Lasts, Firsts, and the Joy in Between

A few weeks back, the afternoon forecast called for sleet and I asked JT to ride with me to school so that I could drive him home after wrestling practice.  I try to be a courageous mama when my boy is behind the wheel, but sleet in the dark was more than my heart could bear.

For the better part of the last 14 years, we have driven to school together.  Since he got his license and his car, it’s been easier for JT to drive himself to school.  It allows him to sleep in a little later (or leave early for a 6 am run on the towpath at school…..I am not kidding), and otherwise makes things easier on us both.  It was something of an epiphany for me to be able to go to the gym and then head home, rather than rush back to school anxious that I would get there before his practice had ended.

As we drove home on that icy afternoon, I idly wondered if it would be the last ride to school we would make together.  He’s been my commuter companion since the Fall of 2003.  First, as a three year old in a car seat with his binky, his blanket, and an assortment of the things he collected in his pockets; then as a little boy in a booster seat, singing along with the car radio and angling for a toasted coconut donut from Dunkin’ Donuts.  Later, he was my front seat companion, choosing a music playlist or bemoaning my NPR-listening ways.  For the last few years, he was my teenage companion, putting on headphones and pulling his hoody over his head.

In short, we’ve ridden many miles together.  On that icy Monday, afternoon I wondered how many more rides to school we would make together.  A dozen?  A few?  None?  Had I just made my last mama-and-her-boy school commute?  

There are so many lasts in the world of parenting —— the last time my baby crawled; the last time he used his binky; the last time I read him a story before he went to sleep; the last time he played in the backyard sprinkler.  And yet, when it comes to a child, these “lasts” are expected, even sought.  I’m not the only parent who has no memory of these lasts; they were part of the always-changing landscape of a child growing up.  After all, giving up crawling is how a child walks.  And so many of those lasts were followed by thrilling new firsts.

It feels like a different landscape as I envision 2018, which will find my son heading away from home, moving away to college.  The “lasts” that will precede the move to college seem like they should be more momentous.  But I’m aware that focusing on the “lasts” puts me at risk for worrying so much about them that I lose sight of the “now.”  And so I redirect my thoughts to the happiness in the moment.

From the very first time I held him in my arms, I’ve known that’s it’s my job to raise an independent human being, one who can take on the challenges and joys of life with perseverance and confidence.  That means finding happiness and becoming his own person.  That means changes and new things.  It means there will be some lasts in life.

For me, getting my son to that independence meant making sure he knew that he was loved beyond measure, so that he could head out in the world confident in his value as a person.  I’ve had 18 years to show that love by building memories and traditions together.  In this season of transition, as so many “lasts” occur, I’m determined to live in the moment, sure in the knowledge that though 18 years passed by at the speed of light, there are still so many firsts yet to come.

February 1: Hostas in the Winter

Each month this year, I’m having a look at the hosta beds in my garden and writing about them.  As it turns out, the outward difference between hosta beds in January and February is negligible.  It’s been a month of Winter’s cold and darkness.  Most often, I view the hosta beds from the comfort of the cozy indoors, where garden catalogs promise that the next season will be lovely, even while the garden this month is still.

And yet, I know the days are slowly creeping toward more light, a transition I mark in my journal each day.  Today, the sun rose at 7:09 am and set at 5:16 pm, with light lingering afterward.  That’s more light than January 1st, when the sun rose at 7:22 am and set at 4:42 pm.  By the end of February, the sun will rise at 6:34 am and set at 5:48 pm, taking us from just over 11 hours of daylight in the day to just over 12 hours.  It’s a glorious promise.

Gardening has taught me to plan for the future but also to appreciate the here and now.  It takes Winter’s cold to prepare my hostas for Spring and Summer growth.  In much the same way, cold Winter days makes Spring’s warmth that much more pleasing to experience.  For now, I do my best to wait patiently, enjoying each day, secure in the promise that there is sunlight and growth still to come.

January Book Report: The Hearth and Eagle

Since I picked up Anya Seton’s  The Winthrop Woman last year, I’ve been interested in Seton’s other works.  She writes about women, usually historical women.  I’ve read two more of her novels, including this month’s book report, a book about two women who lived in Marblehead, Massachusetts: Phebe, present at the founding of the colonial town when Massachusetts was a Puritan settlement and Hester, one of Phebe’s 19th century descendents.

The stories are intertwined as Hester’s father is proud of his family’s legacy.  The novel is powerful because of Seton’s writings about women, in this case women from an historical time in which women’s stories were often lost.  As a novelist, Seton is sometimes uneven but as an historian, she is thorough and her imagined characters are surrounded by a rich and accurate historical world.  In this respect, Seton’s musings on the lives of women lost to history is powerful.

I think of this often, teaching 7th graders early American history.  They love to step into the feet of historical people and it’s a challenge for me to ensure that they step into the shoes of a variety of historical lives.  Famous founders, of course, are easy enough to bring back to life as their works and works about them are abundant.  But the lives of working men and women who are the backbone of the American people are harder to animate.  The histories of the enslaved and the poor are often hazy, their lives lost or ignored in the stories of those with the time and the skill to write.

