What I did on my summer vacation

My friends, we have one more weekend of summer vacation left. The kids start school on Monday. All of those plans for summer?  We only accomplished a few. Where has the summer gone?

But those few events were pretty major.  For example, we just returned from North Carolina.  We spent the week before last week in Charlotte and Greensboro (staying at an inn in Elon), where we traveled to watch our daughter run in the Junior Olympic National meet. Initially, I thought it might be a trip that involved the runner and a parent, but because we have cousins and college friends in the area, the meet provided impetus to take the whole family for a summer vacation trip.

The meet started on Monday and ended on Saturday, and our daughter was supposed to run Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and maybe Saturday, which gave us Sunday and Tuesday and part of the other days for visiting. So we spent most of the first part of the week enjoying the company of our cousins, talking, laughing, swimming, and eating some delicious food. These are cousins on my husband's side, a set of five siblings who have kids all roughly in the 6-16 year old age range, and who all, miraculously, live within 5 miles of their parents and each other and get along. They have a family band and lots of projects. We have seen them rarely since we moved from Virginia in 2009, about the same time that the "wedding years" of our generation of cousins petered out, but over the last couple of years, we've reconnected - travel is easier, my husband designed a mountain house for them, and they came to Coronado and Austin a couple of times. And now we are starting to enter the "funeral years" of our parents' generation, sad to say - but soon enough the wedding years of our kids simultaneously, offering more opportunities to gather. 

On Tuesday, we went out to eat with our college friends, a couple who started dating about the same time we did. It was like no time at all had passed between the last time we saw each other, which was back in our Chicagoland days nearly 20 years ago, when we all lived in the suburbs and occasionally met up when our babies were little. We were pregnant together a couple of times in those years. Over delicious food - all the vegetables! - and drinks, we laughed and talked and parted reluctantly with the comforting knowledge that good friends are for a lifetime.

The next few days were spent mostly at the track. My parents drove down to join us in cheering, and we stayed at a cute inn on the beautiful campus of Elon University, which looks just what a southern college should look like with big, shady trees and red brick buildings, about 30 mins from the track. We picked Elon because all of the affordable hotels in Greensboro were booked by the families of the other 14,999 athletes.  It was hot and muggy, but the sun was out, and I love a good race, so the days went by quickly. Our daughter placed 8th, which gets a medal, in the 800 m and 4th in the 4x 800 relay, which also earned a medal. In the 4x 400, her team placed 16th in the semi-finals, so no medal, and they did not place high enough to get a spot in the finals, which were supposed to be on Saturday. 

Our original plan was that we'd fly the 5 members of the family living at home this summer out for the first part of the week for a visit with the cousins, and then my husband and the 2 kids not running would fly back on Thursday evening to return to work/life and to save money, since we knew the runner might not run on Saturday.  As it turned out, their Thursday flight became one of the summer travel cancellation statistics, so they were able to stay one more day and watch the Friday race. 

When we found out their flight was changed, and we knew that she wasn't running on Saturday, I called the airline to find out their rescheduling policy. After waiting and waiting to talk to a live person from the airline, I made the decision to rebook on the same flight as the rest of the family since when the receptionist said there was no charge to change. As soon as I did, though, I had a sinking feeling about cutting short our vacation. NOOOOO!, my inner critic yelled, What have I done?!  I had just canceled our second visit with our college friends, with whom we were planning to stay Saturday night! I could have rebooked for Saturday afternoon, so I would still have had the rest of Friday for a day of relaxing, potentially going for a hike in the woods of North Carolina, and then meeting our friends for dinner. Now I had just cancelled my fun!

So for a few days I wallowed in a cesspool of self-pity - or maybe it was just post-party depression - because our most recent summer vacation trip was cut short by a day and a half. Why do I second guess my decisions all the time? While I had been waiting on the phone to speak to someone, I had been doing calculations -- I figured there would be a fee to rebook the flight, so I wasn't really thinking about the reality of the decision. I also knew I would save money on a night in a hotel if I was able to rebook. Then I was balancing spending the extra time with friends whom we had already had dinner with earlier in the week with spending the extra time with the kids, who had some invitations for the weekend, and I have a list of stuff to get done before school starts, as well.  When the airline phone attendant said there was no fee and asked if she should go ahead, I said yes, not thinking about how disappointed I would feel to give up the extra visit and the time alone with just the one daughter. 

