The Seasons, As They Really Are

Here in the Bay Area we have arrived at September like everyone else but here it doesn't mean cooling temps and getting out the scarves and the tall boots. Just when your mind and the American Marketing Machine has you most primed for autumnal bliss, Cali has me all whip lashed. September and October usually hold the warmest, most classically summery weather. We have popsicle afternoons and pool dates and though the apples are ripe and we do indeed need to start prepping for Halloween, its best done in tank tops and shorts. 

We have not had a particularly hot summer this year and there have even been times when it felt a little too chilly so it feels so odd to remember that its expected that we get this heat wave and start using our A/C now.

I am thinking about how in the world I can catch some of that fall flavor in summery ways. I had an iced chai tea the other day because......autumn flavors + summer temps. I want to start making roasts and wearing my hair down but its time for a little bit more warm weather celebration before we get there.

Time to go apple picking and plan one last camping adventure at the same time. Californian Autumn means a different thing and I have to start adapting in my own mind to this reality that is my world and my neighborhood. I love hearing and seeing all the seasonal markers that are different here and owning that fact that we have seasons....just different ones, or even the same ones with different markers and signifiers.

I wanna be the kind of woman who is curious about her world, open to her own microsmic environment and the story that its bringing. It may not be what I am primed for, what the general public talks about or what I have ever seen before but...its mine. Really, in some ways this is the story of what I am learning as a grown-up in general the last few years. My marriage, my kids, my housekeeping, our schooling, my reading schedule, my art career, my own professional life and personal development, my spiritual unfolding...none of them seem to trot down the expected trajectory. I am trying to let go of what I thought I'd have and see and know and instead wipe the slate blank and draw what I really see, like they tell you in art. Instead of drawing the projections of my own mind and expectations, what people tell me I see or should see....instead, in faith, I'll just step into the season I am really living and try to learn to love it in all its difference, and variation and cope with the odd bits and sooth my own nerves about how it isn't what I thought it would be.

Because, truth.....its what it is and its also beautiful, even if unfamiliar.

End Of Summer Notes

We are going tubing down a river tomorrow morning and I should be in bed by now so that I will be awake bright and early to make everyone omelettes before we leave. (Boys who go places with no food are not boys you want to go places with.) Instead of sleeping, I am up folding laundry, contemplating the moving away of one more friend, obsessing about my homeschool plans and trying to decide how to wedge in one teeny stay in a rustic cabin in the mountains before the holidays. So many things going on and suddenly it feels like everything is speeding right up.

I told Ru and Nib that they could both sign up for fall baseball since we skipped out on the regular spring season. Argh! I am such a lazy mama....I don't wanna do it! I have the hardest time convincing myself to be ambitious enough to arrange friend play times and classes or activities of any kind. Nib has incessantly nagged me all summer long to take him fishing and I only managed to do something about it once when we were in Michigan sleeping 20 feet from my in-laws private dock. Better a little than nothing at all. Ha. But, seriously....I think I need to just take myself to a local bait shop or a pier and let some old men school me on how to catch the local fish and how in the world to fix up the fishing rods I have but have not in proper order. I am considering one of those cushy trout ponds for a personal boost as a beginning.

In all seriousness, I do want to have and to show ambition. I am not interested in avoiding all work and having my kids end up resentfully annoyed at their own inability to participate in anything because I dragged my feet for all eternity. I am however, loath to sign up for baseball. I love watching how they learn from coaches and build friendships on the team but I truly hate rushing off to practices and having our whole life filled with practice and games.

 So far, I have still not received a note about Little League starting up for fall season.....so who can say. We must not butcher our chickens before they're hatched.

I have been harvesting the little volunteer Sungolds in our garden for the past couple of weeks. I was a little nervous to see what would appear when they began fruiting since I know Sungold is a modern hybrid and not very inclined to end up true to kind. I have been very surprised by satisfied by how very like its parent this tomato has appeared. I have the same juicy, sweet/tart little golden marble fruits and have been merrily filling a folded over pouch in my shirt with them pretty much anytime I find myself lingering in the yard. I have also been picking arugula, some tender second and third flush broccoli and our first very late crop of peas. The peas never seem to make it inside to the house, the kids like them too much. I'm all for healthy snacking however, so there's not much fuss to make over the issue.

