Riding the train

Hello, June. 

The month of May was typically full. I meant to document more of this busy season, but somehow here it is June 9th, and so much has happened that I'm not quite sure where to begin. 

Perhaps I'll work backwards:

On the first of June, my husband and I celebrated 30 years of marriage.  How can we have been married so long, when our wedding seems like last year, our children's babyhood feels only months ago, teenagers ruled the house just last week, and it still feels like we are learning to love? Time is so relative! 

June 1, 1996

Although we marked this milestone with good cheer, including a Veuve Clicquot toast (my fave because of Babette's Feast, although usually we toast with Cook's, which is what we had at our wedding), it was an understated celebration, like many of our anniversaries. We have a busy summer ahead - see prior post. We'll be celebrating many times over. My gift to my husband was saying yes to spending more money than we should have on a piece of original art offered at our daughter's school auction - so it served a good cause. My husband surprised me with a gift of a necklace with seven pearls, one for each of the kids.  Although we had said the art work was our anniversary gift, I actually love this necklace - and it was on sale! Even better!  My husband has not always had the best of luck predicting what I like in the way of jewelry - not that I don't like what he buys; I just don't always fit the style he choses... This time his choice was spot on.

We were also going to go out to eat to a restaurant we haven't tried, but our college daughter returned home from college that afternoon. Her return was delayed because she qualified for the NCAA regional meet in the 800. Because of that we spent a couple days on the road driving down to Lexington, Kentucky, and back to watch her run. A 5.5 hour drive one way for a 2 minute race.  She had a stellar season, dropping 6 seconds from her PR last year, but she didn't quite hit her PR in this race, and competition was tough to move on to the finals. Fortunately, she has the potential to get stronger next year. Although she raced a lot in high school, her training mileage was low, and she hasn't burnt out like so many athletes who compete at elite levels at young ages.  

Needless to say, we stayed more than 2 minutes at the meet and watched some of the other races, including her teammate's mile run, but we did not spend time exploring UK or Lexington. I love track meets, and this one was large with elite runners running at their peak. I love watching the strength and speed of these athletes, all women on this day.  Other people can have their football and basketball games, but I'll take a track and field meet any day!

We also added a little extra driving to our travel time to stop in to visit our granddaughter, who keeps getting cuter than ever, and we spent the night and morning with my parents before making the return trip in time to get back for school/work. A full couple of days.

I do love a road trip. Just days before our jaunt down south, I returned from a Memorial Day road trip to Montreal with some fellow faculty members on a pilgrimage to see the St. Joseph Oratory and shrine to St. Andre Bessette, and the burial place/shrine to Kateri Tekakwitha.

This was a 14 hour driving journey northeast. Since it was made with friends and coworkers, the time flew by. This particular group was a very easy going crowd, so our stops weren't long, but neither were they rushed. It helps to travel with low maintenance companions. We met once a month during the school year to read and discuss and learn about St. Andre Bessette and his life and miracles in Montreal. 

The oratory itself is stunning, the largest church in Canada. 

The school door where St. Andre was the doorman

View of the oratory from the gardens where there are life size stations of the cross

The original small oratory built by St. Andre and friends. He lived in the loft.

view of the oratory from the side

Sculpture of Angels Unaware

Candles for St. Joseph

St Andre's tomb

In contrast, the shrine to St. Kateri is small and humble. 

 

The weekend prior to that our fourth son/fifth kid graduated from college. We hosted a big party at our house, and I helped plan a big party at a reception place with a couple other moms. It was a bit bigger and more elaborate than I initially planned, but everyone had a fabulous time. The graduation was lovely. The valedictorian gave a very moving speech, and Timothy Shriver, the Laetare medal winner, had everyone in tears with his story of a Special Olympics athlete at the world games in Ireland. The commencement address was given by Sr. Raffaella Petrini, a Franciscan Sister of the Eucharist who is the president of the Pontifical Commission and Governorate of Vatican City State. She is the highest ranking woman at the Vatican, and one of the highest Vatican officials - basically the governor of the Vatican state. The baccalaureate was also moving - everyone loves the singing of the Alma Mater. And the Arts and Letters grad ceremony included some thoughtful remarks from the dean and a sighting of a Supreme Court Justice. It was a celebratory weekend. 

