As they do for many if not most people lately, the hours have been long and the days short. I have a checklist that keeps growing instead of getting shorter. But I'm taking a midmonth pause from the to-do list to catch up the continuing saga of life 'round here, although we don't have much to report in the way of events - mostly conversations about the news.
I think I left off last time having attended the home school meeting. Since then, I have read a few more articles about the "Mass Exodus" movement. This group of people who discuss moving to other states is much larger than I realized. In fact, there are many who contemplate moving from one state to another where others are contemplating moving from. So total population may shift but not actually change. There are maps that identify states friendly to home schooling, friendly to anti-vaxxers, friendly to people who don't want to pay high property taxes. You can pick a state that is more liberal or more conservative - and people who are in those first 3 groups could be either liberal or conservative, although I suppose if you were more liberal you would have a hard time leaving a state because you didn't want to pay high property taxes.
Since we are in the middle of contemplating a move ourselves, a move that we may have some choice in, I've been sifting through some of these maps - I like the one that shows the rate that different states tax military retirement income and the map of places with access to outdoor recreation. My daughter made a map where she outlined states that she absolutely would not move to and states that she would consider and states that she would prefer. Her basis of choice is where she perceives she would be safe. She doesn't like the DC area because of concerns about kidnapping and sex trafficking, but we live in one of the cities with the very highest rates of those crimes in the country - if not the world. This reputable site maps economic issues - highest rate of personal consumption expenditures and highest rate of economic resources from outdoor recreation were two I looked up. Also on our list of consideration is where our children might end up and where our family currently lives. Seeing as we have one child who swears she is never leaving California and another who will probably head east after graduation, and five others who may end up anywhere, basing our home address one proximity to our offspring will be hard.
A friend and I went for a hike this weekend and discussed our ideal home, and we both were in agreement that we'd like to have a smallish permanent address but then own a big ramshackle vacation home where everyone can gather in the summers. I'm partial to the lake home vs. the beach house, and even better if the lake house is in the mountains - a place where there isn't much to do except swim, hike, eat well, and sit on the back porch and read. We'd go stay the summer there, and the kids could all come for their vacations with the grandkids at various times, overlapping perhaps for the Fourth of July.
But wait - that's for old people! - we're talking about retirement, but it's not REALLY retirement! We have a whole lifetime to live still... maybe. I have trouble remembering how old we really are, especially when even though I could have a grandchild in a year or two, I'm still concerned about getting pregnant.
Our deadline for making an actual choice about staying in the Navy or getting out keeps getting postponed - it used to be June? Now it might be October? More and more it looks like retirement is the direction we are heading, but the state of the economy and the ease of staying put here one more year to get our son who will be a senior through high school are our two biggest concerns when we consider staying in. I have to admit, although I complain regularly about living here, it will be hard to leave the good weather, the proximity to mountains and shore, the ease of getting to the library, the grocery store, the church, our friends' back porch...
On the other hand, I still am frustrated with our school and our church for not providing our kids with the education I should be giving them myself - other than that the teenagers really would benefit from hearing someone else say, "Mass is a wonderful thing!" "Reading will broaden your world, open doors, expand your heart and mind, fill your hours with ideas and images that will give you more satisfaction than that video game or app..." I've been to three planning meetings about how we can safely provide catechesis during the coronavirus, and each one we have come up with good ideas, and then a couple weeks later, I hear we aren't doing anything. It makes me contemplate exodus to a different parish.
Perhaps reading Christine Watkins' The Warning for our book club last week was not the best idea. One of our book club members has lately been hooked on end of the world videos and ideas. This book has been getting a lot of word of mouth promotion in certain circles. I actually talked to our priest about it this weekend, and he seemed very hesitant to give any credence to personal visions and locutions.
The book is a compilation of stories of people who have had an "illumination of conscience" followed by a radical conversion - although one person was a nun who was simply lazy and indulgent. The illumination is a vision of their sins and the punishment they should receive for them. The part that arouses skepticism is the prediction that everyone in the world will experience this illumination at the same time in the near future. Time will stop and people will have their personal vision. Airplanes will be paused in the sky. Some people will die of fright, others will be converted, and others will find an excuse for it, such as calling it a technological glitch. One seer said it would happen in her lifetime, but now she is nearly 70. These seers include the visionaries from Garabandal, Spain, and Matthew Kelly, but the others I have never heard of, although they apparently sometimes become circuit preachers.
I am a natural skeptic, but I don't doubt that these people had some sort of vision of their own need for conversion. Our book club was pretty split between readers who see these seers as prophets, and those who see that we all have to prepare for our end, as Jesus tells us, but that anything that predicts a day or time is questionable.