The boys and I are working more on nature journalling and have been pulling out our paints to sketch things up a little from time to time. I am still trying to use our journals for a chance to record and research new species to us since moving Out West. Speaking of new species to us...we recently revisited the trees I noticed this spring when they were blooming. I thought they were maybe apricots or peaches but this time of year I could clearly see that they are almond trees. So amazing to discover that there are so many exotic nut trees scattered around. I sometimes feel like I know a lot about plants and animals and that outdoors and that I can feel confident in my knowledge. And then I think about things and realize that I am still humblingly unknowing in many ways and make absurd sounding rooky guesses. I only just realized this spring that the leaves of apricot trees look nothing like peach tree leaves and that I had been walking right past them all my life and not noticing. And then, there's the almonds-look-nothing-like-other-nuts-they-look-like-peaches foul up that I made in trying to learn what was along the highways. I can't believe how much there still is to notice and know and understand....even about the common things. One new fun tool I have been playing with as I learn is the app iNaturalist. Its actually kind of amazing. You take a picture, it notes your location via gps and then identifies your find. Super empowering. The boys love it. We end up running around at parks snapping pictures of things I would normally just shrug at.

Summer isn't quite over yet, even though school is starting next week so I am looking forward to a few more beach days, a little blackberry picking, a pie or two, a rodeo and a music festival. Autumn will come in its time but I'm not quite ready. 

Canning Up The Summer

Today I stood in the kitchen all day long. Virtually all the steps on my pedometer today were counted between the sink and then stove. Its canning season! I got all inspired yesterday and packed all the kids up in the van and drove out of town to my favorite big farm stand and picked up four half bushel boxes of peaches, fresh off the trees in the orchard and then on an impulse nabbed two good sized boxes of tomatoes to boot. I haven't done any canning in at least two years....but I don't think I've canned tomatoes and peaches in longer than that. Bay Area weather is the best for canning.

It was warm today and with a boiling kettle going for blanching and another for syrup to hot pack the peaches it was pretty steamy....but it was nothing like the heat you have in the Midwest in August when you can all day. Its a blessed relief to feel the breeze through the slider and know that the temp is maxing out at 78 or so with extremely low humidity. I remember the way I would sweat right through my shirt and apron in my native climate on food preserving days. Its lovely to can here. The combination of personal satisfaction over the work, the ideal temperatures and the beauty of the gleaming jars in rows all full of produce is a pretty heady instigator. I was dreaming about adding beets, applesauce and dilly beans and maybe some canned corn to the stockpile. Doesn't that sound wonderful! I am part squirrel. I can't help it.

I was very pleased with how excited the boys were to help and how very directable and useful they all are now that they are a little older and there is no baby underfoot or strapped to my back. Everyone can help peel or sort of pack jars and they are all so proud of being capable and helping to make real food for the family. Ru even spiced and marinated the chicken for dinner for me so that I could keep working on the peaches!

We found four chrysalises for Anise Swallowtail butterflies on our street on the only wild fennel plant on the block....it was sticking weakly out of a chain link fence and leaning precariously down towards the sidewalk. We decided the cut it off and take all the chrysalises home and let them change in the more sheltered environment of our kitchen window. We have hatched out two of the four this week and released them into the garden, watching them fly off over our mammoth sunflower and the board fence and into the neighborhood sky. We are still waiting on the last two and hoping we are able to safely launch them all. So much fun to find a new caterpillar to raise and a new butterfly to hatch. I would expect that monarchs must be here too although I am not seeing them much this time of year. They were around a lot in the winter, in between the rains....a friend told me that there was a wintering cluster of monarchs on the palm trees at the golf course in our town this last winter and many years before. I have to remember to go look for them this year with the boys....apparently the gold course men are very kind about allowing adoring butterfly fans in to have a peek, even without a putter or a ball.



We've joined a co-op for the fall for homeschooling for the boys and I will be helping out as a teacher in the program too. We are going to give classical schooling a try and test our hands at Latin and history cycles and the learning of rhetorical method. I am most worried about teaching our kids to be big headed snobs who are no earthly use but most excited about the idea of them all learning tin whistle together, attending group field trips and giving speeches once a week in class. Classical Conversations will be a new adventure. I'm ready for a little more academic community here and a little more pushing strenuous goal setting too, as the boys get older it feels more important to me.

Nostalgia In June

Its summer now so, I am playing The Dixie Chicks and The Avett Brothers and sometimes even a little Gretchen Wilson or the Stanley Brothers. I miss my roots in this weather. I can't wear shoes for love nor money and I want to spend all day at a little weedy lake fishing with my boys. I am out in the garden every chance I get, picking roses and leaving them on the steps absently, chewing the blossoms of clover and honeysuckle and forever forgetting to go grocery shopping or make dinner on time. I remember that I have a guitar this time of year and I get it out to play randomly, (I can still play!?) but I have the worst time telling the boys to practice their piano. Its the wrong season for piano, its time for banjos and mandolins. I wish I was at a music festival or a picnic or a rodeo all day long.... I feel incredibly at odds with my "real" grown-up life situation in summer.