 

 

The weekend before that I took my parents to North Carolina and Smoky Mountain National Park to see our daughter run and to spend some time in the mountains (hills for people who are used to Sierras and Rockies).  This trip was a bit spur of the moment, but planned after our spring break trip didn't pan out.  My dad has Parkinson's and is moving slower these days, but this area has a lot of accessible trails that are paved or are well-groomed. For instance, we visited a few waterfalls. The most stunning was a 120 ft fall on Cherokee land. It has a stair climb that has a hand rail and benches just below the falls, so people can admire their beauty. This is not my favorite kind of hike, as I am more drawn to quieter, more remote hikes, but we were there on a weekday before the summer crowds, and its beauty was well worth the climb.  I also had thought an AirBnB would be more scenic, but hotels are easier and more predictable for my dad, so we stayed at a Best Western that was right on a river.  Our rooms had balconies over the water, and the free coffee and breakfast was a perk. It worked out well for visiting the cute little town of Sylva, NC, and the track meet at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee.  After our drive through Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg on the north side of the Smoky Mtn NP, I highly recommend the south side! It was grown exponentially since my trips as a kid. 

view from Clingman's Dome, the highest point in SMNP

 

 

 

 

A little black bear farewelled us on our exit from the park

In between those trips I took the train up to Chicago for the American Literature Association Conference. I love riding the train, which gave me an extra two hours to work on my paper on Wendell Berry's representation of economic forces in Marce Catlett, The Force of a Story, his newest, and perhaps last, novel.  I should not have needed the extra two hours. If I had planned better, my paper would have been done weeks ago, and I'd have enjoyed the train ride even more, but maybe I enjoyed it just as much or more because I was plugged into the wifi typing away.  I didn't have to drive or find parking or pay attention to traffic. The train corridor is moderately scenic - I saw a few deer, was lulled by the sway and rumble of the cars, listened to other people talking and peeked at what other people were reading. I loved not having to drive home tired and exhausted from a long day of brain work. And I love these lit conferences, although I didn't stay at this one long enough to talk much with other attendees. I missed the evening dinner and social because I needed to get home and pack and leave the next day for the trip to Montreal. 

My classes at the college wrapped up well. I think my students improved in their speaking skills and their writing a little, and the rapport between students was good in class, which meant better discussions and more performative speaking.  A highlight was a guest speaker, Jimmy Dunne, who talked about the importance of business and communication, but mostly answered questions and shared life lessons.

My Laudato Si class at the middle school also wrapped up well. I have ideas to make it better, but I am going to step away next fall to teach at class at the high school - Redemption in Literature, which I'm inheriting from another teacher who taught it as a film class.  I'll miss my middle schoolers, and I love the topic of my Laudato Si class, but I also love the idea of looking for redemption in literature/film. I have four chicks in my garage from the class - we hatched chicks again at the end of the year, and while I'm not sure my middle schoolers even remember what Laudato Si means, they will remember the wonder and joy of hatching chicks. I hope they'll also remember our field trips - one to see maple syrup, and one to the ecosystem lab at a county park run by ND where they got to observe the nesting bald eagles and find some amphibians and snakes in the semi-controlled wetland observation area.  I thought it was a cool field trip, if I do say so myself.

So that was May - a full, beautiful month. I also celebrated my birthday while we were in Montreal.  I am grateful for the spring blooms and the opportunities to gather and celebrate.  At times we lead a charmed life. Although the planning and going and returning filled the days, the month didn't feel as chaotic or overwhelming as it has some years.  Instead, while it was full, it felt like one long celebration of life.  I am grateful. 

Peony Season!

To travel or not to travel

I've spent a lot of time lately debating some opportunities to travel. I have the privilege of having the option to go places and do things - a privilege of both finances and time, which are gifts we didn't possess earlier in our marriage.  Those resources are gifts I hope I don't take for granted, knowing how difficult or impossible it is for most people to get away on a vacation of any sort. 

This summer I have three opportunities to tag along with my husband on work trips. Right now I am with him on the first of these, which is a lakeside town just an hour from our house. With our college kids home for the summer, we can leave the youngest and the dog with very little fuss for a two night retreat of sorts. We're calling this our anniversary trip. 

