Midsummer night's eve is still a week away, and the kids have only been out of school a week, but already it feels that it has been summer for months. Maybe that is because it has been 104 degrees for the past two weeks, with the 10 day forecast on the weather app calling for temps over a 100 for the forecastable future. Or maybe because we just returned from a 3000 mile road trip. Our brand new car is already 2000 miles past due for its 5000 mile check up.
Time for an update:
The biggest news: Our fourth son/fifth child graduated from high school three weeks after his brother graduated from college. After having to move his senior year, the high schooler adjusted well and told his uncle who came for the graduation that even though he thought the administration of his school is corrupt (which means something different to teens - like they enforce uniform regulations irregularly and apparently ask for hall passes unfairly and at times reprimand students for being wild in the parking lots), he had formed stronger friendships and learned more in his classes. That is some consolation after the heartache that accompanied this move. He'll be following in his older brothers' footsteps in attending Notre Dame. I have to admit we were all a little surprised when he was admitted, but he worked hard this year. Notre Dame was his dream school for years, but when the time came to make a decision once we had all the financial aid information in hand from the various schools he had applied to, he almost turned it down. There were two smaller Division 3 schools that were recruiting him to play football, and he had a hard time saying no to them. Eventually, he decided that since he would probably have to redshirt his freshman year because of his ACL surgery, he'd start at ND. It would be much easier to transfer from ND to one of these two schools if he decides he isn't happy there than the other way around. And financially, our part of the bill was about the same at all the schools.
The third son's graduation was a festive affair at Notre Dame, although we didn't plan a party for either son. The commencement address was delivered by the archparch of the Ukrainian Catholic church in America, Boris Gudziak. When this was announced, I was ready for a sober speech, but he was actually quite animated and began his speech by revealing that he had always wanted to pass a football on the ND field, so he pulled out a football that he spiraled out to the crowd, where it was caught by my son's good friend from San Diego. A great beginning to a speech that touched on the meaning of education as learning to see with the heart. He appealed to the high spirits of the Ukrainian people in the face of great odds, but he didn't bring down the spirits of the graduates by dwelling on the war, that continues to be waged with both blood and money. His speech was followed by the Laetare medal winner, Sharon LaVigne, who has fought for environmental justice in her Louisiana community and inspired other campaigns around the country. She inspired everyone with her David vs. Goliath story, but another highlight of the graduation ceremony was the brief speech given by Jerome Bettis, who returned to ND to finish his final semester of school after he left in 1994 to play for the NFL. He returned not for any financial gain, but to witness to the power of education to his children and to fulfill his promise to his mother. He had a press crew following him, but his words seemed heartfelt - and that theme of seeing with the eyes of the heart seemed to echo throughout all of the speeches of the day. This idea that education is for developing empathy and compassion and growing in virtues of faith, hope, and charity resonated with me, even though I know many graduates originally came to Notre Dame to get a high paying job and to watch a lot of football.
As I mentioned in a post back in May, our third son is going to work at the farm in the San Juan Islands in Puget Sound where his father and I honeymooned, which is run by Benedictine nuns. He did get accepted into the English Language program run by the Spanish embassy, so he will head to somewhere in Andalusia in October. My secret hope is to visit him in Spain next Spring and allow myself time to hike part of the Camino de Santiago. He has been very helpful around the house - cooking, doing laundry and dishes, driving his siblings around, washing windows, painting some watercolors of the state birds and state flowers of where we have lived for our large blank stairwell wall - in order to supplement his dwindling checking account which has no source of income for the foreseeable future. He'll get a stipend in Spain, but has to cover his own living expenses, so it is unlikely to go far. He is looking into possibilities for marketing his senior thesis - he designed a type font based on the handwriting of John Keats - but I'm not sure how that is going.
So even though two more sons are entering new, more independent phases of their lives, I still feel very much their mother, although the house will certainly be quieter in a matter of weeks.
To cap off the graduation season, we loaded up in the car to go to our niece's graduation in Ventura, where we used to live. Actually, four of the family flew - we bought those tickets early when my brother-in-law invited us out, but then we all decided to go. Since the airfare had increased exponentially, and one daughter is a fearful flier, the two younger girls and I drove out - this gave us the opportunity of stopping to see our oldest and his wife in Arizona, whom we hadn't seen since Christmas since their Easter plans fell through. They are in the process of moving, so our next visit is undetermined, which made the decision to drive 3000 miles easier to make.
Our niece graduated from a hippie school in Ojai - the students wore caps and gowns, but only some wore shoes. The school has a beautiful campus with round cypress buildings, lots of live oaks, and meadows full of wildflowers. Stumps set in circles attested to the frequent practice of holding class outside. Each student in the class of 16 delivered a speech; our niece's was by far the best - no familial bias at work. I was impressed by the willingness of these students to stand up and share the ways they had stretched and grown. A good number of the students described difficulties they had with learning online for a year, or changing schools, or making friends, or discovering themselves, and all of them thanked their families, teachers, and friends, for "literally saving" them, but our niece read a letter she had written to herself as a first year and then wrote back to herself. It was lighthearted and funny, a notable juxtaposition to the vulnerabilities shared by her classmates (she thanked people, too).
After the ceremony, we had a fabulous lunch at a famous hotel and then capped off the day with a family beach volleyball tournament. My mother-in-law and one other set of cousins had also come to the graduation and some of our cousins' friends also came to celebrate. It was a fun evening, followed the next day with a celebration of our daughter's sixteenth birthday. More cake, a shopping trip, a teenager group trip to an escape room, followed by an enchilada dinner. I think she had a good day, even though another reason we had made the trip was because she was involved in a drama with friends back home, so she was wanting a change of scenery.
The weekend was completed with a trip back down to our old neighborhood, where we dropped off our older daughter for the summer. She never found a great job here near us, so she made arrangements to stay with some friends and housesit for some other friends and work for her past employer, the recreation center. I was both saddened and heartened by this. Saddened, because she really didn't want to spend the summer with us in Texas where she has no friends. No surprise, really. But heartened because she made the arrangements herself and is planning to finance the summer herself. A step towards independence. She also has an online internship that is unpaid that will plump her resume up a bit. I was happy to have her home from Germany for over a month before she headed back out to California, and now I have another excuse for going back to see friends, although I'm beginning to fear they may get tired of me showing up on their doorstep! To avoid burnout, and since I had two of the boys with me because their return flights got cancelled and rescheduled, I went ahead a rented a room at the Navy Lodge on the beach. I had romantic notions of falling to sleep listening to the ocean waves, but I was so exhausted by the time I lay down, and aided by melatonin (which has been a real boon lately because I have this midlife problem sleeping), I had one of the best nights sleeping I'd had in ages. Maybe it was the distant sound of waves lulling me...
So a busy two weeks. Many miles covered. Lots of quality family time with both the immediate family, including our married son and daughter-in-law, whom we visited both going and returning, and extended family. Time to think and pray while driving. We were only gone five days, but it felt like a month passed. I hate driving around town in stop and go traffic, but I don't mind the open road, hours of daydreaming past cacti and interesting rock formations. We listened to lots of Taylor Swift and Kacey Musgraves on the way out, and on the way home, I was drawn into Ann Patchett's book of essays This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, which is mostly about her writing life, although I think my favorite essay was about her relationship with her father when she tries out for the LAPD Police Academy.
Over the next couple of weeks we will settle into summer. Looking forward to some boredom.
Photos of the graduates:
