Month: November 2021

Chris and I are getting ready to go see Dinosaur Jr. at the 9:30 Club this evening. It was one of my favorite bands in the 90’s, and I’m so excited they got together to put out a new album and tour.

But sheesh. They probably won’t even go on until…9:30? That’s my bedtime. Oh well, guess I’ll have to rally and channel my 20-something self. Yawn. I mean “Yeah!”

The kids have been back for in-person piano lessons since the summer, and I have found it comforting to be back in the studio sitting room, where we’ve been bringing the kids since Edwin was just shy of four.

Elaine’s melodic counting as she works one-on-one with students, the rhythmic drumming of the other students’ fingers on electric keyboards as they listen with headphones, the harmony as they all join together, and the music floating down from the private lesson above all work together to lull me back into a sense of normalcy.

Now, I love Elaine with all my heart. She has been an incredible piano teacher all these years and will only cancel a lesson if snowfall accumulates more than a few feet (for real). But…she has a penchant for those horrible Glade plug-ins. Over the years, some parents have expressed mild displeasure at them, one sent her an article about the possible harm of them, and others of us passive-aggressively unplug them.

Here I am surrounded by a sickly sweet, chemically-engineered pumpkin spice aroma, and I can’t figure out where she’s hidden the darn thing. And she’s been keeping the studio door open to the sitting room for air flow, so she’ll see me if I hunt in earnest.

These cloying aromas I have not missed so much.

My sister, her husband, and their son and daughter came over this evening. We had been meaning to get together for a while, and when her daughter lamented the fact that she hadn’t seen Maxine since the summer, we agreed this was outrageous and pinned down a date.

I had been wondering if the four cousins would click easily after letting several months go by. After all, the differences in ages can matter a lot during these years. Our kids are 16 and 14, theirs 11 and 9.

I needn’t have worried. As soon as they were in the door, off the four of them scurried. Over the course of the evening, they played with the cats, listened to records in Edwin’s room, played video games, hung out in the hot tub, and watched Disney’s Robin Hood (the best one, in my opinion).

There’s something very special about cousins. Just like a sibling, you can afford little skirmishes here and there because you know they’re not going anywhere, which is very comforting. Unlike a sibling, however, an air of excitement surrounds a cousin because you don’t get to see them every day. At least, that’s what it was like for me growing up with my cousins. Here, here for cousins.

I went to the farmers market this morning in search of a birthday gift for a friend. She has a number of dietary restrictions and a discerning taste. I had a vague idea of flowers in mind.

I came across lovely bundles of peach colored stalks of ilex berries, also known as winterberry. I purchased a bundle, put it in a carafe with warm water, and tied a shimmery russet orange ribbon around it. Perfect for an autumn birthday gift.

At the end of the evening, as friends prepared to leave my house, they proposed a walk through the neighborhood to get their dogs out. I declared that Sasha had been so slow lately and would be a major drag as we climbed the big hill. Better to let Edwin just take her for a slow crawl around the block.

As I prepared to leave, Sasha pawed at my leg and wagged her tail.

“Oh, fine. But you better not stop every five seconds.”

As we stepped into the night air, I decided to keep her off-leash for most of the walk, hoping this would encourage her to keep up with the pack.

Sasha did not disappoint. She trotted along at a brisk pace, and when we picked up her friend, Drexel, she maintained her clip as we started up the big hill.

When we reached our destination, their friend, Roxy, bounded out of her house, and the three of them raced around the backyard in a blur of fur and tails. Sasha slowed down after a bit (after all, she is nearly 12 and the others are around four and two years old), but she managed to keep up with her pal on our way back down the hill.

By the time we reached our block, she had slowed to her typical crawl. I think she was mostly just bored by this point and back on the leash.

I guess it’s all a state of mind.

We took advantage of the day off and drove out to Chantilly to visit an old family friend. She was one of my older sister’s closest friends throughout high school and after.

Michelle has always been magical to me. When I was in upper elementary school and middle school, my sister was heavily involved in the theater department as part of the tech crew and later as stage manager. Michelle always landed the lead roles and turned in what I considered to be Tony-worthy performances. I was over the moon when she beat out the snobby girl for Homecoming Queen in 1985.

Michelle has always been magnetic and has never lost her joy of life, and I’ve seen this woman weather some pretty heavy stuff.

