Some favorite Pope moments

Some of my favorite images and words from some of the Pope's recent visit to the United States.  So much joy shared!

"We are celebrating the feast of the family," he told the crowd. "Families have a citizenship that is divine. The identity card that they have is given to them by God so that within the heart of the family truth, goodness and beauty can truly grow."

"Some of you might say of course, Father, you speak like that because you're not married," he said.

"Families have difficulties. Families -- we quarrel, sometimes plates can fly, and children bring headaches. I won't speak about mother-in-laws," he quipped.

"However, in families, there is always light" because of the love of God's son.

"Just as there are problems in families, there is the light of the resurrection," he said.   

"The family is like a factory of hope," he said.

"In the family, there are indeed difficulties" and children bring challenges, too, he said.

"But those difficulties are overcome with love," he said. "Hatred is not capable of dealing (with) or overcoming any difficulty. Division of hearts cannot overcome a difficulty; only love can overcome."

http://www.catholicnews.com/services/englishnews/2015/pope-delights-philly-crowd-with-spontaneous-talk-on-families.cfm

Faith opens a “window” to the presence and working of the Spirit. It shows us that, like happiness, holiness is always tied to little gestures. “Whoever gives you a cup of water in my name will not go unrewarded”, says Jesus (cf. Mk 9:41).

These little gestures are those we learn at home, in the family; they get lost amid all the other things we do, yet they do make each day different. They are the quiet things done by mothers and grandmothers, by fathers and grandfathers, by children. They are little signs of tenderness, affection and compassion. Like the warm supper we look forward to at night, the early lunch awaiting someone who gets up early to go to work. Homely gestures. Like a blessing before we go to bed, or a hug after we return from a hard day’s work. Love is shown by little things, by attention to small daily signs which make us feel at home. Faith grows when it is lived and shaped by love. That is why our families, our homes, are true domestic churches. They are the right place for faith to become life, and life to become faith.

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/09/27/popes-homily-at-world-meeting-of-families-mass-full-text/

There are some things we really need to take care of: the children, and grandparents. Children, whether they are young or older, they are the strength that moves us forward. We place our hope in them.

Grandparents are the living memory of the family. They passed on the faith, they transmitted the faith, to us. To look after grandparents, children, is the expression of love. The people that does not care for its children or grandparents is a people that has not future. Because it doesn’t have the strength or the memory to go forward.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/sep/26/pope-francis-visits-philadelphia-us-tour-live

Do you know what the title was of the Pope that ought to be used? Servant of the servants of God. It’s a little different from the stars. Stars are beautiful to look at. I like to look at them in the summer when the sky is clear. But the Pope must be, must be the servant of the servants of God. Yes, in the media this is happening but there’s another truth. How many stars have we seen that go out and fall. It is a fleeting thing. On the other hand, being servant of the servants of God is something that doesn’t pass.

http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=11026

Photos from http://abc7.com/religion/photos-pope-francis-in-the-united-states/998428/ and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3248871/Heartwarming-moment-Pope-Francis-blesses-17-year-old-girl-wheelchair-suffering-spina-bifida-wants-actress.html

Rainbows welcome Pope Francis: http://abc7.com/religion/rainbows-spotted-throughout-pope-francis-visit-to-us/1008705/

Popishness

I am still reading Dickens, and recently came across a character described as "popish." I know it is a derogatory term, but with Pope Francis arriving in Washington, DC, perhaps at this very minute, I think it is a term that could be reclaimed with some pride. It's a good moment to be a Papist and to be interested in popish things.

Being on the west coast and in want of a Catholic newspaper - or any newspaper at all right now, we are a little removed from the fanfare and controversy surrounding the Pope's visit to America, fresh from a visit to Cuba.  But still I'm excited about it, our DRE is excited, and our priest brought it up at Mass on Sunday. Unfortunately, I am getting most of my news secondhand from my husband and son who read cnn.com and foxnews.com on their phones for their news information. We don't access the most reliable sources. My boys were heatedly discussing their disappointment in the invitation list that President Obama issued to a reception at the White House that Pope Francis will attend, along with thousands of other people. The invite list includes a pro-abortion nun, a gay rights activist, a transgender activist, and other liberal types.  Political conservatives see this as either an act of disrespect to the Church or a trap to get Pope Francis in a position where the media can snap a photo and post a headline about the Church changing its position on marriage or something similar. Liberals, I would guess, are excited to see conservatives get worked up about it and cause divisiveness in the ranks, a real Screwtape moment.