The second trip is for a conference taking place in Alabama. We have good friends from our time in Guam in that area, and some other friends are coming to the conference, which includes programming for spouses including a hike one day and a history of the Civil Rights movement lesson/tour in Montgomery. I debated this one because it is a week long, but I decided to accompany my husband for the first half of the conference to meet up with our dear friends and learn some history, as well.

The third trip, I am debating. This trip is to Ireland for an anniversary celebration of the Notre Dame program at Kylemore Abbey.  Just typing that out makes me question why am I debating! Well, it happens to fall on the same weekend as a small family reunion my cousin has planned.  The reunion is just a Friday dinner and a Saturday picnic with the five cousins on my mom's side of the family and my three siblings and our families - about 45 people altogether. I invited but did not pressure my Boston and California children to attend because we are all convening in California for the Fourth of July/daughter's birthday celebration as our family summer vacation. They also have their own trips for weddings and family and work planned for the summer, so they are not coming, although our local kids likely will attend.  

This side of the family last convened two and a half years ago for the funerals of my aunt and uncle, who passed away within 24 hours of each other. There was a memorial service in Indiana and one in Texas, and our family attended both. The cousin who is organizing the reunion is the daughter of this aunt and uncle. This uncle, my mom's brother, was the reasons our families gathered as often as they did when we were growing up because they visited twice each year from Texas. This cousin is my sister's age, and we see each other regularly, if not often. The children of my mom's other brother I don't see as often. We all get along and have lots of shared memories of Christmas celebrations and summer barbecues back before all of us married and had our own families, but there is an age gap with the other set of cousins - I was their babysitter when they were little. Once we all started having kids and we moved away, we didn't gather at Christmas any more, and we didn't have enough in common to keep us bonded. We keep in touch by Christmas cards and social media updates, but the next time we all convene will probably be either a funeral or a wedding, although we did not invite all of these cousins to our sons' weddings, which were small.  

Part of me thinks, "Go to Ireland." It's a special celebration with performances and art and music in a beautiful location. It's our 30th anniversary year, and it's summer, and our accommodations are provided.  Our college kids are home to watch the 12 year old and dog, which may not happen again next year.

Another part of me thinks, "Go to the reunion." I committed to that six months ago, and it would mean a lot to my cousin who is organizing it. In a way it is a tribute to my aunt and uncle, who supported me when I was in grad school with two little toddlers.  My husband will have other reasons to visit this campus abroad and doesn't have an urgent reason to go to this event, other than to mark the anniversary. We've been to Ireland once, we have only limited time with our college students home for the summer, we are taking other trips, and we have some more home renovations taking place (new windows and green roof on the sun room). I'm teaching a new class in the fall and need to prep. The reunion is also an opportunity to see my other aunt and uncle, whom I love and don't see often.  

But who knows what the future will bring? The next time my husband needs to go to Ireland it may be much more difficult to make arrangements between child care, time off work, and potentially parent care.  Although the next time he needs to go could more convenient.  He also has other campuses abroad to tend to.

Who knows what the future will bring for my family? This reunion could be an opportunity to strengthen ties that have been weakened, even between my own siblings.  

I know I am way overthinking this decision, as I tend to do many decisions these days. I can't commit to chairs for the basement or furniture for the sun room, for goodness sakes. Sometimes I think I might have developed executive processing disorder, or maybe it is decision fatigue. Maybe I need a better decision tree/rubric that provides a set of questions related to values and priorities that I could use to make these kinds of decisions.

For example, what values are at play in this decision?  The reunion satisfies the value I place on time with family and strengthening relationships. 

Going to Ireland satisfies the value I place on time with my husband sharing experiences that strengthen our relationship. I also value educational experiences including travel, supporting the arts, and experiencing other cultures.  This would be a budget trip to Ireland because we would just have to buy my ticket and some meals. 

However, I also see some value in simplifying the rest of our summer, which is off to a busy start. My environmental side and my frugal side see some value to staying local, as does the side of me which values the time to complete projects, including those home projects and research and study and writing that are disrupted by planning, packing, and unpacking for trips. 

