Gratitude and Hemingway

What a glorious day for porch sitting. The humidity is low, the temps are in the 70s, and there's just enough blustery wind and fast moving clouds to make the sunlight flash bright then dim in a way that reminds me of fall, my favorite season. Gorgeous. Sadly, I spent most of the day in my office, writing conference proposals and reviewing a journal article. Now I'm home, sitting on the porch in my Adirondack chair, feet propped up on a footstool, sipping a weak gin and tonic, and reading A Moveable Feast.

This is my favorite kind of day: productive and relaxing, weather like the best from my Great Lakes childhood, an interesting book in my hands, and an overwhelming sense that I am incredibly fortunate to lead this life. I just read a line in Hemingway that said, "To have come on all this new world of writing, with time to read in a city like Paris where there was a way of living well and working, no matter how poor you were, was like having a great treasure given to you.". Cincinnati is not Paris. No amount of creative writing can spin that. But this life I have stumbled into--this sabbatical in particular--feels to me much like Hemingway's description of his life in Paris. I have time to read and write and work and live well, and that fills me with enormous gratitude.

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My Next Adventure

I'm off on another big trip soon. My nephew/godson, Andy, graduated from high school a few weeks ago and, as a gift, I'm taking him to Europe--and by taking, I mostly mean accompanying. I'm paying for some things, but I'm no Aunt Moneybags. His generous parents are paying for the bulk of it. Once we decided to go, way back at Christmas, it made sense to ask some others to go, so I invited my 17 year old niece, Maria, Andy's younger sister, and my niece Kelly, their older cousin. As time went on, Kelly had to cancel; it's not a cheap trip, even though we're working very hard to keep prices down. So it's just the three of us. Sort of.

We hadn't decided on an itinerary, and at about the same time, my colleague, Eric, and I were proposing a 2012 study abroad trip to the college. We wanted to take students to England and France to study media and literature. Our proposal was accepted, and it became clear that we needed to take an advance trip to plan out field trips, get to know London and Paris, and find accommodations for 2012. Two trips to Europe in one summer were out of the question, so I asked the committee that oversees study abroad if I could take Andy and Maria if every cent of their travel costs were paid for by me or their parents. They saw no problem with that: all the places we'll go in London and Paris will be places Eric and I need to see for school purposes. Happily, many of them are places anyone would want to see in those destinations: Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, The Louvre, Versailles. Frankly, I think it will be a better advance trip because Andy and Maria are there. I keep calling them our study abroad focus group. They are 17 and 18, just about the ages of the students we'll take next summer, so we'll get a sneak preview of students' reactions. Perfect. The kids know I have to work while I'm there, so it will be fine.

We leave in early July, and the kids and I will make one stop, all on our own dime, before we meet Eric in London. Andy is an avid golfer, and he loved the idea of going to Scotland. I've never been there, so I was excited by that destination as well. It will be a short visit, but we'll be there long enough for Andy to play nine holes of golf at a well known public course in Edinburgh. We'll see the sights on the Royal Mile, too. Oh, we'll take one day to travel to St. Andrew's. The birthplace of golf is a must see on Andy's list. Maria and I will enjoy it, too. All that royal wedding footage of Will and Kate's college days let us see how lovely the place is.

So stay posted. My international exploits continue!


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Garden Rebellion

My garden is a big fat mess. A couple of friends pulled some weeds while I was in China, but it's been months since I've done a really good weeding. My biggest weed right now? Baby oak trees. I swear that I could stand in the garden and watch them sprout, one by one, popping their leafy little heads up in the middle of a hosta or a primrose or a creeping phlox. They sprout incognito, blending in with their host for a short time, just long enough to send down long roots that break through the acorn they started from. I go out daily to walk the garden path, hunting for baby oaks and plucking them from their hiding places. I'm afraid that if I miss even one day, a mighty oak forest will engulf my garden.