Which was the case in our house last night. The guys railed how our liberal government is trying to undermine the Pope's visit and how the media seems to poised to swoop in and capture the Pope in a moment of hugging a transvestite.

Perfect! He should be caught on film hugging a transvestite. Or hugging the President.  Or hugging a pedophile priest and also a victim of sexual predation. One of the early popular photos of Pope Francis' papacy was the image of him hugging a severely disfigured man. It was an image that called to mind Christ's ministry to the lepers, the outcasts, the suffering.  Now here is an opportunity for the Pope to continue to walk in the footsteps of Christ by dining with tax collectors and sinners. He already socialized with Communists.  He's visiting prisons and homeless shelters and Congress. Obama, through his guest list, is handing Pope Francis the opportunity that Christ encouraged: to share a meal with sinners - a moment of Communion that transcends politics.

Let's pray that instead of causing division and pain, this visit will be a moment of healing and transformation.  I recently came across a link to David Brooks' and Mark Shields' comments on Newshour on the blog Across the Page. The blog post commented on the fact that religion is having a  positive moment in the news lately, in between this visit, the shootings in Charleston, and Jimmy Carter's brain cancer, among other topics.  She quoted Brooks' rhapsodic hope that this will be a moment of spiritual awakening and healing.  But she ended her post by pointing out that the Pope is just a man, and we shouldn't be giving him any undue adulation, which belongs to Christ alone.

And yet, everything the Pope does points to Christ. Christ will be present during the Pope's visit.  Christ will be present in the man through the sacrament of the priesthood. He will be present in the Word that the Pope will proclaim.  And He most powerfully will be present in the crowds that will gather in His name to witness to the ability of grace to change lives, to heal and forgive, to unite enormous crowds in celebration and hope. I wish I could be there as a witness to be moved, also.

In 1993, my generation was profoundly inspired and changed by the visit of Pope John Paul II to Denver. I missed that visit also, but the graces extended far and wide through the movement of the Spirit in those who attended and were called to serve. May the Holy Spirit use this visit also to extend the grace of conversion to those of us far away.

From David Brooks:   
I hope we don’t overpoliticize this visit.

The first thing we’re going to see is our countrymen, thousands, millions of them moved by faith, their eyes looking to heaven, their heart warmed by God’s love. And we’re going to see that in public. And we’re going to see that in tens of millions of people. And that will be a moment of seeing faith in a way we rarely see it in this country in public.

And, secondly, we will see the example of the man. The message is the person. It’s the way he conducts himself. His love for the poor is not out of any self-congratulatory. He — whether you’re Jewish, Muslim, atheist, whatever, he is the embodiment of the Christian virtues that I think we all admire, the — seeing the meekest, seeing the poorest, seeing the lowest, and lifting them up, and seeing the brokenness in people, and then lifting them up with joy.

And so, to me, it will be a theater of spiritual — a spiritual theater more than a political theater. And I suspect tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people’s lives will be changed, in the way that politics can never change them, from within. Their lives will be transformed because they will be at this visit. And they will be moved by something they had never felt or only have felt weakly before.

And to me, that’s just a seismic event, whatever happens to our political culture.

HARI SREENIVASAN: David, so what about — how does that translate when that spiritual theater is finished? Does that translate into any sort of policy action or rethinking something that might be in the works in Congress that’s stalled?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I hope it transforms hearts. And I hope it transforms hearts in the ways Mark just suggested.

The pope is not going to visit the homeless or the prisoners once in his visit. He’s doing it six, seven, eight times in the visit. So, the constant focus will be there on those who are hurting the most. And I think that enlivened attention will carry over into people’s eyes, both in their private lives and their private giving, but also in their public lives.

Mark has said this many times over the years. We have a political culture focused on the middle class. We have lost some of the contact with the poor, some of the contact with the needy, and not only — and not from high to low, and, frankly, some of the compassionate conservatism and some of progressivism has been from high to low, but treating the poor as those closest to God and worthy of respect maybe even more than everybody else.

And that’s an attention that has been absent from our political culture or in short supply, and maybe it will be in slightly bigger supply.

Random notes

I know living in small spaces is trendy right now, but I have to admit that despite the many drawbacks of our new home in terms of being on busy corner and having no yardspace, I am finding many things that I appreciate about living in a bigger house.  When we lived in a small house, my organizing mantra was "like goes with like, everything in its place."  Anything out of place made the entire place look messy.  High usage in the bathrooms meant frequent cleanings. I didn't like to try to navigate the piano/desk corner because of the tight space made smaller by piles because I couldn't reach my filing cabinet, so papers rarely were filed. (Who files papers anymore anyway?) I felt like I was always stuffing things into a space not quite big enough: sheets, towels, food, dishes, clothes . . .

