criticism, which I hope will not feel too brutal or overwhelming. Incorporating feedback from a three-person committee is difficult, to say the least. I moved on to another chapter and feel lighter and freer. The next stretch feels doable, even fun, followed by a final chapter that is ... a bear ... and that I am dreading.
     This is my bulletin board filled mainly with calendars and schedules. I love this photo of my boys when they were younger; they are now 7 and 10. The bottom is my oldest's animal collage, meant to be evoke the style of Eric Carle's Brown Bear, Brown Bear , What Do You See? animals. He made it in first grade four years ago. 

An Object in Motion ...

     According to Isaac Newton, whose name came up in our household this week concerning refractory versus reflecting telescopes and laws of gravity (what do you discuss in your household?), "An object in motion tends to remain in motion, and an object at rest tends to remain at rest." My sons are always in motion.
     I love the way my youngest son's arm is moving, along with the tether ball, at sunset on the lake with our sailboat, just back from a sail, on the shore. It's the perfect end to a day.
     Conversation onboard went like this:
—"Let's paddle back. The wind's died and the sun has set."
—"Oh, no. I'll never hear the end of it (meaning he'll never hear the end of it from his younger brother in the picture)."
—"Don't be so proud, Young Skywalker. When the wind has died, there's no shame in using the paddle."
     A bit of grief on our inability to harness the wind was had, and the boy in the photo was reminded to mind his manners, quelling the sibling one-upmanship. Yes, we've been known to travel to outer space, in a marathon watching of the six Star Wars movies and via the telescope; however, after spending an evening at the lake, I'm staying on earth with my boys.

Hazy, Hot, and Humid



     The temperature is expected to reach 96 degrees F today. The heat and hazy humidity are visibly hanging in the air, although I can thankfully also see the leaves moving in the breeze. My dog is sprawled like a rug in front of the fan while I work. Dog days, indeed!

Running on Empty

     A vintage Gilmore Ethyl gas pump from somewhere between the 1920s and the 1940s. Gas cost 17 cents/gallon in 1931.

WWJD?

     Well, Jesus would help hold down the corrugated metal on top of the stacked cordwood so it doesn't get wet! Of course. What did you think Jesus would do? Only in New England!
     I have had my Early American Literature students make a slide show, snapping photos of what it means to "see—New Englandly." Then they add quotes from writers, such as Emily Dickinson, Anne Bradstreet, Emerson, and Thoreau. Writers often talk about a sense of place—Dickinson's New England, Aragon's Paris, and Wallace Stegner's West. To me, this woodpile, which I spotted near my home, captures something about the New England Yankee's utilitarianism, early Puritan roots, and wry sense of humor.
     My Maine Yankee grandfather used to pick up pennies on the sidewalk during walks when he was in his 80s and gave me electric blankets and silverware the bank gave him for opening a new account, probably to deposit those pennies and see the interest on them grow.
     For your enjoyment, here's Emily Dickinson's poem:

          The Robin's my Criterion for Tune --
          Because I grow -- where Robins do --
          But, were I Cuckoo born --
          I'd swear by him --
          The ode familiar -- rules the Noon --
          The Buttercup's, my Whim for Bloom --
          Because, we're Orchard sprung --
          But, were I Britain born,
          I'd Daisies spurn --
          None but the Nut -- October fit --
          Because, through dropping it,
          The Seasons flit -- I'm taught --
          Without the Snow's Tableau
          Winter, were lie -- to me --
          Because I see -- New Englandly --
          The Queen, discerns like me --
          Provincially --

* I am a Dickinson fan and  traveled to Amherst, Massachusetts, last fall for a conference of the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education (ACMHE). A colleague and I got to visit Dickinson's home, stand in her bedroom, compare versions of her poems, and—the part that felt strange—set my GPS for her address. And now excuse me while I order my wood (pellets) for the winter.