But this is not weeding. Not really. Tonight I started that task. On hands and knees, I weeded about 36 square feet of garden, digging up evil weeds like violets and dandelions. These nasty little Intruders are not native to my garden; they hopped the fence from my neighbors' yard a year ago, and they've been reproducing ever since. I also dug up a perennial that had gone invasive: a Japanese anemone. It sat quietly for years, minding its own business. This spring, it started to travel. I like to think it's trying to hop the fence to live in the neighbor's yard (touché), but it's really just trying to out populate its perennial neighbors, the Dilly Dally lavender and the purple coneflower. I got the pitch fork out and stabbed at the earth around the anemone until I could pull out chunks. Unfortunately, this plant has roots that defy destruction. I feel certain that after the next good rain, I'll find it sprouting again.

Tomorrow I'll see if I can make more progress out there, but it's hard. The garden is 13 this year, an unruly teenager. It seems hellbent on rebellion; I'm just another adult, intent on keeping my teenager away from--that's right: weed.






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A Dead Washer

I moved into my house in 1998, bought all the essential appliances, and figured that they would last a very long time. Yesterday, my washer died. It was a slow death. The first sign of illness was a small leak from the washer's underside. The machine is in my unfinished basement, so I went into denial mode. No need to panic. Leak? What leak? This went on for a very long time. If I paid any attention to the ever-growing stream of water, it was to tell myself that the washer was old and that it would cost too much to fix. Just ignore it.

And the illness advanced.

One laundry day, I opened the washer lid to find a pile of sopping wet clothes. Over stuffed, I thought. Too many clothes had interfered with the spin cycle. I unloaded a few wet and heavy towels and let the rest spin. Every few weeks this happened again. Yesterday, the spin cycle stopped and would not start again. The machine was dead.

One of my friends said, jokingly, that I must keep word of the washer's demise from the other similarly aged appliances. Once they heard the news, she said, they'd meet their makers, too. I fear there's some truth to this. The refrigerator has had a death rattle for a few years now, so I must distract it when the washer is carted off tomorrow. I don't want to start an epidemic here.


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Second Spring

Coming back to my hometown in spring is like going backwards in time. All the blooming plants that I missed while I was in China are blooming here. The rhododendrons are spectacular: pink, orange, or red blooms just cover the bushes. There are still lilacs blooming here, too, and they smell wonderful. I passed a mock orange on my evening walk that was seriously laden down with blossoms. I guess it makes sense that these early plants are just blooming now. When I arrived at 5pm, it was a mere 58 degrees here, and a nice brisk lake wind was blowing. Here it is, June 2nd, and there's a frost warning inland from the lake, so my brother-in-laws tomato plants could be shivering tonight. Not me, though. I love the cool temps. I'm just not built for hot weather. I'm going to throw open the guest bedroom window and sleep under a nice, thick blanket.


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CSA Day

Last spring, one of my new things was buying a half share in a community supported agriculture, a CSA. CSA's are farms or large gardens where farmers and community members who eat what the farm yields work together. Community members pay money up front, long before harvest, for a share of the crops. In many CSA's, that price is reduced if the community member works a few hours a season for the farmer. CSA's help farmers financially by giving them money up front, even in years where the yield is low. They help consumers by allowing them to buy locally and to have a part in growing the food they eat. Last year was my first year, and I loved it. I wasn't able to get a working share, but that was okay, given that I have a big flower garden of my own to tend to. The CSA produced a bountiful crop of everything from greens to garlic, and the variety and sheer volume of vegetables forced me to eat better and cook more.

I joined again this year, and tonight was pick up number two. Last week, there was a short meeting before the pick up; the farmer had bad news. He stood at the front of the crowded room and told us that this would be a terrible year. A record setting wet spring had ruined early crops and made it so that later ones got a late start. What did that mean for us? Low yield. Really low. This is the risk of joining; you have no guarantee that you'll wind up so laden down with tomatoes or zucchini that you're leaving them on neighbors' doorsteps after each weekly pickup. Sometimes the harvest is so puny that you're stopping at the grocery store for supplemental produce on the way home from the CSA. Tonight, I came home with a very small bag of lettuce, a bunch of spinach, and four garlic scapes. Pitiful.

The good news is that I love the idea of the CSA, so I'll have to look at this year's payment as a donation. I'll still drive out there each week, no matter what. The farm operates out of a wonderful retreat center in Loveland, Ohio called Grailville. It's a peaceful place with an enormous turf labyrinth, so veggies or no veggies, at least I can feed my spirit on Wednesdays.


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