Pieces of my current life feel alien and fake, even hiking feels like a weirdly upper class activity that isn't rootsy or real enough, there's no throwing dirt clods or laying in a field watching the clouds whirl past. I don't know how to be goal directed and in my proper social class this time of year. I can never seem to keep dirt from under my fingernails or remember to bring my purse when I leave the house. I miss my sisters and the whole universe I grew up in and sometimes laying in the cicada buzzed summer night when the whole house is sleeping I wish there was a radio running ad infinitum on low like it was in our teenage girl bedrooms so many warm summer nights ago. Its strange how you can grow up and become so chafingly  different from your teeny, childhood self and yet feel so permanently tethered to all that once surrounded you. I keep thinking about my grandma (Favorite Person Ever Nominee #1) and how she just sold the house where she said goodbye to my grandpa, watched her grandchildren grow up and became a retiree. How odd and between worlds it must feel to know that the things you miss no longer exist.

I have been doing a lot of genealogy research on my ancestors and marinating in the information I keep unfolding and un-knotting. There is so much before me, so much that is part of who I am. So much past, so much old-time once-upon-a-time story. It makes me sad because so many things and people are gone, irretrievably and I long to hear all the inside jokes and hidden heartbreaks and I never will, but it also buoys me because even if its just me reading about these people and trying to re-tell the stories to my boys its part of me now. So many things are in our DNA besides just the bare facts of eye color or nose shape.  I wanna pass this past I know and yearn for and remember, my own early beginnings to my boys and also these mysterious people in black and white photos who had so many beautiful, sad, ridiculous stories. I want them to know that they are not islands, that all these people who were, before are part of them and that all the previous parts of themselves are allowed and don't need to go away. I hope I can tell my kids that its fine with me if they change and fine if they revert. Its all there, future growth and ability to become really different along with the permanence of all that has been.

I don't really know how to untangle all of this for myself. I know I have permission to be shockingly different than I ever was and also permission to hang onto illogically primitive inclinations, maybe that's enough. Its lonely sometimes. I had a boyfriend break up with my once with the line, "You're not the sweet little country girl you were when I met you. You've changed." It made me proud at the time and felt so reactionary but it is strange now to realize how much that was true and also wasn't at the exact same time.

“Walking. I am listening to a deeper way. Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. Be still, they say. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands.” -Linda Hogan

Quiet Night, Homey Night

Spending a quiet night cruising around on the internets a bit....kids all exhausted from baseball, marathon Lego creating and endless summer light...its just Elizabeth Mitchell and I in the house tonight. There are lullabies in the other room that I can't quite hear and a steady computer buzz in here....and giant stack of paper teetering on the desk next to me. Tomorrow is the day I sort every piece of paper we own and cull it all down into neatly arranged file boxes (or maybe even one!) and turn the office into a haven of neatness and order.

Today was the day that I painted more trim, washed more laundry and managed to actually re-hang the mirror by the front door....every little bit helps. So much to do around here. I am thinking maybe I'll throw one more load of laundry in before I head to sleep. I love the amazing modern magic of having in-house appliances that do chores for you while you are away. Brilliant. I've just started experimenting with the delayed cook settings on my oven. Its really kind of fabulous to stick a roast in there, add seasonings and set it to turn on an appropriate amount of time before you roll into the driveway from kid events with a bunch of whiney littles who are all starving. God bless the dude who invented that idea.

The garden has had a lot of rain and I am woefully behind on trimming, weeding, edging and mowing. I have to get the mower up and running tomorrow and get the lawn in decent shape. I think the pansies in the front planters have finally run the race too. Time to swap them out for some lobelia and marigolds or some other heat lover. They did their best...and now its on to the sweltering set.

The rabbits in the backyard have raised one baby and appear to have hatched the next one. The previous "baby" likes to munch clover in the backyard by the kids sandbox while we are out and then bolt in a panic when we all pull in the driveway. The newer, tinier fluffball of a kit is spending its time hiding out under the giant, lush hostas at the front of the house and runs in a manic dash whenever I do scary things like walk past on my way to turn on the hose. Love seeing them grow up in our yard and also love that the tax they take from our garden is tiny. They sometimes eat the leaves off of our bean plants but mostly they seem to prefer the clover in the lawn. (Yay for lawns that are more than just grass!!!!) I love this about city gardening. No deer. No woodchucks. No chipmunks. No moles. Just a couple of rabbits with a refined palette.