It is easy to see why apocalyptic forecasts are gaining traction: Fires, earthquakes, pandemics, hurricanes, flooding. Over Labor Day weekend, ash from the fires in the hills to the east of San Diego fell on our picnic table, although we are an hour away. This was the fire started by the gender reveal party, if you have seen the memes. What a terrible sense of guilt that couple must carry, especially since at least one firefighter died.
The death of Justice Ginsburg on the eve of Rosh Hoshannah is another seemingly apocalyptic moment - I dread the hostilities that are sure to erupt - although I have to admit that I am secretly cheering for Amy Coney Barrett, mother of seven, Notre Dame professor.... Time to quit social media. I wish we could start the election season over again, with two entirely different candidates. Why are we stuck with two choices of whom most people aren't really fans, even if they do like the policies? Is it too late to mount a write-in campaign for a candidate who actually is honest and committed to the well being of the American people and not just to his political success?
That's all I have to say about politics.
In domestic news -- well, the puppy is doing great. He is basically housetrained, he doesn't shed, he doesn't destroy much except tissues, and he is entertaining to watch. He's such a strange looking little guy and he has some really amusing habits and expressions. I wouldn't feel guilty about saying he is an emotional support animal in order to get him on a plane because the kids have really found him a source of joy and affection. Even if he is weird looking.
The kids are healthy. They just had well-checks. The 16 year old is just shy of 6'5.'' I had to buy him more new shoes, even though we don't need to do back to school shopping, because he outgrew his old ones. His toe had rubbed a hole in the end of the shoes I bought around Easter. This kid is hard on shoes. The bad news was that we also went to the dentist, and three of the kids had multiple cavities. Time to back off the corona candy and ice cream indulgences. I suspect since we don't go many places that they aren't brushing their teeth in the mornings.
The kids are also back to practicing sports, but not back to school. Doesn't this seem odd to you? Why can they gather on the football field and throw balls to each other or swim in the pool or run around the neighborhood with no masks on, but we are afraid for them to sit spaced out in a classroom (we could have outdoor classrooms here!) in masks? The school district recently sent a "survey" that questioned whether parents would commit to sending kids back in a hybrid situation. The parent community lit up the Facebook pages about it because not everyone received the email with the survey, and those who did receive it were frustrated because it was hidden in a long newsletter, and it wasn't clear at all that it was actually a commitment to 100% online learning if you didn't fill it out. I was among those who didn't receive it. A friend texted about it, but she was asking me if I knew what the deal was. I had to call the high school about something else, so I asked about it, but nobody in the front office knew about it. By the end of the day, after the local Facebook page nearly exploded with comments from angry and confused parents, the district had sent a new email with clear instructions. Personally, the online situation has been going pretty smoothly around here, and I like the easy schedule, but if they could go back for woodworking and chem lab and ceramics class, I'm ready to send them in a heartbeat with no fears of viral infection.
My college kids have thus far remained free of illness, even though football season is now in full swing. Again - why can my kids in the Midwest go to football games, but my daughter enrolled in a college in California cannot go to class? These are the questions that people who contemplate mass exodus ask. I don't want to be one of those people, but here I am. The other irritating thing to me is that although she is attending a private school, the state is apparently preventing them from opening, but the state university here has allowed students to move to campus and for lab students to take in person classes. An outbreak of cases around the university now has led the state to consider placing our county at the "purple" level again - which means no inside business. The county is petitioning the state to exclude those numbers from the count for the county so that it can stay in the "red" level of business operations, and even move to the "yellow" level. That decision should come out today.
I fear that is politics again. In other news, I really enjoyed reading Distant Neighbors, the collection of letters between Gary Snyder and Wendell Berry. They are delightfully thoughtful, articulate, motivated to make a change in the way they use land and encourage others to use it. Snyder's Buddhist leanings and Berry's Christian perspective aren't taboo topics, but neither are they reasons to weaken the friendship, which develops primarily through writing letters and sharing essays and poetry, between occasional visits. Stepping into the intimacy of their writings feels a bit voyeuristic, but I loved reading this exchange, and envied them their friendship.
I am supposed to be writing a longish paper for a conference on friendship for the Christianity and Literature virtual conference in October. My focus is on these friendships of nature writers Snyder and Berry, David James Duncan and Brian Doyle, and initially I thought I would include a nod to the two Johns - Muir and Burroughs. My focus is more expository than analytical; I just want to bask in the beauty of the their writings and not analyze them. But I should be working on that rather than musing on the state of the world.
Here are some photos to finish with:
The funny fellow
A trip to the tide pools to touch anemones, chitons, limpets, barnacles, and a few dead crabs. I learned from the friendly park volunteer that lobsters molt.
End of summer shaved ice.
Mountain lake. I could stay in a little cottage here a long time. Maybe forever.
Fall blooming mini lupine