The Place Where the Grass Is Greener

 

    Happy anniversary (July 15) to my much-loved husband of eighteen years (he's the older one in the photo beside our youngest son). It has been a long road since we were married in Kalispell, Montana, with many ups and downs, and not just up the mountains in Glacier National Park to Iceberg Lake and more recently with our two sons to Avalanche Lake. In those years, we've lost three parents and gained two sons, moved to France, back to Montana, to New York City, and to New England. We've changed jobs, finished degrees, and stuck together through it all.
     We are blessed with wonderful but complicated and busy lives, two amazing sons, a great home in a beautiful place, incredible adventures, and love that is the glue that holds us together even during difficult times.
     Here's wishing for another eighteen years, better than the last eighteen years!

Not-Shakespeare in the Park

     I love Shakespeare and the fact that so many theaters get out to bring Shakespeare to the people via Shakespeare in the Park or Shakespeare in the Parking Lot programs, but I like the fact that the Apollinaire Theater, just outside Boston, performs works by other playwrights. Two years ago we saw Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac. Sunday night, we watched Bertolt Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle.
     I'm a fan of the Modernist Brecht who influenced the plays of one of the writers I'm studying, Gao Xingjian, the first Chinese writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. I was excited to see Brecht's play but disappointed that we missed the first act due to traffic heading south from the lakes region (evidenced by boats and jet skis in tow), the White Mountains (bikes), and the NASCAR races in Loudon (giant NASCAR trucks). No, everyone was not rushing to Mary O'Malley Park in Chelsea to see The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Oh, we were also late due to my husband cooking lobsters for our "anniversary weekend" dinner and cooking them too slowly, if that's even possible, but it makes me sound like a complete ingrate to say that, I know. Dinner was wonderful, and so was the play!

The Magic Flute

     My oldest loved two weeks of band camp and performed at a local ice cream farm's barn (yes, they grow ice cream here). My heart is so happy when I hear him play the flute. (My youngest is threatening to sign up for drums when he reaches fourth grade. Please, no!) My favorite tune of the night was "The Warblers," an Austrian folk tune, although they played many marches and the theme to Star Wars, too. I'm proud of my son. (They made the tie-dyed shirts at band camp, too.)

Rufus T. Firefly

 

     I'm sure we all have these memories. One night, you walk outside and suck in your breath when the night is flashing a magical Morse code. Fireflies! Lightning bugs! You have to find a mason jar or an empty mayonnaise jar, catch a few, poke holes in the top so they can breathe, look at their glowing, contemplate the ethics of bringing them indoors in their glass prison for the night as a nightlight versus letting them find their firefly friends in the blueberry bushes. And now, in the twenty-first century, you have to Google how they glow, whether the bats you see are eating them (no, they're not, they're kindly eating the mosquitos), and whether their phosphorescence is similar to that of the jellyfish and other sea creatures you studied this year.

     My son: "Do bats eat fireflies?"

     Siri: "I've found 15 restaurants close to you."

     My sons and I tried to catch pictures of them glowing outdoors without success. I needed a real SLR that could leave the shutter open longer, not my phone's camera. My oldest son kindly brought a firefly indoors for a few moments. I had to assist Rufus T. Firefly (allusion to the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup, a favorite of my boys) in typing this post, as he was not heavy enough to keys. 



Fro Yo!

 

     'Tis the season for frozen yogurt, a reward after haircuts!

Go Green!

 

 

 

     This pond beside our home is technically "our pond," but really it belongs to the frogs and turtles and insects (many insects, some biting) that live there. Recently, a tree fell. It is now the painted turtles' favorite spot to sun themselves. I love to skate here in winter with my kids for the brief time before it is covered with snow. In a photo it looks so quiet and peaceful, but it's a rather noisy place, so I'm adding a video in which you can hear the bullfrogs in the morning. At night it's every louder with the tree frogs, and in mating season, the wood frogs (Did you know that their blood is like antifreeze with glycogen?) sounding like a chainsaw—in a good way. Enjoy the "music" of the pond:

 

 

 

 

 

    The other green in this season is that of the John Deere tractors. Here's one for sale:

 

 

 

Even the school's color is ... you guessed it ... green!