We have come into the weather where a quick run down to the beach after dinner sounds super good. Last night was our last night with A before he flew out this morning and we took a picnic of fridge leftovers, two towels to share and one boogie board and just ran out to the beach in time to take  short dip, eat dinner on the rocks of the point and watch the fishermen haul in sea robins. Then we poked around in the shore debris and collected shells to carry back to the car with us as we hiked up the beach path in the glow of fireflies. It was a great last night together. I hope the sunsets in California make him think of us, we're thinking of him over here. In my empty house tonight I'm thinking of little notes that we can send, ways to stay in touch and things to remember to tell him about tomorrow when we're chirping texts back and forth and having our Good Morning Talk over coffee and sausages. Lots of love, lots of connection, lots of dedicated energy. May you have the same!

Motherhood and Marriage When The Burner Is On High

 The weather is hot and thick, you can break a sweat just sitting in a chair lately. This kind of weather lends itself to festivals, public libraries, early morning outings and  basement contemplation. Today I went with the basement.

 We no longer own a laptop so the old "movies in the basement on a hot day" routine which was my go-to,  can't be used. Instead I play Pandora on my phone and let the boys build Legos until its time for quiet hour and then park them on blankets and throw pillows on the cool cement. Storage boxes and shelving units to separate them so that there is some amount of actual quiet. They nap, or build and I work. All the laundry in the basement got washed and dried and sorted and then I swept and organized and purged. I am proud to say that after one very hot and humid day's worth of work....we now have no more assorted nonsense piles of random junk that I threw into bags and hid when we had company coming over.

 What a great feeling! So much stuff that we can hand off to other folks and let go of finally, so much stuff that actually, truly was junk and went into the trash (which is going out tonight, hallelujah!!!!) and just a little stuff that simply needed to be put back into its proper home. I feel about 40 lbs lighter after such a productive day hiding out from the heat. Kinda makes me feel utterly at peace with the possibility of another blazing hot day tomorrow.

 I made a one pot dinner tonight and imagined up a trip to the beach spur of the moment as soon as A walked in the door. Sometimes life doesn't go as planned

The boys were having meltdowns and Giles had a diaper rash suddenly (chafing from a whole day in his swimsuit, in and out of the sprinkler?) and my brilliant dinner was being rejected by a bunch of pint-sized critics.

But, I have to brag. I didn't lose my cool and scream or meltdown and have a sobfest when A finally walked in.....I just pouted a little about the mayhem and had just a little grump-time. And then my brilliant man said spontaneously that we should eat our one pot dinner on the tiny, brick, front stoop together and then when it started raining he had the boys all scuttle inside for umbrellas and flip-flops and we had a hilarious march around the block in our bathing suits in the rain.

Sometimes the grand plan isn't what its all abut at all. Its about the rolling with all the punches, the keeping your chin up and keeping your sense of humor. Love that we had a silly, little adventure in the outdoors and that my tharwted plans didn't matter at all in the long run. When you find a good man....hold on. 

Strawberry Lust and Making Eight Hours

It is strawberry season and I am hoping that this weekend, between the graduation open houses, baseball games and grocery shopping, we can wedge in a little berry picking. I am craving Strawberry Shortcake something fierce......please tell me I can still buy rhubarb someplace so that at least one Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp can make an appearance. These things are important rites of passage that my (ahem!) sons need to experience. Its all for them.

Also, strawberry basil water, strawberry ice cream, strawberry cream cheese milk shakes, and our traditional strawberry freezer jam. Yes to the yes. Please, lets pick strawberries! Must make time.

Pom is really trying hard to potty train, although he has instructed us to not tell anyone. He has quite a socially aware personality. I bought him a potty story book for his recent birthday which gets read at least once a day and is much labored over in private corners of the house to boot. He is very bent on the whole process. The trick is, that as of now, he has no personal initiative physically. He doesn't seem to notice when he needs to go....ever. He'll be perfectly potty trained if only I will devote myself to setting timers and being always free when they go off so that I can take him to the bathroom at the drop of a hat. If I do the work, he's potty trained. Having a little trouble getting over the hump.