Is this trip to Ireland a once in a lifetime opportunity? No. Is the family reunion? No. Could they both be? Yes. We could all die tomorrow.  And now I've just spent another hour of my finite life internally debating this decision, time which needs to be spent on other things, and I'm not sure writing about this has made my mind any clearer, as I was hoping. Any thoughts? 

An image of Kylemore Abbey from Wikipedia

Blooming

 Although a frost or a freeze is called for this weekend, spring is in full bloom in this part of the country. Last weekend, I channeled my latent DIY spirit and made some cedar raised beds to put on the side of the house for a vegetable/cut flower garden. My husband cut the boards from cedar fence rails, and I got our 12 year old to help me screw them into place. (I'm hoping to keep her involved in the garden project.) Then we stapled some weed barrier to the bottom - a very simple structure, but it always feels good to make something yourself. The biggest expense is the cost of the dirt, because the weed barrier was from Goodwill and the cedar planks were only $4 apiece. I did fill about half of the bottom with cuttings from our decorative grasses and some other yard waste, but I wish I had kept a bag of leaves from the fall for compost. Something to plan for next year!

 The challenge is going to be sunlight. I'm pretty sure plants will struggle in this location because it is in full shade for most of the day, but there aren't too many other places a vegetable garden can go in our yard. We have various islands of shrubbery in the front and just a small patch of grass in the back. It has been interesting to see what is coming up. More daffodils that I anticipated and a few tulips that I didn't plant in addition to some that I had planted have bloomed. The tulips I planted were the ones dug up by the university after they were finished blooming on campus. These leftover bulbs are given away to faculty and staff. About half of them bloomed, while some of the others sent up leaves but no bud, and a few of the buds were gnawed by the rabbits before they bloomed. At any rate, each bloom was a source of delight. 

Since we didn't see the house in the spring last year, the blooming season has been more exciting than normal. First we had some oriental spice viburnums burst into bloom. They aren't showy but they smell intoxicating. There is a twiggy redbud in the corner of the yard that I'm sure is a volunteer, but I don't plan to dig it up.  We have one sad forsythia bush - I bought another on the clearance rack last week to place near the remains of the one that did bloom a little. 

Then we were pleased to see a dwarf crabapple in the back - could be something else, but the flowers look like a crabapple. Despite having some sort of black fungus, the ornamental plum put out a full show, but a storm knocked these flowers down shortly after they bloomed. The neighbor's magnolia and big old crabapple weathered the storm much better, and they are close enough to our patio that we can enjoy their perfume.  

Now the dogwoods are blooming, and the hydrangeas are leafing out. The peonies have buds - I hope they hold off from blooming for 2 weeks so they are showy for graduation weekend. There is another shrub with buds -  maybe a weigelia? - and one that looks like a lilac cultivar.  A new lilac is on my wishlist, as is a bleeding heart.  The lily of the valley are flourishing, making the backyard smells like a parfumerie. I discovered a few old fashioned forget-me-nots, which I didn't photograph, but was thrilled to see. The combination of those three shade loving spring beauties always reminds me of the courtyard garden in the little stone house where I lived for my first seven years.  How persistent are our aesthetic inclinations toward our first memories of loveliness!

I'm hoping Sunday it will warm up enough to plant some of the garden boxes. I think there are some old storm windows and doors in the attic that I could place on top to make a sort of cold frame, but a friend told me Mother's Day was planting day around here, when danger of frost declines dramatically. I won't ever forget, though, how we had snow on my birthday, May 24th, when we lived north of Chicago.  That was years ago, but with wild weather patterns lately, anything feels possible.  

And I'm hopeful anything might possibly grow in my shady garden boxes! We'll shall see.

The koi and the water plants survived the winter. Some amorous toads visited for a few days, and now we have hundreds of tadpoles as well. 

An iris has bloomed, somewhat dwarfish, to keep St. Fiacre company. Despite losing his head a few years ago, this little statue has accompanied us on several moves.

Fancy tulips planted by the previous owners.

Some late narcissus under the dogwood. The hostas are in full leaf now, too. I was hopeful our dogwood would be pink, but the white is pretty.

My rabbit chaser

Some Solomon's seal

The white tulips from campus. They grow tall and sturdy, while the fancy pinks have drooping stems - maybe from the weight of the multiflora petals?

