5 people x January

Taking a cue from Tara, I'm going to try to do a monthly round-up of what's going around in our house, complete with a family photo (except January, when it appears I didn't get the camera out at all so I'm borrowing a photo of the MFA instead) 

[edited to add: January is a month to convince yourself into enjoying things, don't you think?  So if this recap seems on the rosy side to you, you're right.  Be assured that there are many dismal and frustrating things I'm leaving out in order to spruce up the month a bit (or read some of them in my comment below).]

One highlight this month was attending the John and Abigail Adams Benefit Ball at the Museum of Fine Arts with G this past weekend. It was refreshing to get all fancied up and enjoy the art + music + food + people watching. It felt very Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler-ish to be drifting around the galleries after hours by ourselves.  I should have taken pictures (and didn't) but I did find a dress I loved (hence the mall trip in Sam's postcard below) and G looked very dashing.  I'm even getting better at cocktail party small talk and being brave about introducing myself to complete strangers.

In other news, I handed in my first qualifying paper, hosted the Young Women's New Beginnings last night, and am deliberating about my hair (again) and exercise regime (still) and house projects.

Lauren just finished midyears, a week-long exam week in her high school where they hold 3-hour exams in place of classes for a week, college style. Makes me glad I did high school the easier way, not the quasi-college way.

Also, she's taking an SAT prep class on Saturdays and is still fencing her heart out.  We hardly ever see her, really.

Lauren and I played a flute duet for stake conference + it was a pleasure to play together like that (I was so proud of her).  She has a robust social life and, recently, there's a certain favorite boy (and that's where the blogging boundaries end, I believe). 

Maddy keeps growing taller and taller, which has made her legs and ankles ache regularly.  

In typical Maddy style, she dives into many after school activities with gusto--model UN, student leaders, yearbook, helping a friend with stage design for the musical. She's transitioned to staying behind her closed bedroom door more often, texting, and littering her floor with clothes--full blown teenager but without much attitude (knock on wood).

I love that she wears an Audrey Hepburn pendant every day.

Sam went on a klondike derby campout with G (6 measly degrees! Brrr) and they were both great sports.  

Sam goes through wide piano swings, on one end of the spectrum flopping around and avoiding practicing and on the other end practicing up a storm and composing like crazy.  Guess when he likes his lessons more??  Yeah, it's a tough lesson to learn...over and over.  

He also plays basketball and still says "I love you" out loud when I drop him off at school in the mornings. It makes my morning and I consider each one a gift since I don't know how much longer it will last.

G had a great birthday this month--it's so nice to have something to celebrate in January. We surprised him by planning and booking a boys' ski trip to Utah this weekend for him and 7 high school friends who will be flying in from all over the country.  

G's also been coaching Maddy's basketball team, getting involved in some non-profits in Boston,  and working hard at his day job.

Also memorable: Blueberry pie for G's birthday from PetsiPies. The smell of snow in the morning. The taste of sixth grade spaghetti and the smell of sixth graders dancing. A few good fires in the fireplace. Watching the stars with Sam for his science project. Snow tubing at Nashoba. Mike's Pastries + italian food with Christin in the North End.

Passing the Bridge of Sighs

 

Our {20th!} anniversary is coming up next month and we dream of marking it with a trip sometime this year. Part of our routine is to toss around lots of ideas of places we could go to celebrate.  I email G a listing for a great cottage in France.  He reports the lunchtime opinions of his colleagues' favorite destinations (one vote for St. John's and one vote for Aruba), etc.

It's like window shopping, a traveler's version of Breakfast at Tiffany's.  It's great because, when decision time comes, we feel like we've almost gone to lots of exciting places, even if we just end up sneaking away for a night in the Marriott a few towns over.

In one of those dreamland discussions, we notice that the TED global conference at Oxford still has openings.

"Ooo, that would be amazing, don't you think?"

(We both ignore the price at this phase of the game.)

And then, G sucks air in through his teeth and sighs.