We are out of school for the summer, minus our ever-present math studies (A is teaching) and some reading instruction. Here it is tempting to throw all focus out the window and do crazy things like spend all day organizing the game cupboard and vaccuuming out the pantry, and then drive a bajillion miles up to a farm to pick up raw milk. Not that we won't do that.....because we will....but I need to consciously remember to pay attention to doing the eventy kinds of things we mean to do during this beautiful time of year (Statue of Liberty!) and also remember to give the boys my real, look-you-in-the-eyes-attention, a few mama projects and adventures are in order. It might be a good idea to actually try to use the reading log from the library for The Summer Reading Program too. Am terrible at logs.

The honeysuckle is blooming...its dripping all over the sidelines of the baseball practice fields and creeping up the highway walls in a fervent froth of scented frivolity. It smells amazzzzzing! Tonight I braved the mosquitoes as Ru finished up catching practice with his coaches to snip a handful for carrying home in the cupholder, tucked in a water bottle. I am putting it on my nightstand as a midsummer sleep tonic.

Working on the whole concept of getting eight hours of sleep lately. Its my latest fitness goal. I am exercising regularly, with an emphasis on strength training and flexibility, eating super clean and researching supplementation and have managed to conquer hydration! I cannot believe that I am smoothly managing to get all my daily water chugged down, but even better.....its becoming pleasant, needed even....and I think I can tell that it impacts my physical self and my emotional happiness. So strange, this morphing to become the person you mean to be. So, on to my next goal, a goal I couldn't have even had very easily in the I-always-have-a-baby stage of my life. Sleeping. I sleep easily, no insomnia unless I'm whipped into an argument right at bedtime, and I am able to go to sleep quickly and I am a very sound sleeper (although easily wakened by my children). This all bodes well. I am aiming at 8 hours. I am hovering at 6 and change. I have a sleep buddy to text at bedtime so that we remind each other to go to sleep, and I have my FitBit all charged up again so that I can consciously monitor how many hours I am getting. Lets do this!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Now, The Best Time of Year

Summer is waning. We are still wearing t-shirts and tank tops but we're keeping our sweatshirts handy and most mornings I pull on jeans before I run down to start the coffee maker and level off the chicken feeder. The garden is all seedy and disreputable, the support stakes are leaning tiredly and the borders grown over with grasses chickweed. I am starting to make lists of autumn bulbs and think about where to park the chicken coop for winter. Its a season of stripping down and organizing, busily strapping on our routines and making labels for everything.

This weekend we had A's youngest brother visiting us. He has just moved to our coast and is going to be living in Boston for the next couple of years so we celebrated with an inaugural visit together filled with every good thing.We had late night discussions, morning coffee, road-tripping, beach walking, garden tours, a tea party and many a book discussion. Ru was so enamored of his uncle after a weekend of his excellent company that he got up early this morning and lovingly made him a dozen cookies to take with him on the train. Love feeling so rich in family and seeing how feeding belonging and a sense of connection is for my children. They just bloom under it all, like so many little seedlings.

I was still chewing on all the goodness from the weekend and needed a meditative but energetic project. In a fit of caffeinated enthusiasm I spontaneously attacked the pantry after breakfast. I pulled it all apart and scrubbed the shelves, dusted out all the stray onion skins and found all the glass canisters that are empty and need refilling in the bulk department. I put a little drip of wintergreen oil in it and when Ru came in the room looking for me he said, "It smells like root beer in here, or fall spices or something." I was telegraphing autumn through the house, telling everyone including myself that it was time to switch modes. The squirrels in our garden are whittling the sunflower heads down to sawdust and carting away anything salvageable that shows up on the compost pile within minutes and there I am, playing squirrel in my own pantry, dusting off the spaces for extra onions and squashes and potatoes. I can feel the change coming and the mourning for the blazing, high summer with and orchestra of crickets that threatens. I keep forcefully working on now. Right now it is not Autumn, as good as it sounds, with its chimney sweep appointments and hickory nuts and dusky evenings filled with silent, falling leaves. Now is now. We've passed the peak of summer. The days for sun tan oil and perpetual barefeet, we are in a magical time with 80 degree afternoons and chilly mornings with tea cups on the back step. We hear the cicadas singing and most of the garden needs nothing more than a lot of deadheading. The sprinkler still wants a little use and there are nubbins of sidewalk chalk calling to be turned into dusty rainbows on our front walk but the starlings are visiting in flocks sometimes, just to shake it up and bring all of us to the window to watch their random robot walking and their bright yellow bills stabbing the lawn. Now is always ephemeral and more specific and perfect than any seasonal cliche and always the most important thing is to be paying attention, listening with our whole selves.

 “In this moment, there is plenty of time. In this moment, you are precisely as you should be. In this moment, there is infinite possibility. ” 

― Victoria Moran, Younger by the Day