On the shifting of family plate tectonics

When I got home from the dropoff trip, I opened Lauren's door and sighed at its emptiness. She pretty much packed up everything and cleared the room out, partly because it needed to be that thoroughly cleaned (she's an accumulator, that girl) and partly because bedroom space is at such a premium around here that we might need to use it for other uses when she's gone.

Later in the day, G said "oh, you opened her door! I've kept it shut because it's too hard to see it so empty and Laurenless."

We realized, G and I, that part of our melancholy is because we are both oldest children in our families. We've never been the person left behind before! We did the moving out, intoxicated with new freedom and forward momentum and oblivious to the shifts in the family plate tectonics we left behind.  I have a new appreciation for those youngest children in families, who say goodbye and adjust, goodbye and adjust, goodbye and adjust, bearing witness to the dwindling resident family numbers and the countdown to an empty nest. 

So I want to apologize, these decades later, to my youngest brother. Sorry, Chris.  Being left behind kind of stinks.

That's not to say what we have right now, with the four of us, isn't wonderful. It is, and all the sweeter for realizing how quickly the time will fly until we will say goodbye and adjust, goodbye and adjust, again. We've shifted our places at the dining table to be more cozy. Maddy and Sam get along famously and seem to be closer than ever: friends as well as sibs. We text and call Lauren like crazy and love to hear about her life and update her on ours. For instance, Maddy is in the throes of watching the disgusting driver's ed movies and Sam is rereading the summer book assignment for 8th grade for good measure and learning Somewhere Over the Rainbow on the ukelele.  Life is good. We're adjusting and shifting.

. . .

FYI, Lauren has started a blog of her college days. Email me if you'd like to know where to find it...I asked and she's fine with us living vicariously through her. :)

Stepping outside

 

On Friday evening, everyone was swirling around the kitchen after dinner. Dishes were done. Sam was strumming Hey, Jude on his beloved new ukelele. Laughter. Glow. Singing. It was delicious, hyggli. And, suddenly, too much. I stepped outside to the twilight yard and sat on the patio to cleanse my palate of the sweet heavy rich thoughts and memories we have been serving up lately.  

Lots of happenings around here in the last week: Sam's birthday on Monday, lovely family times, Lauren's breathtaking patriarchal blessing last night, her birthday today, sorting and packing and shopping and (tomorrow) flying west with Lauren to deliver her at university. All wonderful, happy events with an aftertaste of leaden, sweet melancholy.

Truth is I've been avoiding writing here. The emotions have outpaced my ability to step outside of it all to reflect and do it justice. I crave sparse and spare and breezy lightheartedness.  Luckily I live with these guys:

"Pteradactyl!"

Or, at least, I do for another 12 hours, give or take...  

See? I can't be trusted not to take a maudlin u-turn.

I know: She's going to have a fantastic time. She'll be back home in that bed of hers and I am her mother whether she's near or far. But I'm fighting those pesky lumps in the throat today, this week. Far seems                             far.

Summer mirage

 

This song has been going through my head this week, one of the epic + quintessential songs from a really fun summer of my past.  "It's the summer of love, love, love." It makes me think of a little red Ford Tempo, lent by my grandparents while they were away for year, windows down, breeze rushing through my hair, twilight approaching, music up. Maybe that's why I've been craving orange popsicles and lemonade a bit.

What will this be the summer of? The kids all have completely different kinds of summer in store.

Lauren will be working full time for 7 weeks as a camp counselor in a local day camp.

Maddy will be working as a volunteer (if you visit Orchard House, look for our girl there) and attending girl's camp and EFY and doing driver's ed.

Sam will be attending an awesome service/outdoor adventure boys camp for a few weeks in July (more on that later) and then enjoying a free and easy August.  

For the first year ever, we won't all be summering to the beat of the same drowsy & spontaneous drummer. (hmm, in that analogy, am I that drummer? Yes.) Hopefully we'll still find time to go to the pond together, to bike for ice cream now and then, and go to a drive-in movie. But it'll be different kind of summer and I'll miss the old lovely togetherness (with an honest side of nagging and nerves).

However. The younger two kids are still in school for one more week. For Maddy, it's the worst week of the entire year because of finals. Is that a thing with all high schools now? Ours has university-style finals week at the end of each semester, using a special schedule where everyone takes two long exams a day, some of them cumulative for the year.  Too much and too soon, I say! Anyway, shhhhhhhh about summer around Maddy; it's all just a mirage for her at this point, a summer mirage. She's all highlighters, rewritten notes, and library afternoons until next Friday. (Go Maddy!)

. . .

photo via pinterest and this, attributed to vookie

The Graduate

With Lizzie 

With her aunt Nancy

With her Bentley grandparents (so great to have my parents there!)

Laughing with one of her Latin teachers, Ms. Bjorkman, one of her favorites

With Lucy 

With Josh (and Grandpa Bentley laughing in the background)

. . .

Notes from graduation:

~ It rained, which meant it wasn't outside in the glorious green spring but inside in the musty old gym with limited seating and difficult photo challenges. Oh, well.

~ I love that all the girls wear white dresses under their robes.

~ Is there a song that triggers more tears than Pomp and Circumstance? It's poignant seeing all those young adults march in with their caps and gowns and smiles, those kids we saw in corduroys at preschool, who were sounding out their words a mere 12 years ago and who bounced in their bus seats with excitement en route to field trips. They're suddenly tall, smart, and eager to make a go of it. Sniff.

~ One of the high school social studies teachers, Mike Goodwin, was chosen by the students to give the graduation speech. Amazing. I think it was the best grad speech I've ever heard or read. Just funny and wise and true. He was himself a student at the high school, graduating in the mid-90s, and is (by the way) the son of Doris Kearns Goodwin and Richard Goodwin). He rocked it. I kind of really want to be a high school teacher now, that's how inspiring he was and how much the kids obviously love him.

~ So concludes the grad/prom season o' Lauren (although I'm still insisting on writing those Liner Notes). If you think you've had your fill of hearing all about her, just think how her siblings feel! I keep telling them that their day will come...and it will. All too soon.

Update on Wednesday, June 15, 2011 by Anne

[Edited to add the link to Michael Goodwin's speech.]

Once more, with feeling...

Once upon a time there were three proms. Three! The first was for church, the second a friend's senior prom at another school, and the third was the one at her own school. (Goldilocks anyone?)

It feels redundant to be posting yet another series of prom photos but here we go. This is for you, posterity!

with bestie, Lucy

Her date was working in Boston all day, close to the prom hotel, so he met her there. Maddy (who I'm nominating for the super-good-sport-sister-of-the-year award) provided the chalkboard stand-in drawing for pictures.

Great people, right there ^ It will be wonderful watching who they each become.

Funny girls.

Prom season, over and out.

. . .

(Jenny, re: your comment on the last post, we should start a prom dress exchange service. Plan on using our prom dress closet when your daughters reach that point. Truly.)