 

A Rolling Stone Gathers Moss

     This stone sits in a circular shade garden in my yard dominated by two paper birch trees. The stone is heavy, rectangular, and mossy. However, a winter or two ago it disappeared. Come spring, it was not in its usual, appreciated place. Knowing it hadn't grown legs and walked away, I looked for it. The snowplow had hit it and moved it into the woods. My husband and I pushed and rolled it back to its usual home, still mossy. So a rolling stone can gather moss. I think my kids watched a Myth Busters episode on that topic, too, although I don't remember the outcome. My sons and I appreciate the many beautiful, mossy stones in our verdant corner of the world, including this one.

     My sweet dog drinks from one of the minor puddles, one inhabited by frogs, in front of our home. I also love the many ferns and investigated what it would take to propagate more of them. Suffice it to say, the process of collecting spores and germinating them in the basement was more than I have time for now.

Hearts

     A message was delivered to me by my youngest son while I was sequestered away, working on my dissertation.

Strange Nestlings

     Someone added these two stones and an acorn cap to a tiny abandoned nest we'd found in our yard, which found its way into my office. That a bird would make its nest entirely of the long, brown pine needles is not surprising. We sweep them from our deck several times each day. The grain of the water-worn stone and the wood complement each other—hard and soft, pine and granite—where we live in the Granite State. My life has hard and soft elements, too.
     An Eastern phoebe's nest, which is larger, is perched under our eaves with the same pair of birds returning each year. There are loons, and sometimes a loon chick, on our nearby lake. The hummingbirds arrive at our feeder and amaze my own two "nestlings" all summer long.

The Phantom of the ... Lake?

     My boys enjoyed the lightest of winds on our nearby lake. I added a new (used) sail to our Phantom sailboat to replace our ripped, faded sail. We looked less like scurvy sailors. Fortunately, my youngest son's fears of the water were banished as he begged to go faster, but the wind whispered for him to wait. And my eldest learned lessons about having to tack to reach your destination, a good lesson for any impetuous ten-year-old boy.

Whose woods these are I think I know

     A parliament of barred owls has been hanging around my house, snatching frogs and snakes from our pond. One day I saw four at once—three of them on one branch—although I missed that photo. I love hearing the owls, their voices seeming at home in the piney woods our family shares with them. It makes me think of a New Hampshire poet of another season, Robert Frost:

                                           

                                      Whose woods these are I think I know.
                                      His house is in the village though;
                                      He will not see me stopping here
                                      To watch his woods fill up with snow.

                                      My little horse must think it queer
                                      To stop without a farmhouse near
                                      Between the woods and frozen lake
                                      The darkest evening of the year.

                                      He gives his harness bells a shake
                                      To ask if there is some mistake.
                                      The only other sound's the sweep
                                      Of easy wind and downy flake.

                                      The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
                                      But I have promises to keep,
                                      And miles to go before I sleep,
                                      And miles to go before I sleep.

The Fourth in New England

     My research has a lot to do with surpassing binaries and dichotomies and creating a third space. Living in New England (as opposed to Old England?) and watching the fireworks over Concord, New Hampshire, this image seemed apropos.

Be Kind to Your Web-Footed Friends

          What do paint-stirring sticks from the hardware store, strains of John Philip Sousa, and ducks have in common? Now you know. It hangs on our front-door courtesy of my oldest son.

Sunsets and S'mores

     Nothing is better than a day at the lake, painted turtle spottings, perhaps a sail, a translucent sunset, a ceiling of friendly clouds, and a boy's happy silhouette, followed by ... s'mores!

Soul of Chaos

     Here are the humble beginning of a photo-a-day project for a year at the urging of a friend and fellow booklover. Why not begin where I spend my days? With the coffee cup my youngest son made me in his favorite colors, red and black (à la Stendhal, perhaps?), a text that captures my own research and life, a teetering pile of books, and a screen. Voilà!