Now that we have a bigger house, I find I do have more to clean, but things don't look messy quite so quickly.  I can use my sewing machine without being a contortionist to get to it. The kids can lay on their floors. We can access things in the garage without excavating. I don't have to stack dishes precariously because we have cabinet space (although most of the cupboards are low and accessible to the toddler destructo.) The space is a blessing that makes some of the other quirks bearable.

Multiple trips up and down the stairs have convinced me we need upstairs sets and downstairs sets of many things, especially cleaning supplies. One set of diaper changing supplies upstairs and one down, one spray and wash upstairs and one down, bathroom cleaners in each of the 3 bathrooms (luxury! But we still have people knocking on doors to get to a toilet).  Multiple trash cans in a large room; multiple sets of bath towels, stored separately from beach/pool towels. Cups in every bathroom. Shoe bins by the front and the back door.  Each day I think of something to make life easier.

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Last week temperatures were in upper 80s/lower 90s. Hot but not unbearable. Nonetheless, the kids were released early from school three days in a row for heat days.  A new concept for me. I can understand snow days - you might die if you try to drive to school on icy roads. I suppose some kid or teacher could die here if they overheated, but I don't know that lives were threatened.  The reasoning behind heat days might be that learning is difficult when made torpid by the temperature.  Most houses and classrooms here lack air conditioning, so they are uncomfortable and not conducive to productivity on a hot day. Kids were thrilled. They may not have been learning about math and science, but they were learning about cultures.

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I am teaching religious ed. again. Trying to move into volunteering slowly, but I am happy to jump in on teaching the faith.  Keeps me thinking about what we need to be talking about at home for catechesis since the older kids are all in public school.  And I really like the Director of Religious Education at the parish.  With all the moving we have done, I have found that the best way to get to feel at home in a new place is to get connected at the parish, and the best way to do that is to offer to do something no one else is stepping up to do.

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I was looking at old photos the other day and felt that nostalgia for the "olden days" when the oldest kids were babies.  I think I was much more intentional back then than I realized.  I remember feeling bored and sometimes purposeless when I was home alone with toddlers, especially when my husband was underway or on watch so often back, gone for days and weeks sometimes.  But I realized this morning when I was at the park with Baby what a gift it is to have the free time to just be present with babies. So often I have my mind on my to-do list, or I just don't have long stretches of day when there isn't anything to do (like right now when Baby is napping and I should be working on other paperwork, cleaning, shopping for a clarinet for the middle schooler...),  This morning was the first time in a long time that I didn't have anything on the calendar (although I missed a officer spouses' club coffee...) and didn't have anything really pressing to do at home, so that I could follow Baby around on the swings and slides without rehearsing the to-do list.  She loves the park located in the center of the village. Other children are always there, providing entertainment and education.  Today she followed a pre-schooler and climbed all the way the ladder on the big kids' jungle gym. Made me nervous.

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Meanwhile her big brother in college also makes me a little nervous. He decided to join the rugby club. A couple evenings ago, one of our friends passed through South Bend and took him out to eat. He reported that our oldest has a sore shoulder from last weekend's game. Ugh. I did give him our insurance information and instructions on how he can go to any ER without first obtaining an authorization and he can get non-emergency medical care simply by calling for authorization, but realizing he needs medical care is the first step.  Other than sore muscles, he seems to be doing well at school.

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More on Baby: She actually slept through the night two nights in a row recently. Just turned seventeen months.  I never really believe people who say their babies sleep through the night when they are less than a year.  I've never had one of those kinds of babies.  Mine only start sleeping through the night when we stop night nursing.  Giving this up has been a challenge, though. She would nurse all night long if I let her, but I'm beginning to worry about her dental health and my mental health if we both don't get more sleep.  So finally, now that we have been here a month, school has started, and we have something of a routine in place, I've decided that she should start to learn how to sleep in her own bed.  Despite initial success of two nights in a row of a solid eight hours of sleep, the past two nights have been a struggle. Last night she said her first sentence: "Stop it, Mommy," when I was trying to rub her back to get her to fall asleep.  Maybe by the time she is two, we might get some sleep around here.