As I am writing this, I am questioning why I am still ruminating on this decision - there is a lesson here for me. I often choose what seems to be the responsible thing to do, but isn't always the thing I want to do. We are at the point that we can spend money on a vacation and the kids don't need as much hands-on supervision, and yet I haven't mentally released myself from that mindset of saving money and watching kids. I am frustrated by missing out on the last day of vacation, but also for overthinking my inability to think clearly about decisions like this. I need a policy - like always say YES to friend and family time! But then, it's also family time back here. . . so while having a policy sounds good, it also is hard to apply. I still need to practice not overthinking - perhaps by setting priorities based on values to help guide decisions, and sticking with those values by deciding without rethinking.  As someone who chronically second guesses decisions, knowing WHY I decide something would help me decide and move on. 

The fact that I was sad to go is evidence of how much we loved North Carolina - it was so green and lush, and the family time was restorative. It was a wonderful way to end the summer. 

Reading on our early morning flight - which also had to be rebooked when our original flight was cancelled on the way to NC - fortunately, we were able to rebook on an earlier flight, although getting up at 3:30 am was painful.

 

Backyard adventures - tree climbing and swinging. Not pictured: Badminton, trampolining, koi feeding, and mosquito swatting

Track fans with big heads!

 

Pool time with the cousins

 

Riding small vehicles and hiding cousins behind the lintels when parents aren't aware...

 

Scenes from the campus of Elon - including our hotel balcony

The inn provided bikes for touring campus

Visiting a Greensboro botanical garden

The UNC- Greensboro art museum. A rubber band in a corner helps you conceptualize space, in case you were wondering.

Other artwork at the museum

Medalist!

Discernment

 I mentioned in the last post that I have a new teaching position in the fall. I am going to attempt to juggle teaching at three schools - ESL at the Community Colleg, Comp and Lit at a local Lutheran university, and an adult ed Nature Writing course at my old school, which will be entirely remote, and probably asynchronous, so I'll mostly just be grading. Oh wait! I'm also still teaching in the military ed program online - a class starts in just over a hwe;! I likely will also pick up some substitute shifts at the kids' schools. And I volunteered for the parent-teacher organization. I also would like to continue going to my ecumenical Bible study on Thursday mornings, walk-jogging regularly, attending once a month book club, and then I'll be doing all normal the mom stuff: cooking (thankfully my husband does a lot, even most, of this), cleaning, carpooling, and cheering at various sporting and extracurricular things.  We've signed up to be Eucharistic ministers, once a month or so we boil eggs for the lunch truck for the homeless that our church helps sponsor, and I am thinking about volunteering for some other ministry or something community service minded. 

It's enough to fill more than one calendar. Why do I do this to myself? I fill up the hours because I'm not sure what I really want to be doing.  So here I am writing another post about discerning what to do in this next phase of life. I am in the last year of my 40s. We will only have two kids left at home, a junior in high school, and the 8 year old.  Not that the young adults in the family won't need love and attention -- I spend quite a bit of time on the telephone catching up with them most weekends. I'm a bit old for starting a new career, but too young to be retired, don't you think?  

If we had bought a farm, or at least a little more property, I think I could have thrown myself into focusing on planting and parenting, maybe sticking with the parttime teaching, maybe trying to write more.  But we didn't. So no more ifs. And I haven't used my time over this past year to write anything more than a research paper, blog posts, and scribbles in a diary. 

After I didn't get accepted into the PhD program at UT, which I was intimidated about anyway, I haven't been able to focus on any one thing, really. Substituting and working at the community college this past spring were supposed to help me discern whether I wanted to transition to full time teaching in high school or to adult education at the community college.  And on top of that, the pay is terrible for part time work. Teaching as an adjunct pays so little; substituting pays better. But although I enjoyed working in the kids' schools, and I enjoyed being in the classroom, working as a substitute has its drawbacks. Do I get certified to teach and work full time? Do I apply to another Ph.D. program? While I enjoyed both, I'm not sure the fit is just right. 