"Oh, but it lists punting on the itinerary."

I glance up.  "Oh, dear."

Sigh.

. . .

Many years ago, when our marriage had that just-out-of-the-box shine, we visited England together.  In Cambridge we decided to try punting on the river Cam.  (Punting, as you probably know, involves steering a long skinny boat with a long skinny pole while standing balanced in the back, like the gondoliers in Venice.)  We were students living on love, air, and jacket potatoes so we opted to guide ourselves down the river rather than spend the extra money on a guide.

G had no way of knowing the vision that was playing out inside my head--or how long it had been looping through my rose-tinged dreams.  He had no idea that I had snatched him up from where he stood and cast him in a historical BBC drama (the ones he actively avoids) in which we drift peacefully down the river, trailing my fingers in the smooth water, choral music wafting from the King's College Chapel as we drift on toward the Bridge of Sighs. (And by "we" I meant me.)

Yeah, no unrealistic expectations there.

So it turns out that punting is much more difficult than it seems--in fact, quite challenging.  We launched out down the river shakily, ping-ponging wildly between the two banks of the boat-filled river.  Next the pole got stuck in the mushy riverbottom and we spun around and around, pivoting on the stubborn pole. Then, regaining control of the pole we lost control of the boat banging broadside into another boat and knocking that guide into the water. Yes, really. (And by "we" I meant G.) 

I wish I could say I laughed and made it a lighthearted, BBC romance kind of moment.  But, no--it also turns out that I am a terrible boat passenger. I threw all sorts of "helpful" advice-slash-commands in G's direction, irritated that my vision was getting all sullied with the reality of guiding a boat with a pole down a crowded river. This, of course, was highly unhelpful and only made G feel worse.  By the end of the ride we were terse and angry with each other. 

Poor G, saddled with the heavy weight of my unspoken expectations. Notice that all of the actual work of my vision was unfairly placed squarely on his shoulders?  Is it any wonder we have avoided anything involving a boat and high expectations ever since?

Given a chance for a do-over these many years later, I would just lie back and enjoy the view.  I would laugh + jump in with the guy we knocked off (like the dance scene in It's a Wonderful Life!) and offer to buy him lunch. I would offer to take a turn steering us rather than offering backoftheboat advice.  I would lower my expectations and raise my compassion.  Or at least I hope I would.

I think we might be ready for another trip down the river after all.

And by "we," I really mean we.

Bests roundup

Best packaging: Mast Brothers Chocolate, a birthday gift from Nancy.  They are wrapped in thick sheets of florentine papers with clean simple labels. Love.  Oh, and the chocolate was delicious: I had the fleur de sel and salt and pepper dark chocolate. Wow.

 

Tea of the year: I'm not a tea drinker much, although I do drink herbal tea a few times a month, especially when I need a warm comforting pause in the middle of the day. There's something about sitting there with my hands warmed around the mug, staring off into the middle distance, thinking wandering thoughts.  I'm a big fan of elevenses, with or without a cuppa.  Most often I have the very normal and probably boring honey chamomile. Or lemon zinger, when I'm feeling zingy.

Word or phrase: most often heard around here: amazing.  My daughters use it several times a day. I love it that they are amazed so frequently; it seems a close cousin to wonder and enthusiasm.

Shop: Um, a quick glance at my bank statement would tell you that Amazon is my best friend these days. It has allowed me to be (relatively) ready for Christmas gifting and I even do drug-store shopping there. Runner up: Etsy.  I love supporting independent artists and crafters & buy many gifts and house things there, too.

Car ride: August 2009, from our home to the Adirondacks and back, with G. and the kids.  We've entered a stage of relatively good humor and patient travelers (a far cry from the days of car-seat tirades and she's-touching-me tantrums...it only took us a decade to get here).  This trip was especially lovely, with the journey setting the tone for the entire week.  Runner up: the drive from NYC to Boston with my mom in September.