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Some recent reads: Finished Up a Road Slowly by Irene Hunt, one of my old "Young Adult" books that is so much more wholesome than some of the YA books on the shelves at the library. I've taken to previewing most of the books my preteen daughter brings home. I did like Heartbeat by Sharon Creech, the story of a girl who runs for the love of running. Short and simple, but big on zest for living.  Same thing with Hunt's book - a simple story of a girl whose mother dies, so she goes to live with her spinster aunt and alcoholic unwed uncle. She develops a love of storytelling, like so many young heroines in literature, falls in love with the wrong boy, then realizes in time that it is her childhood friend she loves best.  Episodic, evocative of another time and place, romantic but not lurid, it might be dull to today's reader. I'm trying to get my daughter to read it, but right now all three of my middle kids are wrapped up in Rick Riordan novels in anticipation of watching the movies.

I also have been plowing my way through The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens. I've started and stopped this novel many times. This one and Bleak House I can't seem to finish.  Too much of the dark side of Victorian England? I just can't stand Quilp, and I'm not attached to Little Nell enough to stay connected. However, I am determined to stick with this book to the end. One of my recent resolutions is to try to read some of the old books I have been packing around for years. I have a number of books that I haven't read that may need to find a new home if I don't read them before we move again.

Took a break from Dickens to read The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley, which is the book club pick for the library this month, so extra copies were stationed by the checkout. Easy to read mystery set in a old English country house with an 11 yr old girl as the detective. Entertaining, but not as detailed as I would like. Maybe I fell asleep while reading too often and skipped over some sections, but it seemed like some sections could have used more explanation or back story.

Have I mentioned how much I love our library here? It has an outstanding children's section, a beautiful building, a lovely, quiet reading room, and a great, large selection of books for the older crowd. We love toddler story time, and the movie collection is thorough. It does cost 50 cents a week to borrow a DVD, but that charge is much less than Netflix and the offerings are greater. Last week we watched four episodes of Fr. Brown mysteries from the 1970's. I was surprised how much the kids enjoyed them - the filmmaking is rough to say the least. But a good detective story always entertains!

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In other news: We now have pictures on the walls, closets organized, and have had a party.  We also have started the fall sports season with volleyball, football, and flag football underway.  I took the middle kids to a performance of Westside Story at the little local theater, and the second youngest daughter and I did a mini-triathlon and a 5k run.  The middle son and I have planted a backyard container pizza garden and a couple flower pots in the front after I hit up a garage sale and scored some plants and pots. These are all signs of settling in.  I look less and less at the "For Rent" section on Facebook and in the paper, and am finding more and more to be grateful for.  Walking home from taking the second youngest daughter to school, I had one of those moments of not exactly joy but contentedness, as I admired the neighbors' gardens and realized I hadn't been in the car for five days. Perhaps what I love best about our new home is that we can walk everywhere.  I love not driving. I do have to drive to the grocery store soon, though.  And I have an itch to see some more of our new county. I think this weekend we might play tourist in our hometown. There is a lot to see and do around here. Plus I need to drive out to the suburbs to look at a clarinet for sale...

Strolling the Embarcadero by the USS Midway

An earlier trip to the Museum of Man

Exploring the Egyptian exhibit

Pharaoh and his queen

A walking stick from the folk art museum

We thought about getting married here.

Basilica of Our Lady: from the trip to South Bend a month ago

A favorite climbing tree

God smiles on this place

Candles aflame for a good year

One of the many outposts that make this place Catholic and beautiful

Watching ducks

At the playground

Black box theater set for Westside Story

Friday nights

Runner girl

A medalist in her age group

Shopping at IKEA wears everyone out. Good thing they have FREE coffee if you sign up for emails!

Homemade Chia pet/microgreens yum.

Sunset over the library

body surfing

The beaches here are flecked with gold

Nightlights

Storybook house in color

Here are some photos of our new home. Our first house guests visited this weekend and agreed that the house suits us.  What do I infer from that? That we are a unique and colorful? Unusual and surprising? Partial to rodents, amphibians, and flower fairies?

What do you think?

Gargoyle shot from a couple weeks ago - still unpacking

Baby in the pool: Happy as a bug in a rug

Doing homework under the watchful eye of the Gargoyle

The pantry corner with hamsters

Bedazzled spell books and supplies

Entryway

Wait - is that a china cabinet or a door to the basement?

Looking up at the bedrooms and grapevine

Treading water

In order to pass the test to become a lifeguard, my oldest son had to tread water for a certain number of minutes (I can't remember how many) while holding a brick over his head. He was able to do it, but I have thought about it many times since - how well would I do at that skill? I can tread water, but I don't think I could hold a brick above my head and keep my chin out of water all the time.