I can't even make an easy decision about chairs - new chairs or reupholster old chairs? I think I will reupholster the old ones, but I've spent hours looking at fabric and can't decide if I want to order greens or blues, solids or patterns, a velvety texture or a twill? 

All of this busyness, but I still feel restless. What it is I really want to do? Just get a paycheck? Although my husband is making more than ever, our expenses have kept pace - tuition, taxes, car issues, house issues, a/c bills when it is 100+ degrees every day for 6 weeks, traveling to see the older kids - oh, and we are being sued for the car accident our son had in February! Our insurance will take care of it, but not a happy moment to see the police pull up to the house and deliver a notice. All privileges come with burdens. That's another story, but one that is a part of this decision, in that when we moved here, we took on this huge mortgage and all of the house issues that came with it.  I've set aside berating myself for that decision for now, but perhaps a part of my restlessness is rooted in not wanting to settle here. 

And this is fruitless thing to ponder. We are here now, and we've decided we won't leave for a time, at least until our daughter graduates and/or the dream job/place opens up. 

So really this discernment is not really about what to do, but how to be, how to exist in a new space, without the crowd of children around me to give me purpose and direction about what to do next.  Filling up the calendar avoids the empty time and space for recollection and reflection. I seem to prefer doing than just being, but at some time I'll have to answer for who I am, who I've come to be through all this action. 

Anyway.  Here's something more cheerful: Joni Mitchell's surprise appearance at the Newport Folk Festival this past weekend. I've been drawn into looking at the videos from the weekend - an amazing line-up, topped up with Joni Mitchell's return to the stage after almost dying from a brain aneurysm five years ago.  Wouldn't it have been incredible to have been there? I need to add going to live music performances to my to-do list ... I'm only linking one video, but set aside some time - you could spend some hours listening to the set. 

Paul Simon and Rhiannon Giddens were probably amazing, too: 

Is she thinking about what she has to do next or just enjoying her cute children?

Summer Reading

 The eight year old and I entered the summer reading club at our library. It just ended - which seems early to me, but here we are at the end of July and all of the summer activities are winding down, even though we have three weeks of vacation left. Only!

Neither of us won a prize. Instead of cheap plastic toys and coupons for ice cream cones, the prizes were gift cards and educational sets. I earned something like 17 tickets and entered almost all of them in the drawing for the HEB $100 gift card, but didn't win. The 8 year old spread her tickets around, but mostly wanted to win a little robot that draws. She was pretty disappointed not to get a call from the library yesterday. She was sure she was going to win. She was motivated to log hours and write book reviews to earn more tickets, so the incentive worked, but we'll see if the crushing diappointment of winning nothing deters her from participating next year. She can be a bit dramatic in her responses to even very minor tragedies.

Despite winning nothing, we have done a bit of reading over the summer. I have spent much too much time pouring over the Wall Street Journal in the mornings. since we aren't rushing anywhere. Too much bad news about economic downturns and inflation. On our recent road trip, I read Joseph Bruchac's Rez Dogs, a young reader book about a young girl named Malian who is visiting her grandparents on a reservation and gets stuck with them when the world shuts down for Covid. A stray dog provides companionship and protection for her as she struggles with loneliness and internet connectivity and missing her parents. Bruchac is a writer I discovered when doing my research for the nature writing class. He has a number of young adult books out that primarily feature main characters who are Native Americans.  This is my first, and I give it two thumbs up. It may be a bit lacking in drama, but it provided a peak into a strong grandparent- grandchild relationship, a look at life on a reservation, and a small peek into some of the hardships experienced by young people growing up on a reservation 60 years ago. Both of Malian's grandparents were taken as children and sent to boarding schools. The book is written as narrative poetry, so it reads quickly. Despite the backdrop of suffering, the book had a hopeful tone - Malian's grandparents don't dwell on bitterness, and Malian is unusually appreciative of her circumstances. 

I also just finished a book for the lit class I'll be teaching next year: Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie. The department chooses a novel for the intro to lit courses, and this one is paired with Antigone, of which it is a retelling. I wasn't familiar with Shamsie, although she has a large number of novels to her name. Home Fire follows the plot of Sophocles' classic loosely, but places the two sisters in contemporary London, where their family immigrated from Pakistan. In this case, the two sisters are Muslim and must confront the actions of their brother and father, who both joined extremist organizations. Somehow the family survived the death of their father, but when their mother dies, the siblings struggle to stay unified. The oldest sister raises her two siblings, but eventually leaves to study in America, while the two younger siblings, twins, start to make their way separately after they graduate from high school. The sister pursues a degree, while the brother picks up a job, but falls into the grip of jihadist recruiters. Add in a love interest who happens to be the son of the home secretary who is monitoring the movements of the brother, and tragedy is sure to follow - and of course, knowing the source story, tragedy is expected.  An interesting and engaging read, with lots of themes overlapping, which is good for an assigned book. For a book I have to assign to first year students, it has an overly descriptive passage with a love scene that I probably won't discuss in class, but it's in there, and will probably keep students reading. 

I can't remember if I mentioned that I went on an Ann Patchett spree - This is the Story of a Happy Marriage and Commonwealth and some articles in between. Enjoyed both the memoir/book of essays, This is the Story, which I listened to as a book on tape on the trip to California in June, and the novel, which is a riff on Patchett's early life. Had I not just read Patchett's memoir, I might not have caught that. Commonwealth is the story of a broken marriage, the secrets children keep, family connections, and the possibility of reconciliation. A bit melancholy but a redemptive ending. Maybe kids whose parents are messed up end up closer because of their neglect.

After many weeks, I finished Peter Wohlleben's The Heartbeat of Trees, a companion to The Language of Trees.  I enjoyed them both, a mix of popular science, environmental writing, and personal memoir. Not fast reading, though. I'd read a chapter and then set the book down for several days before reading another. Wohllenben was a German forester who now devotes his time to writing and promoting good forestry practices, among other environmental pursuits. His writing voice is friendly, encouraging, and even hopeful, despite the degradation he sees of the natural world, For instance, one of the oldest trees in the world is threatened because of tourists hiking to its remote location to view it. On the one hand, it would be terrible if this tree died from people stamping around it to view the oldest tree. On the other hand, the reverence showed to this little alpine tree is encouraging. Wohlleben's own story of shifting  practices in German foresting is hopeful for future conservation efforts that allow commerce and conservation to complement each other to an extent. 

I also finished a book for my book club reading challenge called Tomorrow Will Be Different by Sarah MacBride. MacBride's memoir tells of her transition from male to female late in her college career, early in her political career. She is now a delegate to the Delaware state government, one of the first openly trans politicians to serve in that governing body, if not the first. The tone is upbeat, despite a section describing the death of Sarah's husband, who was also trans, from cancer not long after they married.  The reading challenge has several categories that are outside my normal reading trends, and this one was interesting, but not one I'd normally choose, partly because I don't really read political books, and this one read a bit like promotional material for the next election. 

I've also been reading my Bible study book, Encountering God by Kelly Minter, which describes different spiritual practices all familiar to Catholics - prayer, fasting, confession, adoration, meditation. I appreciate the immense number of Biblical references to these ancient practices, but the book is written for a reader who is unfamiliar or unused to these practices, so it's geared toward beginners and those who need convincing that fasting or confessing to others is worthwhile for spiritual growth.  The conversations have been enriching with my group, an ecumenical bunch I was introduced to by one of my Navy spouse friends. 

I've also been catching up with the newest Norton anthology of literature, shorter version. I'll be teaching an intro to lit class this fall. New school, new textbook, new syllabus. Thought I would be further along with developing that than I am, but classes don't start until the end of August - which will come all too quickly.

Reading with the 8 year old: My Father's Dragon, Dragons of Blueland, Pippi Longstocking, and various picture books from the library. This suburban library doesn't have the quaint appeal, the quantity of books, or the familiar librarians from our old library, but we are getting used to it. It's not a four block walk, either, but this month we have been going about once a week, since our schedule is more open. 

In the meantime, I've got a stack of books to read that are waiting for me. I thought I would get more reading done on our recent trip to OKC, but instead shopped upholstery fabric, chairs, flights, and hotels for upcoming travels. More to come!

Still remembering

 Continuing the theme of memory, I had a dream last night that has stuck with me all day.  I don't remember the first part or the exact setting of the dream, but there was a threatening aspect to the situation. I was on a train with our second son, only he was a toddler, maybe 2 or 3. Old enough to talk, young enough to be held. At first we were playing some game where children were getting lost, so I grabbed my son and got on the train to go somewhere to rest and hide.  And he did rest - his little body relaxed into dreams. As I held his sleeping body, his face brightened into a smile. It was one of those sweet moments of total trust and relaxation when a baby knows he's safe with his mother, even though his mother knows she can't keep him completely safe.

In the dream, I knew I was dreaming, and I knew he was really grown up.  So even in the dream, I knew I should savor this moment, when I could love and hold him because he was small again. It was like I was able to time travel because I knew he would grow up fine, and I could hold him freely, almost with more love because I no longer worried about raising him. The dream was a gift; it was so realistic. It was a moment to forgive myself for the times I didn't sit down and hold my older babies without worry of what comes next. This may be what being a grandmother is like. 

I woke up slowly, relishing the feeling of his little boy body, the lightness and flexibility of his arms, the small of his head, the softness, etc.  And then I booked a trip to visit our son!

Saying Goodbye

A couple of nights ago, spears of lightning cancelled the swim team pool party, but not the pizza eating. They also cancelled my husband's flight home from North Carolina, where he had traveled for his uncle's funeral. A good thrumming thunderstorm dumped buckets of water, but it also prevented hundreds of travelers from returning home that night, including my husband.  But despite the travel interruption, attending the funeral was worthwhile and meaningful for him. 

This uncle, a professional piano tuner, teacher and lounge singer, sang at our wedding. He was jovial and talented, and played "Piano Man" not just at our reception, but ever since played it at every niece's and nephew's wedding. (Although, ours was the only one where he sang "Danny Boy" for my husband's grandmother.) Family gatherings found him on a bench in front of a keyboard, and he enlivened every event with his playing and singing - not just as a private concert, but as a way of leading the family in communal song together. His own sons remained unmarried and estranged from each other, a sad coda to the life of a well-loved man.

He was the first of eight siblings in my mother-law's family to pass away, even through the pandemic. There may likely be another funeral before one of the next generation gets married. In this uncle's obituary, his nieces and nephews were counted among his descendants, a testimony to the sense of kinship this uncle brought to everyone in the family. Our parent's generation kept those cousins close, but as they pass on, we will lose not only those loved ones, the organizers of family events, but the bonds between cousins will weaken as collateral. 

Now that he is gone, the family gatherings will be not just quieter, but also rarer.  Gatherings are just not as fun without the fun uncle. All of the siblings gathered for the funeral must have wondered who will be next?  Really it's miraculous they all have survived Covid. Their father died in his fifties of a heart attack. They all have surpassed him.

Now my husband and I are nearing that age. I have been feeling very mortal lately. Not just tired, but spent. I have another basal cell carcinoma - nothing to worry about, except another scar, another reminder to stay out of the sun, another reminder than my skin is wearing out, like the rest of my body.

It is not just the physical aspects of aging, but the saying good-bye. This month, our oldest daughter turns 20 and our fifth son turns 18. We'll only have two at home next year. After all these years of wondering when I might next have a quiet moment - well, now I'll have plenty. It's both exciting and terrifying. Now they are good company, good help, good people, but they are also excited to leave us behind. They are ready "to start their real lives" - a  phrase that I said to my parents in my horrible teenage years when they dropped me off for college.  My parents told them that story, and they love to tease me with it, as much as they actually mean it in some small corner of their hearts.

