Back Bay View: 2024

Sunday, October 13, 2024

Flooding and Farewells

A flashback post I never finished plus some wandering reflections:

Near the end of August, we dropped our sixth child off at college. These move-in weekends are physically and emotionally draining, and having done it before doesn't make it any easier. When you say goodbye after unpacking all their stuff and dropping another $$$ on cheap furnishings and toiletries from Target, it feels like saying goodbye to a childhood that really ended several years ago, but now is final. You know the fledgling adult isn't really ever coming back to stay, although she will return at holiday breaks and in the summer, and maybe a year or so after graduating . . . But she'll be on her own even then, though grateful for your caregiving and dinner making and laundry doing. We've been through this now with her five siblings. They no longer need our help or oversight as they go about their business working summer jobs and hanging with friends and enjoying sleeping in comfortable beds before they go back to dorm mattresses or ratty apartment furniture.

When we first dropped off the older kids, the goodbye didn't quite sink in. I thought we'd have holidays and summers; I didn't think about what happened after college. I had young children at home who still expected their siblings at the table. But then the older kids stopped coming home - first they worked at camps, then they got internships and did service projects and worked. They went to visit new friends, or their friends came to see us (everyone wanted to come to San Diego), and they stayed out late so that we barely saw them when they were home.

It's a slow process of detachment after all that attachment work when they were babies.

Our daughter is going to school in Greenville, South Carolina. As everyone knows, that area felt the effects of Hurricane Helene, although not so hard as the area a couple hours north where my husband's cousins have a place, which my husband designed. Just a month after we dropped our daughter off, campus closed for a week because the power was out and then it took time for the internet to return. Can't have school without internet!

The devastation from the flooding in the mountain towns north of Greenville is hard to picture to outsiders. The clean up is still going on. We almost flew out to help our cousins clean up their place. Their storage container washed away with some kayaks, a generator, tools, camping stuff, other flotsam and jetsam. But there wasn't gas and supplies for the people there, so for us to come and use more would not have been helpful.

Instead our school had a bake sale, and the students could make a donation in order to wear something other than their uniform. The donations went to a school near Asheville that was damaged. Over $5000 was raised. Another school family had a connection to a school damaged by Hurricane Milton in Florida, so our school split the funds to send to both schools.

While $5000 is an incredible amount to raise in a bake sale, it only goes a little way in the clean up process.

And it is like half a penny compared to what was spent on this past election. It hurts my head to think of the billions spent on advertising and marketing and all of the stuff thrown away after an election, and all the other ways money is spent on elections. I saw somewhere an estimate of $11 billion dollars. How many ways could that money have been spent to truly build community?

In all these things, a long view is necessary- a long view of our lives with our children, a long view of recovery from natural disasters, a long view of politics and the lives of nations. Knowing that life will bring both joys and sorrows over time doesn't minimize the feelings of sorrow and loss and frustration, but it reminds us that happiness will return, things will change, life will go on. The acorns will sprout and oak trees will grow. We might just have to wait a long time.

A new season

This morning cool breezes greeted us as my husband and I stepped out the front door to walk the dog. It's the second week of October. September is relegated to recent memory, with summer now the distant past. It doesn't seem fair that time should pass so quickly.

Yet the temperatures don't think it's summer. It's still in the 90s in the afternoons here. The impatiens are still blooming, but struggling with the lack of rain in this part of the country. Grass and leaves are turning brown but only because of hot and dry conditions. I've given up watering my garden, although the basil and peppers haven't completely dried up like the tomatoes. I'm going to give up on tomatoes. Year after year I plant them, water them, weed them, and receive a small handful of fruit in return.

I don't even really like tomatoes, but I envy the shrubby plants with stems drooping from the weight of laden branches that are browning in my parents' garden. Their tomatoes are rotting on the vine because they can't eat them all, and the neighbor's similarly have plenty. And they do nothing but stick seedlings in the ground! I labor for anemic tomatoes. The climate, the soil, the sun and rain, all are unpropitious for tomato growing.

Instead here I can grow rosemary, peppers to hot to eat, tradescantia, pots of aloe. Lavender seems to survive, if not quite thrive. The shrubbery -boxwoods, nandina and gaura - grow with little care. And the lantana thrives and strives to take over the entire flower bed.

But now, in mid October the plants are starting to slow their growth in response to the shortening days. The plumeria in pots still smells as fragrant as ever, and the five lemons on my potted lemon tree are finally turning yellow. One started to rot so I squeezed half in my juice, and one I picked too soon because I needed some citrus to squeeze on apples shredded for apple muffins - a recipe that only partially worked.

The bats are back, swooping over the pool for snacks at dusk. Coyotes are singing regularly at night, curling the hair on the back of our little dog, causing him to growl huskily deep in his throats, as if he'd actually frighten one of his wild cousins instead of being a tasty snack.