That's about what this season feels like: I'm treading, treading, treading water, trying not to get too tired or discouraged, and it seems I'm doing okay, and then it turns out I need to hold a brick aloft, and someone keeps piling bricks on top of that one. How can I possibly keep my chin up?

School has started and the demands for multiple forms, various checks, new supplies and meetings have increased.  The kids take turns having meltdowns about having no friends or missing their old friends or having too much work or being frustrated with the online log-in interactive platform (not sure what to call it, but it is the website where they turn in assignments and post questions.  Whatever happened to handing the assignment to the teacher and raising your hand if you had a question? Why do they have to do this online? To save trees? To complicate my life?)  I'd like to say that a week into school, the kids are starting to meet new friends, and some are, but someone is near tears nearly every day - sometimes me.

I'm still getting used to the new house with all its quirks and safety issues. Now that our belongings are in it, our pictures on the wall, our books on the shelves, I feel a little more at peace. Note Bene: Don't use seafoam green excessively in an interior unless you want to contribute to the feeling of drowning.

Still worried about safety, especially since Baby loves the pool, which terrifies me. She even says "Poo" now.  She does seem to know she needs her floaties, and she recognizes where the pool steps are. But she can already motor herself around in the shallow end with no one holding her.  I worry that she thinks she can swim.

She also likes to go for walks and heads down the front walk with bravado and a mini-backpack each morning to walk the siblings (who are willing to walk with Mom) to school.  I decided we should put up a fence along the sidewalk, even though there is a fence around the porch. Double fencing may be a good idea with an exploratory toddler living on the corner of a busy street.

Can I move again? I'm hoarding boxes in the garage.

There are so many cute houses on this island on so many cute streets, and we are not in one.  Which is a very spoiled kid kind of thing to complain about -- envy is a powerful temptation.

There are a few good things about this house:  It is spacious.  It is whimsical.  It gets a good breeze, so we don't notice the lack of A/C except the one day it was 95 degrees. We are a 5 minute walk from a wonderful library, 9 minutes to church, 4 minutes to the middle school and 8 to the high school. The older kids love the pool, too.  I just bought some new plants for the capacious planters in the back that have some sunburnt cuttings of succulents in them.  I'm planning to move the succulents to a more permanent spot with partial shade.  I'm planning... a sign of acceptance.

I have a space for almost all of my books.  Time to get rid of the esoteric philosophy books from college that no one, not even me, ever wants to read. They just look smart on the shelf.  Why yes, I did read Kant and Hegel and Kierkegaard in college! But I couldn't tell you anything about them any more.  I can't even recall Hegel's first name (google search: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich).

My husband asked the other night, after I again made a wistful comment about someone else's cute house, when I was going to get over my disappointment in our choice and move on. But I still can't quite let go of my regret. I am in mourning for the life we had and the life we could have had.  The trip back to the Midwest with my oldest son brought back all kinds of memories of our happy years there. We once lived in a tiny house (900 sq ft) with a medium yard with big trees.  We loved it.  My aunt came to visit and said, "Better small and cute than big and ugly." But now we have big and ugly. And kids in public school. And no garden. I feel like I have compromised all my priorities. How are we ruining our kids?

Our younger kids are going to have a very different growing up experience than our older ones. And I try to have faith that they are going to be okay.  We've had some good conversations lately. For example, our eighth grade daughter seems to understand most of my clothing rules, so that she doesn't usually have to change her outfit every day, although she still tries to wear a couple pair of jean shorts that I feel are too short or too worn out for school.  The 4th grader started Catholic school today - a change from the original plan.  We didn't think we'd have money for tuition, but the school gives military a discount. I considered sending all of the grade school kids, but ended up deciding that the middle schoolers, for various reasons, might fare better in public school. We may change our evaluation at some point, but having one child Catholic school keeps me connected, and from what I've heard, the fourth grade teacher is outstanding, so perhaps she'll inspire a little love of learning our our most reluctant student.

I hope my kids' faith remains strong, or grows stronger, from being tested in public school. I have plans to do catechesis at home and they are signed up for CRE at church.  Sometimes it seems that my desire for them to have faith is stronger than my own faith.  I went to daily Mass this morning and it was a good reminder that I need to nourish my own soul in order to feed theirs, something I know clearly intellectually, but forget to practice.