So a novelist like Seton helps me to feel those forgotten people.  I add them to the established social history that we know and then use it to teach my students about the lives of 1625 or 1860 and everything in between.   I’ve got a few more Seton novels in my pile of books to-be read and I look forward to filling my mind with more musings on the ordinary lives of those whose history is the foundation of our world.

Amaryllis Tuesday: January 30

Not to put any pressure on the amaryllis, but February is on the horizon, little bulb, and I’m really starting to fret.

I know its cold, but it’s time to summon your courage and get after it.

Pretty Package: Tiny edition

I wrapped this tiny package last weekend. 

It's as cute as a minute and that makes me smile.

Stripes!

I have always wanted a Dash & Albert rug, and for Christmas, my parents gave me one for the living room.  Dash & Albert designs tend to distinct and tidy patterns ---- with a lot of stripes, ikat, Moroccan tile, and marled designs with a huge variety of color options.  I picked stripes.

I love stripes just as much as I love polka dots.  They feel neat and stylish to me and I like that.   

The range of colors hides a variety of sins and that’s a good thing when you live with cats.  

The rug ties the living room together and makes the space cozy.   It makes me smile every time I walk into the room.  That’s happy.

Amaryllis Tuesday: January 23

Around here, there has been a temporary ceasefire in the frigid Winter temperatures.  It was 50 degrees and sunny on Saturday and JT and I were ready to pull out our shorts and flip flops.  I advised the amaryllis to soak up the sun.

It’s the start of week four for the bulb and, right on schedule, I have started to worry that it won’t ever grow.

Be patient, the bulb reminds me.  And so I wait.

One Year In

I have a searing memory of Trump’s Inaugural address last year, which presented his dystopian view of America and, in hindsight, gave us a glimpse of the political year he would bring us: blustering lies and bold attempts to turn back every piece of progress that the Obama Administration had managed to secure from the last eight years of a begrudging and polarized Republican party.

In the days immediately after Trump’s ugly January 2017 speech, my students and I studied Jefferson’s inaugural address in 1801, the product of another election that bitterly divided the nation.  In his address, President Jefferson emphasized all the things that bound the nation together and he organized a vision of continued unity, with both political parties, the Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans, working together in the national interest.  Sparks between the two sides would still fly, but with a measured, thoughtful leader at the helm, the nation didn’t just survive.  It endured.

I keep thinking of 1801 as I assess the year that was 2017 and the year that 2018 is shaping up to be.  I continue to believe that we are living in an era of party change; I think that the Republican party is in the midst of a spectacular smash-up.  But as the party crashes, the nation is experiencing collateral damage that may endure far longer than I anticipated when Trump won the presidency in 2016.  His first year was a wake-up call to the notion that though the presidency isn’t particularly powerful as conceived in the Constitution, it has become very powerful indeed.  It was a reminder that checks and balances in the form of legislative power only work when the legislature is prepared to fulfill its responsibilities.

We don’t have that kind of Congress right now.  Republicans, so polarized that the only thing that unites them is their fear of losing power, have yielded authority to a president that they know to be ill-informed, racist, and self-absorbed.  The current shutdown, an unprecedented event when one party has control of both the executive and legislative branch, is evidence that the GOP has boarded the Trump Train and won’t get off even as it derails.

A party willing to jam through a tax plan that only 30% of the nation approved of can’t pull together a budget plan.  Why?  Because they are torn apart on what to do for the Dreamers and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.  This, even as DACA and CHIP enjoy the support of north of 80% of the American public.  The only thing more irrational than that sentence is today’s Republican party.  

If there is hope for a future it’s got to come from within ourselves.  In a government built upon the nation of “We the people,” it’s well-past time for the people to suit up and require our government to govern in our interests and to do it well.  It’s not easy because we are often an ill-informed citizenry, taking greater joy in name-calling and the news of Kardashians, when we should be doing the hard work of asking difficult questions and informing ourselves.  I have long believed that the people get the government that they deserve.  I believe that the current mess reflects that painful reality.  We must demand better of ourselves as citizens so that we can demand more of our government and leaders.  It won’t be easy but it is not impossible and it is the only path forward.  Greatness must lie within the people; only then can we find the leaders we deserve.

Real Life Conversations with Middle Schoolers, Bullying edition

The backstory:  We are studying George Washington’s presidency and I explained to my class the issues that drove the Jay Treaty.  Discussing British refusal to evacuate the West or stop impressment of American sailors, I characterized British actions as if they were a bully.

Me:  So it’s like England was giving a young United States a wedgie and then jamming the U.S. into a locker.

Student R:  Oh man….America needs to tell an adult.

At that, we all burst into laughter.  And, as a happy aside….we all understand the problems and perils of the Jay Treaty.

Amaryllis Tuesday: January 16

We’re at the start of the third week for the amaryllis bulb and the bulb has yet to show growth above the soil.   As I wait, I check the bulb every day.  Then I repeat the mantra of the gardener: “be patient,” I say, “good things take time.”

As I wait, I remind myself to live in the moment, to enjoy today and let tomorrow take care of itself.  Some days, that’s easier than others.  But there are flowers to come. And so I wait.