New person:  Who is your unsung hero of 2009?  Natalie saved the day this year for me at girl's camp by jumping in at the last minute when the camp director was put on pregnancy bed rest (who would have also been fabulous, by the way).  Natalie handled it with grace and enthusiasm and the girls all loved her.  Who was a new acquaintance you were excited to meet? Runners up: It was great meeting Whitney last week and having lunch--I've admired her from afar for a while.  Ditto Leslie, who I finally met at a fundraiser in November.  One of my students handled a painful year with great courage.  And (for purely selfish and vain reasons) my new (& first ever) eyebrow lady Lauren.  I am in good hands.

What about you? A new person in your life this year that has made a difference? A memorable car ride? Do share...

Car talk

Best place .09  |  the front seat of my car, 6:45 a.m. to 7:15 a.m. weekdays

It's not that we don't love each other.  Or that I don't get what it's like to be a 16-year-old girl or the oldest daughter in the family.  But sometimes Lauren and I clash, caught in a pattern of misunderstanding and frustration. Sometimes I lecture for so long, even I get tired of the sound of my voice.  And, yep, sometimes she gets a look in her eye and set to her jaw that tells me she's just not listening.

Every morning I drive her from her before-school religious education class (seminary) to her school, a drive that takes about 35 minutes.  As we watch the sun rise and the morning mist lift, we talk.  I hear about who likes who, fire drills, friendship dynamics, styles, rumors, her dreams, her crushes, her fears. We share music and opinions.  Car rides have become our DeMilitarized Zone.

The best place of 2009 is the front seat of my car, every morning of the school week.  Before long she'll have her license and be self propelled but for now I'm milking those morning moments for all they've got.

. . .

Day 11 of the Best of 09 challenge.  What was your best place in 09?

Best new blog discoveries .09

Every once in a while I find myself in the middle of a conversation and I want to bring up something I have gleaned from a blogfriend.  And I hesitate.  What do I say? How to introduce the strange, distant-but-connected network of colleagues and friends that has emerged from my forays into the blogworld?

I read blogs to be inspired.

I read blogs to laugh.

I read blogs to find answers. 

(I still do not care for the word "blog.")

I read blogs for the same reason I read anything: to transport myself, if not into someone else's shoes than at least to a little window on another world, another way of thinking or living.  To understand. Sometimes it's to find solace that there are others just like me.  Other times I want to know what it's like to live a completely different life.

One of my favorite new-to-me blogs this year fills all of those roles.  Have you visited 22-year-old Maggie Doyne's blog, written from her home for children she founded in Nepal's Kopila Valley?  You're in for a treat.  After graduating from high school, Maggie went on a trip that changed her life:

Four countries and 20,000 miles later, I was trekking through the Himalayas in war-torn Nepal, where I began to meet hundreds of orphan children. I fell in love with their bright eyes and beautiful smiles, but was shocked to see them barely surviving without the most basic things that I had grown up with as a child.

Playing inside the chicken coop!As I shared my dream to build a safe home for these children, with my hometown in Mendham, NJ, I was astounded by the outpouring of support. This past year, I officially opened the frontdoor of Kopila Valley Children's Home, built brick-by-brick, by me and the local community in Nepal. There are now 26 children living in our home. We have been able to enroll eighty children into school, facilitate life-changing operations for children in need, and create a village outreach program to improve schools in remote areas. I truly believe that if every child in the world is provided with their most basic needs and rights—a safe home, medical care, an education, and love, they will grow to be leaders and end cycles of poverty and violence in our world.

I'm inspired. Maggie's passion for what she does fuels some of my own dreams.  I can't go start a school in Nepal but I can think of something I *can* do, here and now.  Go check it out and cheer her on (plus she's had a difficult day today).

Other great finds this year: Dare to Dream, You Can't Be Serious, The Moth podcasts, and Jorge (Lost's Hurley)'s quirky blog Dispatches from the Island.  Happy surfing/reading!

. . .

Year in review, Gwen Bell-style, day 7.