If I'm going to keep treading water, even if my chin does wobble under the surface sometimes - many times - I'm going to have to strengthen my faith muscles again.  Turn off the internet at night and do some spiritual reading.  Get back in the habit of morning prayers. Recall my many blessings so that I don't dwell on my difficulties.

Another reflection on how life sometimes leads us away from our original vision for family life is on Elizabeth Foss' blog, which has much prettier pictures than mine.  I have to remember to fight internet home envy also...

Her thoughts:
As I've reflected on the-summer-from-hell, I've naturally inclined towards thinking about what's working in my life and the life of my family and what needs to be tweaked. I often feel like my little kids are growing up in an entirely different family than my big kids did. And they are. The hope is that their parents are wiser, more patient, and more mature. And they probably are. They're also more tired, more stressed (yes--I'm sticking with that story: this stage of motherhood is far more stressful for me than having a whole bunch of kids under 13), and going in more directions. One place where I've really felt like my Philosophy of Family has take a hit is family dinners. I've long, long been a proponent of family dinners as the norm every night. But we've seriously fallen short of the mark recently. As I turn over every parenting decision I've ever made in my mind and decide whether I like them or not, I simply cannot find one thing wrong with family dinners. They are all good. They are still super important. And my six-still-at-home deserve them.

Another poem

that rings true.

Found here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/249258

In Defense of Small Towns

BY OLIVER DE LA PAZ

When I look at it, it’s simple, really. I hated life there. September,

once filled with animal deaths and toughened hay. And the smells

of fall were boiled-down beets and potatoes

or the farmhands’ breeches smeared with oil and diesel

as they rode into town, dusty and pissed. The radio station

split time between metal and Tejano, and the only action

happened on Friday nights where the high school football team

gave everyone a chance at forgiveness. The town left no room

for novelty or change. The sheriff knew everyone’s son and despite that,

we’d cruise up and down the avenues, switching between

brake and gearshift. We’d fight and spit chew into Big Gulp cups

and have our hearts broken nightly. In that town I learned

to fire a shotgun at nine and wring a chicken’s neck

with one hand by twirling the bird and whipping it straight like a towel.

But I loved the place once. Everything was blonde and cracked

and the irrigation ditches stretched to the end of the earth. You could

ride on a bicycle and see clearly the outline of every leaf

or catch on the streets each word of a neighbor’s argument.

Nothing could happen there and if I willed it, the place would have me

slipping over its rocks into the river with the sugar plant’s steam

or signing papers at a storefront army desk, buttoned up

with medallions and a crew cut, eyeing the next recruits.

If I’ve learned anything, it’s that I could be anywhere,

staring at a hunk of asphalt or listening to the clap of billiard balls

against each other in a bar and hear my name. Indifference now?

Some. I shook loose, but that isn’t the whole story. The fact is

I’m still in love. And when I wake up, I watch my son yawn,

and my mind turns his upswept hair into cornstalks

at the edge of a field. Stillness is an acre, and his body

idles, deep like heavy machinery. I want to take him back there,

to the small town of my youth and hold the book of wildflowers

open for him, and look. I want him to know the colors of horses,

to run with a cattail in his hand and watch as its seeds

fly weightless as though nothing mattered, as though

the little things we tell ourselves about our pasts stay there,

rising slightly and just out of reach.

Oliver de la Paz, "In Defense of Small Towns" from Requiem for the Orchard. Copyright © 2010 by Oliver de la Paz.  Reprinted by permission of University of Akron Press.

Source: Requiem for the Orchard (University of Akron Press, 2010)

Already

So another week goes by, and things are looking up already.  Most of our boxes are unpacked. A cross is on the wall, even if pictures aren't. High schoolers have schedules for classes that please them. Middle schoolers have met some peers. Fourth grader is going to Catholic School - a last minute shift in the plan. And tomorrow I leave to take our oldest to college! How is this moment upon us already?  I am not prepared. I hope he is!

This is to a daughter, not a son, but a memorable moment, found at The Writer's Almanac:

To a Daughter Leaving Home

by Linda Pastan

When I taught you
at eight to ride
a bicycle, loping along
beside you
as you wobbled away
on two round wheels,
my own mouth rounding
in surprise when you pulled
ahead down the curved
path of the park,
I kept waiting
for the thud
of your crash as I
sprinted to catch up,
while you grew
smaller, more breakable
with distance,
pumping, pumping
for your life, screaming
with laughter,
the hair flapping
behind you like a
handkerchief waving
goodbye.