Month: September 2009

Today’s a Day for Packing

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The kids and I have had an extended summer road trip — a few days in Long Beach Island, New Jersey; the kids at Quinipet camp on Shelter Island, Long Island; I went to Dillard University in New Orleans and then the New Age Spa in the Catskills; the kids and I to School of Christian Mission in Danbury, Conn; a week at Chautauqua Institute in Western New York with my sister and her kids; almost two weeks in and around family in Chicago; back to the Adirondacks in Westport, New York.

The kids and I have done extensive lugging. When they returned from Quinipet, I went to our apartment basement and emptied each suitcase, then when their laundry was clean, I refilled each suitcase. The next day we left again. They have been living out of those big, bright suitcases for two months now.

On this trip, we also invented the ONO bag, the “One Night Only” bag. (And whenever we mention ONO, we sing that song, “One Night Only”.) In the ONO bag, there’s a toothbrush, a bathing suit, PJs, and a clean change of clothes for the next day. This is the bag you take into a hotel after a day on the road, like at those hotel stops in Binghamton, New York; Toledo, Ohio; and Erie, Penn.

When the kids and I went to Italy almost three years ago, each child had their own backpack. We checked no bags on the flight. By the end of our ten days, Charlottte’s light blue sweat pants were streaked with mud. We so needed a hot laundry cycle and I had hoped for that when we finally visited my cousin in Ravenna. But the electrical wiring in her house probably couldn’t handle our filthy loads. Any way, I felt it was an imposition to ask. Note to self, pack dark pants next time instead of light.

It is necessary to unpack, do laundry, and pack when you travel. Sometimes when I return from work travel, I leave the rolling bag untouched for days – even, yes, weeks. Maybe I hate to say good bye to a trip.

After you pack, eventually, you have to unpack. I don’t mind the former, I don’t like the latter. Because that means the trip is over. The only consolation is that soon you can travel again. I hate to end a trip without having another coming up soon.

I will go to the Taize community in the South of France in October, the whole family will go to Akumal in Mexico for Christmas. These are good trips to anticipate.

Because the upcoming trips are international, I have to return to the one bag travel, just the necessities – dark pants, toothbrush, layers.

I have to enlist the children today. They have to help pack and unpack. They have to carry the load.

Summer is almost over.

I hate it, but we have to do it. We have to pack up and unpack this summer road trip before we can pack for the next.

#6

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Live every day as if it were your last.

This is the Carpe Diem step. Honestly, it sounds cliche, but sometimes cliches are true.

The point is to really live this day fully. Not to be petty. Not to hold a grudge. Not to nurse a wound. But to be open (and yes, okay, loving) to the people in your day. There are people, places, adventures right there in front of you.

Celebrate this one day only. And especially your relationships. Because happiness is found in relationships. Sure, it’s fine for religions to extol the benefits of the silent retreat, monastic life, 40 days and nights alone in the wilderness. And I’m sure there’s something to be said for that kind of withdrawal from humanity.

But I have to believe that real joy and meaning is found in hugs, laughter, friends, family. Just being in the presence of one another. Like E. M. Forster says in “Howard’s End,” “Connect! Only Connect!”

On August 16, Rev. Anna Carter-Florence spoke at Camp Dudley Chapel service. Her teenage son introduced her. He mentioned all of her credentials, like that she taught sermonology at a divinity school in Atlanta; she had been given awards, etc. Then he closed his introduction with, “The light of my life, my mother.”

That was living the day to the fullest. He could’ve been sarcastic and not exposed his feelings. But, instead, this teenage boy, in front of hundreds of other teenage boys, said “I love you.”

That was awesome.

I Write To Find My Way

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I write evey morning. I write every day. Occasionally I write at night when my husband or my kids really have me down and I need to vent.

I don’t ever need a topic. My life is my topic. But sometimes I challenge myself.

