smurf away somewhere

sitting on the bathroom floor while selkie has a bath. today my dad brought out the immense collection of smurfs that my brother jarrod played with when he was a kid, and the grandchildren are smitten.

i am slightly horrified, but not going to dwell on it too much.

here in franklin for a couple more days. had to buy a new carry-on suitcase today to bring back all the stuff that we have accumulated over the past two months. watched my daughter decide on her first pair of low-top converse. sparkly black, with sparkly blue shoelaces. spent way too much time playing our family card game with my mom and brother.

its called lashination, just for those who are interested.

today is also my anniversary. my husband is currently in nebraska with another man. i am comfortable with this. he deserves time with his best friend. hasn't been away from us in a long time and he deserves a break.

me too, come to think of it.

while my brother teased me incessantly today and my mother drove me crazy for various infractions and my son told me he was given a coke despite THE THEME OF THE SUMMER BEING YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DRINK COKE, DAMNIT i really really really really wanted to run away for a little while. go somewhere quiet and peaceful, preferably with trees and coolish summer air.

there is the saying that you always need a vacation from the vacation. but when you are gone for as long as i am, when you are actually living somewhere else for two months, it can't really be called that.

total number of times packed and unpacked in various places in new england: 14. i've lost three pairs of socks. and gained way too much stuff, including giant pieces of birch bark which are slowly making their way across the country with the aforementioned husband/best friend road trip.

taking what i can back with me. taking what i need, what i don't, and the longing for what i wish i could bring.

fenway

hey, baseball fans.

remember that awesome triple play in fenway last night? the only good moment for jed lowrie? the first triple play since 1994 for the red sox?

a rarity, right?

and you would perhaps remember that my family and i were there last night, past the third base line in beautiful seats. and perhaps you might've thought, "oh wow, holly and her kids got to see that amazing play in person--how cool!" you might've thought that.

please give me a call and let me know if you yourself got to see that play, and then you can tell me what happened. i did not see it. i was giving money to the teenager at the ice cream stand in the concourse at the park. i was buying my ridiculously ungrateful children overpriced soft serve in souvenir miniature batting helmets when a raucous cry of exhaltation shook the rafters and those of us who were not looking at the tv monitors were left scrambling and saying, "what happened?? what happened??"

a triple play, that's what.

and if you happened to be inside fenway park last night, did you catch me and selkie up on the jumbotron in the sixth inning? and wasn't it cool that they showed highlights of dwight evans and he was there in person? were you as sad that you didn't get to see david ortiz or youk play as we were?

for the record, the park itself is even more beautiful than you remember.

rainy days and mondays

its been raining all day long. turns out that when its humid and rainy, my hair gets a little bit wavy. it almost looks like it could have some life in it. its a pleasant little shock to realize this.

i drove back and forth to nashua, new hampshire twice today, following the rural back roads that i have memorized only from years of use. no clue about names of towns i'm driving through. no sense of direction or surety of street names. just pure physical driving memory, which only seems to work in the daytime. at night i'm inevitably lost.

whenever i see cows, which is quite often, i lovingly shout "hello, beauties!"

there is something so heartwarming to know that i can walk into a marshall's or tj maxx and find an entire section of red sox gear for men, women and children. i could have bought my own red sox shirt today, but i didn't. it just pleased me to know that the option was there.

milo and selkie went to their first camp of the summer today, a local day camp held at a junior high school. they both walked in and quickly said goodbye without looking back, as alex and i left them with complete strangers for the first time in their lives. it was disconcerting. it was exciting. i was happy to realize that i thought they both could handle it. and selkie did. she had a blast; told me all about the drawing "contest" the counselors had given the kids and how the winners got silly bandz. (i kept my mouth shut about it but jesus, a drawing contest for six year olds? could anything make me want to scream more?) milo, on the other hand, first reported the sports camp was fine and then as the evening went on dissolved into heavy tears, explaining that "everyone was so mean, EVERYONE" and told stories about the bigger boys taking away his ball and not giving it back to him. (those assholes.) he's going back tomorrow, despite his protests otherwise, but he may switch to the younger camp, just to keep his heart safe.

later tomorrow we are taking our children to fenway park for their first game, thanks to the luck of the gods and a good friend of alex's who was kind enough to give us tickets. twelve rows up the third base line tickets. sox vs. rays. my children under the lights of fenway. i don't actually know if i can handle this or not. it makes me remember my first time at fenway when i was seven or so, wearing my homemade rick burleson uniform (#7) and sitting next to my brother in his official rico petrocelli uniform and eating ice cream out of little plastic sox hats.

it was so beautiful. even then, as a little kid, i knew how gorgeous that ballpark was. and now i get to introduce it to my kids.

i can't take it.

i'm meandering all over the place tonight. can't find a thru-line to this post except that i am here writing it. which may be enough.

the rain sounds like magic.

mass

its been a while.

we went up to new hampshire with my family, and stayed in a condo with no internet. who has a condo to rent with no internet these days? i mean, yes, the river behind the house was lovely and the mountains were beautiful, but damnit, how am i supposed to get my emails?

now i'm at my in-laws, listening to my husband scrape the side of their house in preparation for painting while talking to his mom about the red sox. he's going deeper into the season then i have the knowledge to follow. i'm glad he has her to talk to about this.