I have had little time for reflection, despite the fact that this time of year seems to inspire nostalgia and revisiting the past. Some of that is due to the start of the school year and the busyness of planning, grading, working. We also traveled two weekends in a row to Indiana, one for a Notre Dame football game - and a mini reunion with almost all of our kids (missing 2: the freshman in college, whom we had just dropped off two weeks prior, and the son who works an hourly wage job who couldn't take off work). We also revisited my parents and our son and daughter-in-law a couple weeks ago to honor my father's birthday and to celebrate at a baby shower the impending arrival of our first grandchild. This is something of a secret, but since this blog is also something of a secret, I'll record here my great excitement at the prospect of a new baby in the family! We have been hoping and praying for this baby!

Fitting that in fall we should celebrate a grandfather's birthday and a baby's eventual birth day. As we celebrate the fruits of the garden labor in the season of harvest, some seeds fall to the ground to take root and bring forth new life. And hopefully some seeds of wisdom will pass down to this next generation and bear fruit. Life continues to flourish, despite the harbingers of doom in the news and online. And before this month is over, I'm going to try to coax a little more life out of my raised garden bed by planting a winter garden of greens. We'll see if they can defy the odds or survive and give us some good vitamins and minerals this winter ...

Flashback to college days. I still have this t-shirt and almost wore it since 90s fashion is back in...

It was so hot that the ice from the coolers served a new purpose.

A quick stop at the Chicago Art Institute while waiting for our flight. It's surprising how much you can see in 25 minutes. Not recommended as a rule, but worth it when you only have so much time and a free ticket...

This was the picture she wanted most to see.

Tasty shower treats.

Cousins

Still watching soccer.

Monday, July 29, 2024

Summer's End

How can it be the end of July already? Where has the summer flown?

Next week, I head back to school for a couple weeks of prep before students arrive. They start August 12th.

As usual, I had planned/hoped to accomplish a lot more this summer - reading, travel, planning, writing - but despite failing to do all the things, we did accomplish quite a few. The last two months were incredibly full. I wrote about our trip to Michigan; the next week I taught a session of camp at the kids' school. My session was drama camp: I directed a group of 10 6th-8th graders in an abridged production of A Midsummer's Nights Dream, which was tons of fun and a great success, despite a host of costume malfunctions and a few forgotten lines. Never having done something like this, I was a little apprehensive about how it would go, but it turns out the hardest part was finding a good script that fit our time frame while using much of Shakespeare's original language. The script I found online worked perfectly and preserved the basic plots and language in a 40 minute production.

The following week was VBS week - I didn't volunteer this year, even though I suffered pangs of regret for hanging back. This was supposed to be a week of planning, reading, writing, research, but was mostly focused on travel planning and resetting the house after hosting a big graduation/birthday party for our 18 year old. In a few weeks, she'll head to college, and we'll be down to one child in elementary school. The 10 year old has already shed tears anticipating her sister's departure, and I have had a few moments of anxiety about having an only child. I'll need a babysitter! I suggested hosting a foreign exchange student to my husband and daughter, but I didn't get much enthusiasm for that idea. Not for the babysitting, of course! But perhaps slightly motivated by the hope of forming a bond with someone whose family might host us overseas...

Family vacation followed on the heels of VBS - this time we headed back to San Diego to celebrate the Fourth of July with our oldest daughter - as well as her birthday on the third. Our VRBO for this trip did not measure up to our fabulous place in Maine, not surprisingly. Given it was a holiday week, we were lucky to find a place that was relatively close to the beach and big enough for the seven of us who gathered. Our oldest was on vacation with his wife*** See big announcement below!*** while our third son needed to work (I regretted not funding his trip but struggled with the fairness) and our fourth son was working in Italy (more below on that, too).

Our original plans were scrambled a bit, but the resulting week turned out to have a nice balance of time with family and friends, without being too active, although it wasn't exactly without some conflict. The first couple of days were full of celebrations - we hosted a party for our 22 year old daughter at a brewery/taco place with her friends and a few of ours. The next morning we followed that up with waking early for the Fourth parade in Coronado, which offered opportunity to catch up with friends and relive happy moments. On Friday we went to SeaWorld, thanks to complimentary tickets for military and veterans. This was a request of the 10 year old, who loved it, despite long lines and expensive snacks, which reminded others of our group why we don't go to amusement parks very often. Saturday was Balboa Park and beach day, followed by dinner with friends, while Sunday was Mass, brunch, and concert in the park. Some of our group would have preferred to just hang at the beach on Friday and Saturday and skip SeaWorld and the museums, but in the end, everyone got to do a little of something they liked. We would have had more beach time if the ocean waters in Imperial Beach and Coronado were not contaminated by sewage overflowing from Tijuana's water treatment plant. This has been an ongoing issue for years, and it doesn't sound like a solution is in sight. As a result, although our condo was a couple blocks from the beach, we had to drive up the coast a bit to get past the e. coli water.