One morning I wrote in my journal, “No matter what is on the front page of the New York Times, I will write about it.” It was early January 2009, the day the GE stocks hit an all-time low. Turns out, my husband has a lot of GE stocks. That essay was easy, “Stocks Slide; I Shrug.” I wrote about how I could care less that my family stock portfolio tanked. I had it, I lost it, more coffee please.

Today I wanted to write this topic because of someone else’s blog, “Why I Write; A Reflection.” That seemed like a good topic. I copy other people’s good topics.

I’m also writing to complete my self-imposed 30 days/30 blogs challenge. I was going to write about sports, about my sudden interest in running, which I’ve taken up a week ago. Can I do it all? Write, run, parent, have a social life?

This worries me. That I will have to pass up social invitations, because I have to write (or run).

When I begin an esssay, I never know how it will end. I often can think of a good opening line. But I am always taken by surprise at my closing lines.

But here’s the real truth, I write because I believe something spiritual happens.

The surprise ending is often God peeking through the cracks. For work, I have written for years for a national church group. I try to be journalistic, objective, factual. Suddenly, I’m on sabbatical for a few months. Yet my writing is still to support my faith; my searching for God. My asking for guidance.

Through writing, I find it.

“Mom, you’re just too good for me.”

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I swear to God my son just said that to me on the tennis court. I swear to God. This is the happiest day of my life. The best thing anyone has ever said to me.

Okay, okay, I’m a little competitive. I take a lot of (too much?) joy in beating people at tennis. I know I should be a bigger person. I should hit the ball gently to a 12-year old. I should hold back. But, God help me, I love to win.

The game was kind of crazy because we played Australian – or is it Canadian – doubles. The two of us against Chris, but Chris’s adding was getting a little funky. It was deuce and he’d say it was 15-30 – that kind of thing. He wanted to sit out. He dozed off on the bench, watching us play. Well, he wasn’t watching. He was dozing.

Hayden and I kept playing. The game was 3 to 0 in my favor. And he said that ill-fated line. “Mom, you’re just too good for me.” Oh God. I can’t tell you how good that felt. I asked him if he minded if we put that on my gravestone. I felt the endorphin rush.

Then he came back. It was 3 to 3. And it was game, set, match point; we were playing to 4 games.

Hayden served. It was deuce, add in, deuce, add out.  It was deuce, add out, then he double-faulted. I hate when anyone double faults, but in this case, I took the victory. It tasted sweet. I’m just too good.

Rattlesnake Mountain

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We hiked Rattlesnake.

Maybe a fourth of the way up, Charlotte discovered a shedded snake skin stuck to the trunk of a toppled tree. Hayden peeled it up, like a nametag off a suit jacket. He made us all touch it. So yuck.

We arrived at the parking pull-off around noon and I think it was about 3:25 when we returned. Or else it was 3:52. I’m fairly beat now. And will likely feel it tomorrow.

In terms of endorphins, I think I hit them about 20 minutes into the hike on the way down. I was by myself. I felt a rush of well being as I watched my kids holding hands in a tunnel of light ahead of me. You know the kind of yellow light in the middle of green trees on a late summer day. Very nice. Very Hansel and Gretel. Heartwarming.

But then a stick and leaves were thrown. The girls broke into a fight. Catherine threw some kind of handful of seeds or leaves at Charlotte, to make it look like it was raining. And Charlotte took offense, said something nasty like “You touch yourself!” And Catherine said, “I was only making you look pretty.” And Charlotte said, “Without that stuff falling on me, you’re saying I”m not pretty?” in that kind of head-wagging way.

The endorphin buzz was lost somewhere in there.

But that’s what I get, hiking with 9-year old twins, a 12 year old, a 5 year old (Izzy, Kristen’s daughter), a 30-something year old, (Ben, Kristen’s boyfriend) and the husband with Parkinson’s.

I worried that the climb would be too difficult for Chris and Izy. But Izzy was only carried briefly on Ben’s shoulders.

Chris managed pretty well. Unlike our hike up Coon Mountain last week, when he was nearly last at the end of the hike, Chris, this time,  finished towards the front. With the help of a walking stick. And grit.