You’d think I would be used to it by now, the simple fact that my children have grown up. Yet time after time the bittersweet truth hits me again, in some new and unexpected way. A memory surfaces, vivid and fresh as this morning’s sunrise–Henry at twelve, wearing a too-big Hawaiin shirt and a pair of cool sunglasses, playing Steely Dan’s “Time Out of Mind” on the piano; or Jack, fourteen and all intensity and focus, as he reaches down to turn up his amp for a guitar solo on “Autumn Leaves.” And in a flash my eyes fill with…
I promised Henry that if he took a job working as a counselor and pianist at a remote music camp this summer, we would figure out some way to get him to the orthodontist every month. This despite the fact that he has one day off a week, the day off happens to be Sunday, and we live three and a half hours away from Sweden, Maine, where he is senior counselor to a cabin full of fourteen-year-old aspiring musicians. And the fact is, it did take a full sixteen hours to drive to Maine last week, pick up Henry,…
We bike seven and a half miles up the road from our house, past hay fields and horses and silent, collapsing barns. It is my favorite route from home, a long, lovely panorama of wild gardens, moss-covered stone walls, old country houses set low to the ground, rolling pastures and sun-dappled woods. The morning air is patchy, stunningly hot in the clear stretches, deliciously cool in the greeny darkness of shade, the trees arching over the road like a canopy as we sail along beneath, single file, each keeping our own counsel. At the end of the road and the…
I dug the fire pit out in our yard five years ago, the week we moved into the old red cottage on our New Hampshire hilltop. It was sweltering hot, and no one was happy. The tiny, uninsulated upstairs bedrooms were unbearable. We plugged fans into every available 1923 wall outlet, then crossed our fingers and prayed we wouldn’t blow out the ancient wiring. But it didn’t help; the effect was more convection oven than cross breeze. Desperation inspired us to have our first party in our new house–we needed something to distract us from the mold, the…
There were lots of ribbons and bows. But it wasn’t about the gifts. It was about the pure, untrammeled beauty of a little girl celebrating her first birthday, just waking up to the pleasures of pink party hats, presents to open, a spoonful of ice cream, a bite of cake. We gathered round the living room, cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents, neighbors and friends, snapping photos and marveling: just a year ago, Angelique arrived in our midst; today she is an essential member of the family, this powerful pint-sized personality exquisitely packaged and growing up before our eyes. …