i'm making soup from scratch right now, no recipe in sight, just feeling my way along. i think that this has become my general approach to my life in general, with a heaping amount of fresh rosemary thrown in for good measure. lots of spices and herbs. lots of missteps and possible bad choices, but in the end it all seems to taste okay.

i seem to taste okay.

i have about 10 days left in my massachusetts life, then i'm back to california and all the people there who keep my sane and whole. i'm full of apprehension about going back to cali, because i'm about to become a college student again, at the same time that i am a full-time teacher and mom.

not sure how i'm going to pull that shit off, to be honest.

end of summer always makes me melancholy. i'm sure if i went back to my previous blog i'd find longing posts that rhapsodize about late summer memories, all to the tune of "boys of summer" by don henley. "out on the road today, i saw a deadhead sticker on a cadillac, a little voice inside my head said, don't look back, you can never look back".

it was many many years into my life until i really understood what a deadhead sticker was. i think i spent my adolescent years convinced that the grateful dead worshipped the devil, along with kiss and ozzy osbourne.

i didn't really have broad taste in music back then. i listened to mostly pop radio, and didn't have an awareness of good music. except for the beastie boys, thank you very much, and they were given to me by someone else.

anyway, i digress.

i miss my dogs and my closet, and the ability to choose a different colored pair of converse to wear. i can't wait to see the seventeen children who will make up my kindergarten class this year. i'm looking forward to routine again. my routine.

however, as we crossed the new hampshire line last night into massachusetts, i felt my heart leap, simply because i read the name of the state where i was born. i love this place, body and soul. still can't deny it, still don't want to.

i will forever be lodged here; a piece of my heart left behind each and every time i take off for my home away from home.

sad

woke up this morning to the sound of rain hitting the roof of a house that isn't mine.

i think today i've got the vacation blues. i'm weary of suitcases and transporting and packing and repacking and no trader joes. i'm just tired.

can't stop crying, to be honest.

more sad news this week as an old friend's brother from high school died unexpectedly at age 40. wondering what it is about this summer, about all the dying that has been around me. i mean, i know people die all the time--every hour, minute, whatever--if you think about it in a global sense this is not a shock. there is no sense or reason to this. this is life on this planet. beings die, beings are born. we all go on.

still, this one is getting to me.

kevin was one of the nicest people i've ever known, and even though i hadn't seen him for many years it is clear that he continued to inspire everyone who knew him. he was a good person for this place. he took care of others, strangers and family alike. he was deeply loved.

and so now all of these people who are in his circle are mourning him. and i'm mourning him for his brother, who was one of my closest friends in high school. and for his parents. dear god, his parents. this is when people say "i can't imagine what they are going through" but the truth is, we can. we all can.

i can, and i guess this is one reason why i'm so sad. it seems there's always a moment in grief when it takes a more self-reflective stance (selfish?) and i think about what it all means for me. maybe everyone does that. maybe its natural. but i look at my family, my life, and think about what it would mean if i died suddenly tomorrow, or if alex did. or my brothers. or any of my dear friends.

i don't have a will, or life insurance. don't have plans for what should happen to me after i go. none of that stuff. i guess if anything this summer sort of shakes me into action about that. i have to make some plans, don't i? its time.

but for today, i'm just so sad. thinking about this small community of mine, this franklin, massachusetts town--a place where i am forever connected to these people who shaped my teenage years and helped to make me who i am right now. we are all so sad.

the rain came along to help us today.

brain trust

someone else's alarm clock woke me up this morning. there is a scent of twelve different kinds of soap in the air. footsteps in the hall vary in weight and determination.

ah, dorm life.

i'm here in bennington working at what i love so much, trying to learn more about who i am as a teacher and a human being, trying to get through dense articles written by strange german men and coming to grips with terms like "phenomenology". trying to participate in exercises where we figure out the relative position of the moon to the earth; where we are given a passage in greek and asked to decode as much as we can. trying to make my voice heard and asking what something means when i just don't get it.

i've become really brave about raising my hand when i'm lost in a room.

meanwhile, during my breaks, i come back to my room and read agatha christie and watch "the daily show" and eat chocolate and listen to music, because i have to keep myself in check and in line. despite this work, despite the intensity of thought and focus, i am still in need of the things that keep me sane. things that keep me interesting.

so many of my peers here have been working in their fields for decades, have been studying descriptive inquiry since i was a kid. i am amazed at their tenacity and work ethic, and most of all at their ability to retain information. simply put, they are really fucking smart. and it takes all that i have everyday to not go down the very crooked path of beating myself up for not being an intelligent person, for not being an academic.

'cause i'm not.

i'm trying to remind myself that my smartness is anchored in moments with other humans, in my capacity for love and respect and thirst for connection. i'm most brilliant when i'm with someone who needs me. i'm smart enough to know to offer my thanks to the people who work in the cafeteria everyday. i've got enough brain power to realize the beauty of my surroundings and the opportunity for growth that presents itself here.

i'm not book smart, not full of theory.

just smart enough to feel like i deserve to live on this planet, like i have something to offer the other creatures who are here on it with me. and for today, for this beautiful morning, i'm gonna say that's brainy enough.