Spring Celebrations

 April is a joyful month around here. Not only are the spring bulbs bursting into color and the flowering trees showering the ground with pale petals and filling the air with sweet fragrances, but our table is laden with good things to eat as we celebrate Easter and birthdays, and our days are full of happy conversations and sunny walks ... or starry at night ...or gray and rainy, as is also often the case!

After our celebration of Easter with the family, so much closer now that visiting isn't an "Event" but a get-together, we celebrated my daughter's and my husband's birthdays with the neighbors who have 2 April birthdays in their house, too.  They like to joke that April is the best birthday month, and it is true that many people I love are born in April. But I also love my February, March, May, June, July, and September birthday havers. And those born in October, November and December.  I believe the month of January and August are also awesome months for birthdays, because I know a couple wonderful people born in those months, also.

This year our birthday celebrations were understated since they fell so close to Easter.  The week after Easter was also Spring Break. My daughter decided against having a party since so many friends were going to be on vacation. We stayed an extra day at my parents' farm to spend time with the cousins and niece/grandbaby. Tuesday  we both got our hair cut at the salon, which was a treat, but Wednesday, her actual birthday, was pretty quiet and dull. We took a long walk, and her brother came over for dinner and to eat eclair dessert, a family favorite made with Cool Whip and pudding mix, graham crackers, and a chocolate frosting. It's best made a day ahead, and fortunately we had time to let the pudding mix soften the graham crackers. But she was little glum on her birthday - getting sweet notes and cards from her friends in Texas may have amplified her sadness rather than alleviated it because she was reminded of how much she missed them.  She has made some friends at her new school, but friendship that is kinship takes more time. 

Although Wednesday was a dull day, we made up for it on Thursday. I had hemmed and hawed about what to do for this 12th birthday, since she didn't want a party. A trip to Chicago for museums and shopping had been on my mind as an activity for spring break, but I ended up committing to adding a special event to make the trip even more special - last minute tickets to Hamilton. So the birthday celebration was a triple treat: We took the train to and from Chicago to visit, by her request, the Shedd Aquarium, to shop at the American Girl store, and to take in Hamilton.  

The trip and the show were phenomenal! We already loved the story and music from having watched the PBS version.  But the live performance, even without the original Broadway cast, was transporting. l could hardly tell a difference! Of course, I'm no expert, and there is a part of me that thinks perhaps there SHOULD be a difference.  To be fair, all the actors were incredibly talented, and the actors who portrayed George Washington and Angelica Skylar especially stood out because they had their own sound. The actor who played Hamilton injected some different energy and didn't sound exactly like Lin-Manuel Miranda, but it is a bit uncanny how similar Elizabeth Skylar and King George and Lafayette were to the original cast.  Regardless, the production is genius.  The lyrics blow me away every time, and even though I feel a catch in my throat hearing "Quiet Uptown" on the radio, hearing it in person brought on the tears. 

That was the highlight of spring break, for sure.  Since our return train didn't pull into the South Bend station until 2:30 am, Friday was a lazy sleep-in + errands day.  LK had horse back riding lessons and a play date on Saturday, and then we celebrated April birthdays with the neighbors on Sunday, which was a lot of fun.  Their son just turned 4, so our contribution to the dinner was a dump truck cake - a frosted cake shaped like a truck dumping fruit out of the back.  Then Monday was my husband's birthday, which we celebrated again with more treats - cheesecake this time - and a tenderloin dinner with our son. A part of me wished I had planned a little better for our time off, but we ended up making some lifetime memories. 

Train travel is my favorite! Love watching the landscape from the window.

Chicago!

At the Shedd Aquarium

Starfish touch tank. Visiting the aquarium brought back so many memories of our life in Guam.

The belugas are the highlight of the Shedd

Mother and baby beluga

Along the lakeshore - not quite warm enough yet for the trees to burst into bloom, but warm enough for short sleeves!

Another portrait in the Bean at Millennium park

Which doll do you like best?

Walking by Italian Village, scene of one of our early fancy dinner dates.

Show time!

Fancy ice cream after the show

Behind the dinosaur museum is a prairie conservation nature preserve, complete with a herd of bison.

The nature preserve is along the continental divide. South Bend doesn't have much elevation - this is one of the highest spots.

At the dinosaur museum

A tall 12 year old!