Hoop Jumping and Birch Swinging
My head and heart are full.
It isn’t that on most days they aren’t, but the sense of fullness is different today. The difference is the result of something I’ve grappled with for many years — a by product of raising my sons. The result of years of observation, interaction, angst, and tribulation coming to a conclusion milestone by sometimes painful milestone.
The RT finished his first year of high school today, and in a few weeks will be 15. But he did not beat The Geometry Teacher. He received a “D” for his hoop-jumping efforts in her class. In this newly completed step toward the rest of his education, I’m left wondering so many things about what I have strongly held on to about learning and about raising humans: (Read More)
Empty Nest Syndrome
It’s been just more than a month since I finished my year’s obligation and I’ve busied myself with all sorts of things I wouldn’t exactly describe as constructive. The weather here has been far less than summery, with the only warm day arriving today when within sight of the Pacific we’ve actually mustered up an admirable 82 degrees. With an almost non-existent summer, I can only say that constructiveness must be connected to the things I expect at any given time during the year. A matter of rote. Habit.
Better said, I’ve been spending my time processing the fact that I not longer work doing something I’ve done for more than 20 years, but this time for good. I’ve also been processing that after mothering three boys, my youngest is headed off to school, leaving the MoH and I with a seriously empty nest. (Read More)
Carly Simon and Memories About Choices
Yesterday was a marathon of driving from one end of the county to the opposite and in weather more conducive to July than November. To be more accurate, it’s cooler in July here than it has been the last many days. I’ve given up wishing and hoping for weather that smells and feels like Fall, let alone the winter that is barely four weeks away.
But when I’ve got a task to do that should have been completed weeks ago, I set my route and try not to think about it. I just go, like I’m on auto pilot. First one store, then the next. Speak with one salesperson, then another — all the while taking mental notes and feeling my brain ready to explode with so many others’ opinions. (Read More)