Most of the family left Sunday/Monday, but the 10 year old and I stayed two more days to go camping with friends in the San Bernardino National Forest. The temperature was unusually high - in the 90s even at 8000 feet elevation, but we managed to fit in a couple hikes in the morning and evening, and spent the hottest part of the day at Big Bear Lake, which benefitted from the heavy snows the past couple of years so that it had higher water levels than the last time we were there. That suited the girls just fine. My original vision was more of a backpacking trip - in fact, I bought a new backpack on sale - but I was just happy we could get in the mountains for a bit where the girls could enjoy unmediated time in nature.

I had just enough time after returning from that trip to get the laundry done before we headed to Oklahoma City for the weekend to celebrate my father-in-law's 82nd birthday and meet their new puppy. This is their third golden retriever, and we are all praying he is as well-behaved and smart as their previous two dogs. He is a very much a puppy with lots of energy, but he is adored by all - let's just hope he can get housebroken!

A highlight of our weekend in Oklahoma City was a visit to the Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine. Bl. Rother was a priest from OK who was martyred by - who? drug lords or the government or both? - in Guatemala in the early 80s. He was warned that he was a target for assassination and was given the opportunity to return to the States, but his famous quote is "A shepherd doesn't run from his people."

The Shrine is a large and lovely classical church - its ornateness and expense might have dismayed Bl. Rother, other than it draws many people to visit. The day we visited, we stood in line for almost an hour to venerate relics of Padre Pio- his glove, a lock of hair, a piece of his tunic, some blood. More people were in line when we left than when we arrived. The shrine complex also includes an informative museum of Bl. Rother's life, while at the end of the plaza in the front of the church is a replica of the hill of Tepeyac and a tableau of St. Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe. We didn't follow the path to the top of the hill because a line of people were also waiting to reach the top to prayer. So although our visit was incomplete, we were heartened by the large number of pilgrims visiting.

After Mass and brunch at a Old Country Buffet, a bit of a tradition with the grandparents, we returned to Austin in time to do more laundry and to spend a few days with our son who returned from his service project in Italy. He was working with L'Arche in Bologna for 6 weeks. Three of those weeks were spent on a bike trip through the Dolomites. The first three weeks he worked as an activities assistant and spent time on various outings and activities with the residents. L'Arche is a residential community for adults with disabilities. He had an amazing experience becoming "comfortable with the uncomfortable" as he said in this essay he wrote for ND. And his Italian improved! To say we are proud of him for doing this is an understatement. But we were also sorry to that he only had a week home with us before heading back to campus to work a job with Irish media creating content for their athletics department.

My visit with him was cut even shorter because I had to pack up again on Wednesday. This time I was heading to Oakland for a conference for Catholic school educators on teaching the Holocaust. The conference was excellent - full of history, stories, and time for reflection. Sessions were led by a priest and a rabbi, both scholars of Jewish history, as well as a by a teacher who leads a Holocaust seminar for Catholic high schoolers in Atlanta. We heard from the son of a survivor who has helped produce a documentary on an education initiative she started, and another presenter shared information about the Jewish partisan movement of resistors during WW II. A researcher from the US Holocaust museum presenter her research based on her access to the Vatican files of information from WWII, which was just recently opened to researchers. But the highlight of the weekend, aside from time to learn from these presenters and from my fellow attendees, was a visit to a temple and Shabbot services followed by a meal with two survivors and a dozen or so second generation survivors. The two women were in their 90s and full of welcoming energy. One of them was a small child who was hidden away and then sent away on the kindertransport, while the other ran away to the woods and hid with the partisans, although she was too young to fight. She had to stay almost five years in a displaced persons' camp, a part of the history we don't hear much about. It was a very moving experience.

The past week since returning from that trip has been spent resetting and researching for the return to school. Each day I've logged onto a webinar hosted by Teach Like a Champion, which has had some really practical advice, even if it isn't as inspiring as the Holocaust seminar. We've had our dental and doctor visits for the summer, although the eighteen year old had to return to the dentist this week because she chipped her two front teeth on the 10 year old's head in the pool. It wasn't the ER visit she thought it might be the moment after it happened, but it was an unplanned expense.

Tomorrow I return to school for teacher workdays. I'm wishing I had one more week. I wanted to get to Indiana to see my parents on the farm, even though we saw them in Michigan, but I've run out of time, so that trip will have to wait until the fall. In three weeks, we'll be boarding another flight to take our daughter to school at Furman University in South Carolina. A new phase of our lives will begin, one the ten year old is not looking forward to. She'll be an only child for the second half of her life. We'll miss having high school events on our calendar, although I'm sure we'll find ways to fill the days. We're already planning our fall trips to see the kids at their various homes around the country!

A few photos: