Once more to the lake

It's been awhile since I taught E. B. White's classic essay "Once More to the Lake," but it's elegaic title and tone capture the experience of this summer's brief trip to Michigan. As I mentioned in the last post, in early June, my youngest daughter and I flew to Traverse City to meet up with my parents, my older brother and his partner, and my sister and her family. Last summer was reunion year - all three of my siblings and their families, all my nephews and nieces, and all of my own children gathered on South Shore Drive for a summer vacation that was both relaxing and emotionally draining.  There were a lot of people to feed and entertain.  We weren't all on the same schedule, but even so, we did make some great memories. This summer trip had no expectations and so less drama, but also fewer emotional highs. 

Like White, my experience of the lake is colored by memories of my own childhood as I witness the experiences of my youngest.  As I've written about before, when I was growing up, our family went to the same place every summer. We did the same things - swim, bike, read, eat cherry pie and ice cream, watch the sunset, shop in little gift shops, and take a hike or two. Occasionally neighbors would take us out on their boats. My dad, brothers, and grandpa fished. A couple of times, I went on the charter boat, but I mostly read. We didn't mind doing the same thing every year - we craved tradition.

My own children have different memories. Visiting the grandparents has been our tradition, but we've done a lot of different things in the summer the last few years. We have gone to the lake many times, but not every year.  My youngest had few memories of it before last summer. Now that we have gone twice in a row, she has memories of the places and people. But her experience is so different - instead of a handful of cousins around the same age, it was just she and my niece this year.  They play quieter games than their brothers did at the same age.  When I was that age - 10 - I had two cousins and a sister to pal around with, but I also loved solitary time. I was a reader and a dreamer. I liked to spend time at the lake drawing and painting and writing stories. I wanted to hike up into the woods.  In White's essay, he watches his son play in the water and feels time condensing - he is both his son and his father in that moment. Mortal and immortal through memory. I experience a similar emotion when I watch my daughter, but I also am missing not just my own childhood summers, but the childhood summers my children experienced.  Nostalgia threatens to overwhelm at times.

Meanwhile, reading a book about nostalgia on the flight - Ann Patchett's Tom Lake, which as I mentioned takes place in upstate Michigan - reminded me of how unreliable memory can be, and how some memories are resurrected at surprisingly or unexpected times. Visiting the cherry orchard I remembered made me realize I didn't remember the cherry orchard as it was, but rather I remembered what it meant to me. I either never knew or never absorbed the connection of the orchard to Bruce Catton. How often my memory is untrustworthy! I biked to it this summer and stopped to take a few photos, but it no longer is a thriving orchard. Even though house looked tired. I didn't poke around much because I didn't want to trespass, but I remember posing for photos among the trees one summer with my sister and cousins when we were in high school - pre-digital photo/selfie days, but at that age when we loved to envision ourselves as models.  We were beautiful - maybe not by worldly standards - but in our awkward, hopeful, unique ways.  

So here we are - five weeks after this vacation, and I'm just getting around to finishing this post. Somehow this summer has not had the time for the reflection that I was hoping to find. 

In the cherry orchard

Flora of the Michigan coast

This photo is supposed to be of a bald eagle swooping over the lake, but I missed it!

And here is a photo of a deer that just ran into the woods...

Another view from the orchard that doesn't exist any more

Lady's slipper! A rare sighting

Great color contrasts

Modeling

What I've been reading lately

 While the rest of the country is suffering from the heat dome, here in Texas we have had a fairly mild summer compared to last year - it's only been in the low 90s most of June. We've been enjoying the pool, getting up earlyish to exercise, taking a dip in the pool before bedtime to lower our core temperature, and eating lots of popsicles and ice cream.

Yesterday was one of the first days I have had to sit by the pool and read. Not that the summer has been all busy, but when I haven't been busy, I've been social or working on things like finding new homeowner's insurance and planning summer travel and taking an online course for teaching religion. Not really work, but tied to a laptop. 

So what have I been reading? I finished Terms of Endearment by Larry McMurtry yesterday. I've never seen the movie but I pictured Shirley Maclaine as Aurora Greenway the whole time I was reading. She doesn't entirely match the image of Aurora as described in the book. Aurora is supposed to be full figured, maybe plump, and taller than average. She is bossy and flirtatious and unpredictable, qualities MacLaine might have succeeded in representing. Just looking at the cast online reveals that the movie doesn't follow the book closely. The first two thirds of the book are about Aurora romancing four "mature" lovers as she enters her 50s. The last third features her daughter Emma another decade later, just prior to her cancer diagnosis.  It sounds like the movie focuses on or combines Emma's tragedy with Aurora's adventures.

I picked up this book because I have never read anything by Larry McMurtry, and I'm trying to read books by Texas writers, most of which are westerns, unsurprisingly.  Terms is an unusual book, relatively light on plot. In fact, I kept wondering exactly what the conflict is - Aurora's inability to choose a suitor? Her struggle to redefine herself in late middle age? The challenge of relationships in late middle age?  Even having completed the book, I am a little muddled about the themes - maybe because I knew a cancer diagnosis was coming, which should have been the central conflict but really comes late in the novel.  While I was reading, I was anticipating Aurora discovering she has cancer and that would precipitate some change in  her relationships. I kept waiting for her to reform/educate Vernon Dalhart so that he becomes her chosen suitor, but she just sort of decides one night after a failed dinner party to stick with the General.  I would need to reread that section to decipher if she really has an epiphany of sorts - maybe a decision to be loyal to someone? It's more of two books in one, and I can't decide if I liked it or not. It kept me reading and wanting to find out what happened, but I didn't really care for any of the characters. The most likable was Vernon, but he gets sort of set aside after featuring largely early on. Aurora's choice of the General, who is jealous and self-centered, over Vernon, who is kind and generous, is baffling - a statement about the inscrutability of attraction?  Some of the language betrays its 1970s origins.

While on vacation in Michigan, I read Ann Patchett's newest novel Tom Lake, which is set in Michigan at a summer theater remarkably similar to Interlochen, which isn't far from where we stay on Crystal Lake, about 45 minutes from Traverse City. Reading a novel set in a place you particularly love is always intriguing. In my imagination, the cherry orchard that Joe Nelson inherits from his aunt and uncle seemed remarkably like a cherry orchard we used to hike to. Of course, it can't be the same since the one I vaguely remember has a view of Crystal, not Lake Michigan, and it didn't have a little cemetery, but it did curve up a hill and smell sweetly of cherry blossoms and clover, laced with the scent of cedar and sand that pervades upper Michigan.  I hadn't been back to that orchard in years and years, so I biked by it only to discover it doesn't really exist anymore. Most of the trees are gone or no longer being cared for, so the orchard looks half wild. I had forgotten - or never really absorbed - that the property belonged to Bruce Catton, the historian, so that house is not a small farmhouse like the one in the novel, but a larger tudor style dwelling. In my memory, we hiked up the hillside behind the cottage where we used to stay, but I no longer know where the path is, and public access to the path is probably limited now by the newer homes that have sprouted up along the shore road. 

This pleasant blend of memory and imagination endeared the book to me, and the ending provides a sense of promise, but I was hoping for a little more from it. Perhaps my expectations were too high.  The premise of novel explores the relationships between mothers and daughters, and adults and their past, as the story centers around a mother in middle age, Lara, revisiting the past as she tells her adult daughters about a love affair she had with a famous actor one summer before he became famous. The mother had a shortlived acting career that ended because she really could only play one character, Emily from Our Town. (In the notes, Patchett writes that she hoped the book would inspire people to go back and read Thornton Wilder's play, which I am inspired to do, so it is a success in that regard. My memory of Wilder's play is dim in regard to details.) 

Patchett's novel moves back and forth between the present, which is set during the Covid pandemic, and that summer when Lara met the famous actor during a run of Our Town at the summer theater. They live like camp counselors - visiting each other's cabins and sneaking out to swim in the lake. The love affair doesn't outlive the summer. Lara gets hurt and is replaced by her understudy on the stage and in the arms of the famous actor, Peter Duke.  

While I loved reading about Michigan, this book had a couple quirks that prevented it from being a favorite by Patchett, although I did appreciate how she portrayed the way that children get the past wrong - they misunderstand and create stories about their parents based on patched together stories that are missing information. Lara's story is supposed to fill in the gaps for her girls, even though the idea that a mother shares as much about a past love affair with her adult children is perhaps a stretch. At times it is a little unclear whether she is sharing or just remembering. In the end some holes in the familiy history are filled in with a few surprises.  The relationship between the girls and their mother improves perhaps somewhat, but doesn't change much as a result of learning about her past. Lara's relationship with her husband seems strong, but her deep dive into the past seems to make her realize how much passion she experienced with the actor, who ends up an alcoholic. That isn't really a spoiler because you know in the beginning he is both famous and a drunk. On the other hand, her marriage seems deeply satisfying and healthy, despite it being something of a rebound relationship. It seems a testament to how much love for a place keeps the family united and people grounded. Even the famous actor loved the orchard more than perhaps he ever loved any person besides himself. 

Other fast reads: Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid and James by Percival Everett which is one of the hot books of the summer. Reid's book is the story of a professional tennis player making a comeback after years on the sidelines. Carrie Soto retired from professional tennis after reaching a goal of winning a Grand Slam, but when her record is threatened by a younger player, she returns to the court. This book may not appeal to everyone because much of the novel is spent describing Carrie's training and games, and of course, Carrie makes some bad choices during her famous years. She does reconcile with her father and achieve some self-awareness over the years about how single minded and rude she was. It was interesting to reflect on what it takes to rise to the top - and is it possible to do so without using and abusing others. The question of whether genius requires a little monomania is an interesting one. 

James, Percival Everett's novel about the slave Jim from Mark Twain's books, has garnered a lot of media attention and accolades. It moves fast - James falls from one misadventure into another in an episodic plot harkening to the structure of Twain's book, and others of that time. It also employs both the irony and sarcasm present in Twain's voice.  I need to go back and reread Huck Finn - it's been a long time, and I forget a lot of the details. I considered reading Tom Sawyer with my 8th graders, but the language was an issue. Twain is a writer I have never really loved, although I appreciate his talent. Percival Everett's book has some of Twain's biting humor, but is lighter on descriptions and heavier on both action and commentary about the use of langauge. The premise is that James, known to Twain's readers and to white people in Everett's book as Jim, escapes and meets up with Huck and then gets separated and has his own adventures before crossing paths with Huck again near the end of the novel.  Everett revises Twain's story quite a bit, especially at the end, adding events that suggest "this is what I wish was could have happened." In Everett's book, slaves have two languages - a grammatically correct and linguistically advanced English that they speak with each other, and a slave dialect that they speak in the presence of white people. Perhaps this is inspired by the literate work of Black writers like Phylis Wheatley and Frederick Douglass. James is a teacher who instructs children in when and how to use the slave language to give white people what they want. He also tells the children that there is no God, Who is another fabrication by whites to maintain power and oppress others. James runs away because he is going to be sold, but he doesn't want to go far because he is motivated to free his wife and daughter, whom I don't remember in Twain's book. 

The book is more of a mediation on the use of language to get and maintain power than a plot driven story like Twain's Huck Finn, although Twain's book also contains its share of biting satire, although the plot of James moved quickly. Occasionally, I'd have to backtrack to figure out just how the action shifted to a new location - but maybe that was because I was reading late at night.  The book is complex and mashes contemporary ideas about identity and language with a setting 180 years in the past. I can see why it is a source of conversation. 

I've also just finished rereads of Anne of Green Gables adn Anne of Avonlea with my daughter and started Anne of the Island. The sequels lack the endearing escapades that Anne experienced in the first novel, but are escapist retreats into the flowery descriptions of Prince Edward Island and the friendships and light romances Anne finds herself engaged in. That style of writing has been out of favor for a long time, but I love it, and happily my daughter seems to love it too - reading it out loud to her perhaps is an aid to appreciation. 

Finally, I skimmed a self-help book, How Not to Age by Dr. Michael Greger, the type of book you can usually just read the intro or a review and know what the book has to say. I actually checked this one out to get myself to be more motivated to go to bed earlier and to read to my husband a little bit to convince him of the virtues of eating more vegetables and less meat and carbs. And it provides a great defense of wheat germ, my long ago favorite additive, for brain health.  I am not a fad diet person, but lately aches and pains and poor sleep have me fearing that age is catching up more quickly than I'd like, so I need to be more intentional about turning out the lights earlier and getting more fruits and vegetables into my body. All the things you know are good for you, but books and junk food are just more enticing...

Feeling sentimental

After celebrating graduation with her family and at friends' parties, our daughter had a graduation/birthday party with friends.  She turned 18 the second week of June, so we combined celebrations and decorated with graduation themed decor that friends had passed on and with balloons and cupcakes iced to look like daisies for the birthday theme.  It is hard to believe this child is now officially a young adult. She still seems like the little mite who we dragged to all her siblings' athletic events, down trails, to the library, on planes with her noise cancelling headphones, stuffies, and weighted blanket to combat her fears.  How she has grown!

The other day one of the party guests, a friend with a younger daughter, was bemoaning some drama between her daughter and some other girls, and I wanted to say "It will be all right." Of course, I don't know who the friends are or even what the drama is, and maybe it will get worse before it gets better. But her daughter will mature. The false friends will mature. New friendships - and alliances - will form. Some of my kids' best friends today are people they thought hated them. Others never hear from people they thought were best friends. People change.  I won't miss the drama of middle and high school the next couple of years.

But I will miss the full house, the plates on the table, the help with driving and shopping, even the laundry (however little help there was). I'll miss the person that wears those clothes. I'll miss having someone with whom to share coffee, to study at the table, to go on jogs, to worry about (or I'll still worry; I just might have not have enough details). 

I'll miss the track meets and the school masses. I'll miss the binge watching partner and the clothes critiquer. I'll miss the friends filling up the house on weekends and the sound of laughter at midnight even when I want to sleep. I'll miss the hugs in the morning and the blessings at night. I'll miss the baking and vegetable roasting. I'll miss my girl. 

I'll always love this young lady. 

Summer sets in

Ah, Summer! Thanks be to God!

Summer break started officially last week, but with the family visiting and house cleaning and a couple days spent at school for meetings and to clean, the week speed by and felt like work. But now we are back to slow starts to the mornings and hot afternoons spent lazing in the pool.

Lots of emotions colored the last month. Our sixth child graduated from high school Memorial Day weekend. I think I was more emotional this time around because I know how rarely she'll be home from now on. When our oldest graduated, I was so excited for him. I loved college, and he was going to the same place. I had confidence in him, our steadiest child, bright, hardworking, so I wasn't too worried, although of course there were things to worry about - including hospitalization for a bad infection and surgery for a knee injury.  I also had a month-old infant at his high school graduation. My mothering days were restarting.  Six children were still at home, and I knew he would be back for holidays and the summer. 

What I didn't realize when we sent him off was how brief those visits home would be. And then there were summer jobs away. The second one was off right behind the first, and suddenly the flight from home seemed to be happening at waterfall pace. The stress of senior year and the emotions of saying goodbye only intensified with each child, rather than lessening. So now that this dear daughter has the spotlight, I have more emotions.  She was the baby so long. If it weren't for that child who was an infant at her brother's graduation 10 years ago, I would have an empty nest this fall.  Even her brother who is still in college won't be home long this summer - at the end of the week he leaves for Italy for a summer internship living with adults with disabilities in the L'Arche community and biking with them through the Dolomites. I'm more than a tiny bit wishful we could all go with him. 

So I'm relishing this brief moment when our days have a relaxing tempo. I cleaned out my closet with my daughter's help and recycled a big stack of old papers. I have a box full of papers still to sort and organize this summer.  I have a list of things I want to accomplish this summer. I'm doing an online class to finish a certification to for Catholic school teachers through Franciscan. I want to do more writing. I'm researching teacher certification programs.  

On that topic: I've committed to another year teaching middle school, but I miss teaching at the college and in adult education. I felt called to this current job, and I have relished the purposefulness of teaching younger students, the relationships with students and other teachers, the learning I had to do and was able to share. But it has not been an easy year. I was exhausted at the end of every day.  I was not especially good at classroom management, and the last couple of weeks I felt like I was floundering.  Even though I went into this with an attitude that I would try it for a year, I want to try again to improve. To quit after one year feels like ... quitting, being defeated.  In contrast, next year if I go back to teaching community college after two years of teaching younger students, it would feel more like a choice - as long as that option still exists.  What I am learning now about classroom management, about designing lesson plans that provide options for differentiated learning, about creating opportunities for participatory learning, about pivoting when something isn't working, are valuable lessons and experiences for teaching any level. 

But this post isn't supposed to be about teaching, although I want to try to write down some of what I learned for next year at some point this summer. 

Instead, I'll share some pictures that capture a slight bit of the delight of having the whole family together. One of the things that makes me happiest is filling up a pew at Mass with my favorite people. I love sharing the sign of peace, sharing communion, praying with and for these particular young adults.  I love that they have fun together and that they enjoy each other's company. Although I regularly complain about the size and upkeep of our house, I'm happy they want to come here and that there is space for them all to gather and hang out. The weekend began with my birthday, which we celebrated with a hike and a baccalaureate Mass and dinner out at a Thai restaurant, and then we celebrated the high school graduation the next day. Some aunts and an uncle and cousins came down from OKC. My parents went to my nephew's graduation and then made their way here for the rest of the weekend.  We ate well and laughed a lot and enjoyed each other's company.  They made their sister feel loved and congratulated and made their mom feel full of love and gratitude. 

Here is a huge photo dump in reverse order:

Produce from my tiny garden - a little more this year because I started earlier and it is not as hot yet as last year.

A visit to the Veterans park for Memorial Day and our anniversary and a game of pickleball at the courts there.

My mom and I at the Austin Nature Center

Nature center time with the grandparents.

Night swimming

Splash contests

The sisters

The brothers

The proud parents

The cheering squad!

The graduate

The party with cousins

Before the Baccalaureate Mass

Birthday hike at St. Edwards Park

Swimming in Bull Creek

My sister-in-law capturing some of the wildlife

Senior skirt day - the girls decorate their uniforms with their college colors - Furman University in Greenville, SC

A deer spotted on our Mother's Day trip to Blue Hole in Wimberly, TX

More swimming hole fun. Quintessential central Texas summer activity

Modelling the cap and gown

Sunday Mass with the whole clan

Oldest and youngest

Swim team season has begun!

Lists: An April Summary at the end of May - and a May lookback

Although April is far in the review mirror, here is a list of some things that happened in that busy month: 

In April, we 

• Celebrated Easter in Oklahoma City with grandparents and cousins
• Traveled to South Bend to visit son and visited with friends in Chicago
• Celebrated a 10th birthday while watching an eclipse
• Celebrated a 51st birthday
• Marked - sort of - the dog's 4th birthday
• Went to 4 track meets
• Went "backpacking" with 3 ten year olds to celebrate a birthday
• Had a couple friends visit from out of town
• Went to Mass, school, the library, some shopping.
• Minimal reading
• Considered life changes

May was equally full. We

• Celebrated the last state track meet of our high school senior who finished the season with a gold medal in the 800m and a silver in the 4 x400 relay. She ran the 400, but didn't place.
• Celebrated Mother's Day with a trip to a state park swimming hole with friends.
• Graded over 100 papers = 2 rough drafts, final copy and a couple short assignments. 
• Tried to get 7th and 8th graders to read plays and perform for their classmates
• Went to 3 swim meets
• Went to the 8th grade graduation
• Managed all of the end of the year kerfuffle with extra hubbub for the high school senior
• Welcomed all of our kids and 2 sets of cousins for a high school graduation + a few outings with the visitors and a Memorial day celebration
• Attended a few graduation parties
• Made a couple major life decisions
• Slept very little
• Read very little
• Exercised very little
• Had to go to confession
• Appreciated Mass 
• Appreciated wildflowers
• Appreciated swimming holes and pools

This list is not comprehensive. It's just to remind myself how the days slip away, and yet we have wonderful memories to revisit. I was meaning to write a reflective post, but I couldn't quite decide what to reflect upon. Now that the summer looms invitingly ahead with only minimal activities scheduled, I look forward to more time to simply daydream and sleep. 

A visit to Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler's

About a month ago, my middle school classes finished novel units. Eighth graders read The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Not my favorite Holocaust book, but easy to read in class because of short chapters and lots of resources online. We then read a dramatized version of the Diary of Ann Frank, and a speech by Elie Wiesel given at the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. I wanted to assign excerpts from Night and Man's Search for Meaning, but ran out of time. I would have liked to do The Book Thief, but they'll read that in high school, and I thought The Hiding Place might be too long. 

Meanwhile, the 7th graders read From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. I thought I might decorate the room with art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but that didn't happen. I have yet to decorate a part of the room with a book's theme. If I stick with this next year, I might get around to that.

Konigsburg's book is another easy read, but Mrs. Frankweiler has some wise things to say.  I wanted the students to focus on the theme that worth/value aren't always tied to monetary values, although it's easier for students to identify a theme of "family" (or maybe "family is important") or "secrets" (rather than "having a secret or mystery to solve gives us a sense of purpose") Clearly, we have more work to do to learn how to talk about theme. It's a hard element to teach because it is so difficult to articulate. Here is where my inexperience as a teacher is clear - teaching theme and classroom management...

At any rate, I remembered loving Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler as a preteen and, because of it, wanting to live in a museum, or at least visit the Met, but I had forgotten how wise some of the advice is. One of my favorite quotes is what Mrs. Frankweiler says to Claudia: 

“I think you should learn, of course, and some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything. And you can feel it inside of you. If you never take time out to let that happen, then you accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you. You can make noise with them, but never really feel anything with them. It’s hollow."

I think I feel this way not infrequently these days. We take in a lot of information. Eventually it becomes numbing. I don't feel anything when I read the paper about wars and elections and protests. I still am irritated when I read about the race to develop new AIs by every tech whosit, all of which require obscene amounts of energy to power the data processing centers. What sense does it make to avoid using straws when these tech genius companies are building equipment that uses the equivalent amount of energy of thousands of homes a day - in the name of what improvement? AI may save time on some repetitive tasks, but the end result is a devaluation of human life and dignity. 

Tangent there. I meant to comment instead how reading TOO much can lead to decision/action paralysis. When we have too many options, we no long know what to do. How do we make decisions about how to live life? In a related quote, Claudia reflects on how we should let life/vacations teach us something. It's these experiences and the memories and lessons we hold on to that make us who we are -that make us valuable to ourselves. They help us know what we value. 

“The adventure is over. Everything gets over, and nothing is ever enough. Except the part you carry with you. It's the same as going on a vacation. Some people spend all their time on a vacation taking pictures so that when they get home they can show their friends evidence that they had a good time. They don't pause to let the vacation enter inside of them and take that home.”

At any rate, another thing I love about this book is the sibling relationships.  Claudia and Jamie's sibling relationship really develops beautifully throughout the story. By sharing in such a memorable experience, they forge bonds and a collective memory that cements their relationship. Instead of being people who share a roof while they go about their individual pursuits, they become collaborators whose strengths complement each other. Claudia is the idea person. She dreams big and makes plans, although she is bad about saving money. However, Jamie, even though he isn't as good at planning ahead, is good at saving his dimes and nickels. He is frugral where Claudia loves her little luxuries. Together they are able to survive for a week on their own by budgeting for travel, food, and even laundry. Finding change in the fountain helps them subsist a little longer. 

“What happened was: they became a team, a family of two. There had been times before they ran away when they acted like a team, but those were very different from feeling like a team. Becoming a team didn't mean the end of their arguments. But it did mean that the arguments became a part of the adventure, became discussions not threats. To an outsider the arguments would appear to be the same because feeling like part of a team is something that happens invisibly. You might call it caring. You could even call it love. And it is very rarely, indeed, that it happens to two people at the same time-- especially a brother and a sister who had always spent more time with activities than they had with each other.”

That was pretty astonishing to my students, some of whom are afraid to walk across the street by themselves (maybe exaggerating there...). I see excessive caution in my own kids - partly because I was afraid to let them roam out of fear of being turned in by the neighbors, as well as the bad guys we all hear too much about.

The book makes it clear that we need one another.  Claudia knows she doesn't have enough money to run away by herself; she never really admits she would be lonely. But as the book goes on, it is clear that the adventure is better because it is shared. The siblings help each other avoid being caught, and they feed off each other's ideas while learning about Egyptian art and European decorative arts, like the big Renaissance era bed where they sleep. Their discovery of an angel statue that might be the work of Michaelangelo leads them on an adventure to discover its true providence, doing research at a library, and finally making their way to Mrs. Frankweiler's country estate to confront her, since she is the one who put the statue up to auction. 

Mrs. Frankweiler makes them work for the answer, and in the process, they discover the truth about the statue. However, Mrs. Frankweiler convinces them that sometimes it is better to have a secret than to share all you know with the whole world.

This is a valuable perspective in today's show and tell all culture. People want to be known and loved, but Konigsburg's book illustrates how important it is to have confidence that you are worthy of being loved whether or not you receive public admiration. Claudia ran away because she was unappreciated at home, but her escapade does not teach her family to appreciate her more. What it teaches her is that she doesn't need appreciation to know she is valuable as a human being. She learns to be independent, to value learning, to value beauty, and to work collaboratively, as well. She finds worth in appreciating what she knows and what she is capable of learning. She realizes that the value of something is not necessarily the price tag or public adulation, but the value is related to the appreciation of one person. Claudia loves the statue because it is beautiful, and it speaks to her for some inexplicable reason. Learning more about it cause her to learn more about herself and her potential.

“Angel" became part of Claudia's story about finding herself, about how the greatest adventure lies not in running away but in looking inside, and the greatest discovery is not in finding out who made a statue but in finding out what makes you.”

I'm not sure all this came through to the 7th graders, but we did talk quite a bit about value and worth - they liked try to calculate costs in today's dollars.  They appreciated that the two did so much with so little and that they were so responsible. And hopefully, just a smidge of that idea that you don't the world's approval to know you are worthy will stick with them.

https://cahughesbookreviews.com/2023/07/29/book-review-from-the-mixed-up-files-of-mrs-basil-e-frankweiler-by-e-l-konigsburg/

Sprinting through Spring

 Ah April! 

Really, the poets who call it cruel are being paradoxical, right? It's hard to be unhappy this time of year. I've been rereading Anne of Green Gables with the youngest, and I tend to agree with Anne that it is difficult to be sad or lonely this time of year when everything is fresh and green and blooming. My garden looks better than ever after some soaking rains and a good dose of fertilizer. The echinacea returned, the daisies are flourishing, the impatiens have filled out - they'll last until the first long stretch of heat, but so far we have escaped that. My raised bed has been consumed by slugs, so I need to replant some peppers and lettuces, but I have a happy rosemary bush and new growth on the oregano.

Although there are many things, like battling weeds and missing my kids and friends, that I could dwell in self-pity for - and have, during the winter -  the spring season and wildflowers blooming makes it easier to bear now. I did miss my young adults for Easter, but I was happy for them that they were able to enjoy each other's company and tease me about their gifts. The candy arrive late and melted, squished into mailing boxes that were too small and smashed. Apparently, Nana had enough sweets to satisfy a small army, so no one felt the loss of the Haribos and Swedish Fish and peach rings and all the other terrible artificial stuff they love. I never did find Cadbury mini eggs or even regular Cadbury eggs. I never found all black Brach's jelly beans or chocolate marshmellow eggs or bunnies. What is going on in the candy world? Or is it just the stores near us? 

What we did find is a way to celebrate Easter with the other side of the family. After an exciting day at the track and a good visit with all the track friends, a day marked by PR's in the 4x400 and 4x200, we went to the Vigil Mass. There was enough time to shower and relax and to mark a shift in attitude and arrive in plenty of time for the Easter fire. We had 10 catechumens, so the vigil lasted over 3 hours, but it was beautiful and celebratory; the trumpets fanfared, the lillies perfumed, the candles lit the darkness and melted wax on the pews in front of us. The alleluias echoed joyously.  The Easter vigil really is the culmination of months of preparation and reminds us of the cyclical way that we die and rise many times over throughout our lives. 

This is what I have felt the last couple of weeks - a resurrection of sorts after a gloomy winter. Maybe it's hormonal, maybe it's grace. I like to trust it to the second - how else to survive the first!

 After the vigil we feasted - my husband on a piece of meat, me on champagne, the girls on the failed carrot cake. Then we went to bed and rose a few hours later to drive several hours to see the grandparents in OKC. We decided an Easter with family was well worth a short night of sleep and a moderately long car ride - really less than 6 hours. Two sets of cousins - the ones around our youngest's age - came over, and we had an Easter egg hunt in which 10 kids made short work of 250 eggs.  They blew bubbles, colored with chalk, and played ball in the yard, before feasting on the traditional Easter feast - ham, asparagus, salad, potatoes, rolls, etc. No jello salad this year. Lemon bars and carrot cake and candy and ice cream satisfied everyone's sweet tooth. We sat around and talked, did some yard work cutting up limbs that came down in a storm, and bottle fed kittens my sister-in-law had rescued from a litter left in her garden shed.  The kids played and ate candy, and somehow the afternoon passed quickly. We didn't linger long after breakfast the next day, but the visit was long enough to share some hugs with the grandparents and make a memory with the cousins.

It also was long enough to remind my own two kids left at home that they are part of a family bigger than they sometimes realize. They have people who care about them and people they need to care for. A constant goal of parenting while living an itinerant life has been to give my kids a sense of rootedness in their membership in an extended family, a family they may find awkward or annoying, but a family that is there for them in difficulty and in celebration. I'm happy some of those efforts have been fruitful with the older kids who now choose the company of their grandparents and cousins without me forcing it. A real Easter gift..