Oh, please

...let me be this awesome when I'm older. Please, please, please.

This made my day, truly. (My own dad [though, let it be noted, he is much younger that this] enjoys creative license on song lyrics, too.)

Happy Friday!

Remembering

Ten years ago.

It's amazing how our minds can retain such tiny details of the where-were-you variety. I remember the almost achingly beautiful blue-skied September day outside of Washington, DC. It was my first child-free day in eight years. I had just dropped off Sam for his first-ever day of preschool and (for some reason, on this first day of freedom) had scheduled a yearly doctor's exam. In the parking lot of the ob/gyn, I heard the first reports of the 1st plane on the radio. At that point, they still weren't sure what was going on & I remember thinking, oh! those people in the plane and the building!, and sending up a silent prayer.

By the time I got in to the doctor's office, the second plane had hit. Then while I was there, a plane hit the Pentagon a few miles away. The mood in the office was tense and quiet. Two women frantically called their husbands, who worked in the Pentagon. Everyone was on their cell phones. Greg worked at a law firm just north and east of the White House and heard all sorts of rumors as he tried to figure out how to get out of the city, including an announcement on the PA system in his building that a plane was headed their direction & to evacuate immediately. He ended up walking through DC, then eventually catching a metro home.

I thought I had protected our kids (then ages 3-8) from the brunt of the terrifying images and news. But that night I took Maddy with me to the grocery store. It was deserted. Maddy noticed and said sadly "there's nobody here. Did everyone die today, Mom?"

I feel conflicted writing this. We were not directly affected and I know there are hundreds of people who have experienced prolonged sorrow from the events of 9/11. I hope that our collective memories and attention on this day give comfort and love rather than bring back pain for all those who lost somebody.

One of my kids said [once] when we were talking about this, "I remember feeling so loved that day. Everyone who knew us called to check on us [which is true, even people we hadn't heard from in years managed to find us and make sure we were okay]. I felt so surrounded by love." It reminded me of this Anne Frank quote I have always loved and that surfaced in my mind on that day [ten] years ago:

"It’s utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness...And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more...It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart."

[Originally posted here. I still feel the same way.]

p.s. New York magazine has had some wonderful coverage including the kindergarten class of PS 150's recounting of their memories and a powerful and heartbreaking slideshow of missing persons posters.

Yes, please

At first I dragged my feet. Maddy had a photo assignment and wanted to go into Boston to do some shots.  It kind of seemed like a hassle to me but G and Sam had a church meeting and she really wanted to go, so I thought eh, why not?

I should think why not? more often. Well, that and why not's more enthusiastic sister, yes, please.

Because if I had gone with my Saturday afternoon homebody instincts, I would have missed out on this:

Swan boats retired for the summer.

Maddy in sunbeams.

Witnessing weddings.

Glorious trees.

High wire walkers practicing. (!)

Take that, dragging feet. 

Take two

Here's Maddy's first second day of school, sophomore year. It was a rainy + chilly day, perfect for the cheerful yellow rainboots and a cozy sweater. 

Oh, I love this girl.

^And even though this is a little overexposed, I love it anyway. It captures her.
Here, I'll add a slightly underexposed one to balance things out: 

. . .

When Maddy brought home all the paperwork and syllabi for the year, for some reason I recalled something Elizabeth Edwards once said. During her son Wade's early high school years she decided to read some of the books he was reading for class so they could discuss them and she could hear his burgeoning analysis and thoughts about life.* 

Brilliant. Now that the kids are older, I feel a bit separated from them in their studies. I'll proofread an essay here and there but mostly Lauren and now Maddy and Sam have sailed their own academic ships. So in light of that, I started thinking that I'll read along with Maddy on a few of her books this year. 

Here's the list for her sophomore English class: 

The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger
Song of Solomon, Morrison
The Turn of the Screw, James
A Separate Peace, Knowles
The Crucible, Miller
short stories, Shirley Jackson and others
Ender's Game, Card
The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald
Walden, Thoreau

And films:
The Front (Woody Allen)
Persons of Interest (Alison MacLean)
Walkout 

Pretty great books, right? It'd be kind of like a low-key, mother daughter book group. That I...crash and wrestle into my own territory and attend uninvited? Is this a sweet & lovely idea or borderline helicopter parentish?  I can't trust my judgment on these things anymore. I swing wildly from benign neglect to hovering. I blame the emptying nest and the fleeting years. Savor is my mantra. Gather and savor.

*p.s. In a sad turn of the story, later, when Wade died in an accident before his senior year, she would read the books for that year out loud to him at his grave. Heartbreaking.

Going back

Proof that this is the first day of school:

There's a little nip in the air,

people are wearing new clothes and smiles as they head off (or, in the case of this photo, as they come home), Louie is looking out the window waiting for friends to come home (see above),

the smell of cookies is in the air (oh, I love this recipe sooo much; it never fails),

and shoes and backpacks are strewn hither and yon.  Yep, we're back.

(Maddy changed out of her new school clothes so fast this afternoon [no way I was taking a photo at 5:30 this morning when I drove her to seminary] that I didn't have a chance to get a photo. Second-day-of-school photo will have to do...)