I still sometimes catch myself waiting for that real life to begin. For many years I felt like the real life would start when we settled down in a house of our own, or when the kids started school, even as I knew life was happening every hour. I catch myself planning the next thing before the present thing is over, partly out of necessity, partly out of habit, partly out of a desperate attempt to do it all. I was looking at photos for a graduation slide show and for our daughter's sixteenth birthday, and the quickness of time hit me again. I can't say I wasn't warned - the grandmas at the churches and parks and groceries all told me those days would go by fast. And so they did. They were full and happy for the most part, and the hard days we survived, and nothing makes me happier than listening to my big kids laugh about those times or commiserate together. 

And now some of the people who made those days memorable, like my husband's uncle, are slipping out of the world into the next, which is perhaps the real life after all. 

Heat Wave

 Well, I knew it was going to be hot here in Texas, but I didn't expect it to be 100 degrees every day for most of June. The neighbors keep telling me this heat is unusual for this time of year. Of course, now it is July and 100 degree temps are pretty common, so now I am no longer checking the weather app to see if it might cool down or rain in the near future. I figure the weather will be similar until mid September. 

The heat hasn't kept us from getting outside, however, Yesterday, to celebrate the Fourth we gathered with some friends from Guam. They now have several more children, and we have several fewer at home. The pool got a few hours of use, and the kids played a few games of cornhole. We took a break inside to eat, feasting on smoked meats, potato salad, cole slaw, beans, and fruit and brownies and sugar cookies, the usual picnic food, and then played pool, before heading outside just before sunset to light sparklers and set off a few noisemakers and fountains that my husband picked up at one of those roadside fireworks stands.  He was tempted to pick up some Texas-sized rockets, but held off, knowing full well how I'd feel about them. 

And of course, the city had plenty of big fireworks to mark the event. We walked down to the public high school to watch them so we didn't have to drive and fight traffic. This wasn't the best vantage point for viewing, but plenty of people had the same idea, including the Kona Ice guy, so we weren't alone in our search for simplicity.  

The city's fireworks were fine, but I have to admit, we couldn't help comparing it to the celebrations we experienced in Coronado, which were pretty spectacular. Our daughter was in tears after Mass Sunday when she learned that there would be no parade. And she was bored most of the morning while we were cooking and cleaning. I missed having family around, and my husband made the mistake of checking social media and reading about a protest of July Fourth festivities in response to the Dobbs decision.  The day just felt subdued compared to past celebrations. 

We may have still be recovering from the day before, when we celebrated the births of our two July babies. Our oldest daughter turned 20 on the third, but she is spending the rest of the summer in San Diego, so we had to settle for a phone call and being a part of her birthday party by giving her our credit card to buy a cake to share with her friends.  

Then that evening we were able to pull off a little surprise party for our son turning 18 next weekend.  Our middle daughter helped coordinate with friends, who came over and decorated while he was at the gym. The best ruse was one of the friends told our son that he couldn't go to the gym with him because he had to go to a "Celebration of life"!  That same friend gifted our son with his own Lego minifigure with extra long legs. Pretty cute. High schoolers are funny. 

But then I read this morning of the shooting at the Highland Park parade outside of Chicago. That neighborhood was not too far from where we used to live years ago in a town that also had a great Fourth of July parade.  I can't image the trauma.  Where does the violence end?

For consolation here are a few snapshots from our recent celebrations:

Scenes from the life of our July 3rd baby. 

A quick stop at the county park to look for minnows and turtles just for something to do while waiting for friends. 

Luxury sparklers. Stand back!

A new flag.

Pool time fun

Summer sun, graduates, and road trips

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: 

  

College graduation

 

An alumni club photo booth

The graduate and I road tripped back, with a stop to see a new baby nephew and stops to see both sets of grandparents.

 

Honey locusts in bloom. The bees were ecstatic.

A field trip to a farm with chicks and llamas.

Swim team in season! A trip to the Charles Umlauf Sculpture Garden

And a stop at the Austin Botanic Garden

  

And a stop at the Harry Ransom Center to see a Gutenberg Bible and first edition of Ulysses 

High school graduation - Don't notice that I wore the same dress

 

First road trip in our new car - it is so compassionate

Sibling time!

Aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, family, fun - all the usual characteristics of summer vacation.