These days Michelle runs a wellness studio with her husband, she a yoga therapist and he a chiropractor. They have always been so generous with our family, refusing to accept payment for relieving our pain, adjusting our spines, and teaching us stretches to bring balance back to our bodies.

In return, Chris has repaired wooden chairs for them and helped them move studios. Today I assembled a gift basket to bring to them for the latest miracle adjustment her husband gave me when I knocked my back out of whack late last summer. When I tried to pay him, he shook his head and said, “Michelle would kill me.”

Michelle was beaming when we arrived and was her usual bubbly self as she engaged all of us in conversation. She has a way of making you feel like the most important person in the world. Everybody can use some of that, right?

I used to run as my go-to form of exercise, but I’ve been turning more frequently to HIIT workouts over the past year, partly seeking a more balanced exercise program, but truthfully, it’s largely in response to the toll running takes on my body.

With the weather turning warm yesterday, I couldn’t resist putting on shorts and a tank top and dashing out the door into the cooling dusk. The sun was setting and turning the sky bright orange on the horizon. As I passed by fellow runners and wove through clusters of people walking dogs, pushing strollers, and chatting into their ear buds, I thought to myself that I couldn’t imagine a life without running. I love the efficiency of it, the air rushing over me, and the burst of clarity that lasts a few hours afterward.

However… I felt it the next day. My right hip was cursing my name, and my knee joined in periodically to scold me.

Whatever. Today proved to be another warm day, so on went my running shoes and out the door I flew. I was a little slower today and had to answer for a little soreness in my hip. I’m not totally in denial; I (think) I can tell the difference between soreness and a warning that something is about to go very wrong.

I spent a good half hour stretching when I got home from my run this afternoon, but just to play it safe, I think I’ll stick to my HIIT workouts and my Sunday morning swim for the next several days.

I just love these kitty cats.

Jessie is a sweet, skittish, silky-furred, wide-eyed beauty. She’ll rub her face against you and usually sleeps between my feet.

Ricky is bit of a knucklehead. He cries for food, chews through curtain strings, and lies in the middle of my yoga mat when I’m trying to stretch. He chases Sasha’s tail and tries to eat her food. He’s my pumpkin head.

I’ve just spent over an hour collecting songs, poems, and self-portraits as a first step toward putting together a cohesive enrichment plan for my students who are ready to fly.

Most of them are not ready to fly. They hop around a little and come fluttering and sputtering back. Some, in fact, won’t even entertain the idea of leaving the nest. If I try to nudge them out, they don’t spread their wings and fly; they just thud to the ground.

What do parent (teacher) birds do in the wild? I have a feeling that they give it the old college try and then move along. I’m not getting paid to just move along, so I had better get these little birdies what they need.

I just got back from a soup exchange, and I’m very excited about choosing my soup for tomorrow’s lunch. About 12 of us gathered in a friend’s front yard, each of us bearing portions of homemade soup to share. The idea is to bring 10 eight-ounce containers of soup and leave with 10 new ones. Actually, three of us (including me), should have tripled our recipes instead of doubling them because we came with eight and left with eight. I scraped every last bit out of the pot to fill up the eighth container. I was kicking myself because mine came out delicious, and now I won’t get any. It’s a pureed carrot soup with a chermoula drizzle. Well, at least I know which soup I’m making next.

I see some of these women on a regular basis and weathered the pandemic with them, but it was really nice to see the others and catch up. They were very curious about how school is going, and as I talked with one woman, I described how coming out of this pandemic with the students feels like peeling back layer after layer of sleep. At the beginning of the year, I was so excited to be back in the classroom and overjoyed to see them interacting with one another that it took me a while to realize how much the pandemic set them back, to fully register the fragility with which they have come to us.

I notice a slight fragility in myself and other adults, as well. I feel a greater hesitancy to socialize with people beyond my usual bubble. I feel more tired than I used to after flitting from one conversation to the next. After about an hour, we all packed up our soups, thanked our host, and drove or walked home. The tone was upbeat but definitely more subdued than in years past.

I started blogging again for a number of reasons, but one important one is that it will help me to see the bigger picture of the effect of the pandemic on me and those around me over time. I feel I can’t quite see the forest for the trees yet.