It's June, and as much as I'd love to sleep late this morning before going to Mass and then to work (again) the siren call of the birds forced me out of bed.  These are the days I love best of all the year.  The sultry hot days of summer hold absolutely no interest for me, and I am consulting with the Vatican about having the inventor of air-conditioning canonized.  But the mornings when the birds are doing their thing and the breeze is blowing and I'm parked with a cup of tea on the chair on my front porch and wondering if I should go get a jacket...sheer bliss!
There was a dream last night of a dear friend long gone, and it was so clear that it made me wonder if it were a "visit", so I've been puzzling out the images since I woke, and not making a lot of progress. Dreams like that put me in a strange space the next day.  I feel as though I have one foot in each world, and as I think about that phrase I realize that I spend a lot of time like that.  I feel the hidden presence of so many people.  They are no longer within hugging distance, yet they are there, popping into my consciousness at the strangest times and making themselves known.  Sometimes they feel so close I almost catch them in my peripheral vision, then the moment vanishes and the echo in my heart tells me that I'm alone again.
Still, this world, even with its gaping holes, is looking attractive this morning.  I'll throw the second load of wash in the machine and make myself breakfast while Himself runs twelve miles around the neighborhood.  And one of these days I'll re-join my Advance Team and the party will be glorious.
But first there is so much work still to do.

It's the first day of summer, and, as is our family tradition, we all get up at sparrow fart and drive to a place very appropriately named Nut Island to watch the sunrise on the longest day of the year.  Except this year we made some modifications.  Son Number Two is away for the week, so my wonderful father-in-law filled in.  And I stayed home in bed until 7, which was the smartest decision I've made in such a long time!  The three boys, Himself, his Dad, and Son Number Two, all went out to breakfast after viewing the sunrise over the water.  This is also a tradition.  I have been many times.  This picture came off the internet and has nothing to do with Nut Island, but trust me....it looks just like this.
A week of double shifts, working both jobs has left me feeling my age and a bit of someone else's.  Sleep was the wiser choice today.
Now it's time to get dressed and go to the office, where the coffee is free and the people are warm.  There will be more material for the book that provides the running commentary for my day,  and the voices in my head will keep me company on the subway.  They've already started whispering that the days will now start getting shorter.  I've already told them to shut up.

My relationship with my own dad was kind of complicated.  He had a temper and the other four would always push me forward (Number Four of five kids) whenever they wanted to go for an ice cream or go to the beach, because from about the age of three (or maybe it was from birth) I have always had this "Shirley Temple" thing going on about dealing with and winning over grouches.  My batting average wasn't bad.  I was also the "Number One Son" in that I was the one he taught to wallpaper and paint by standards that impress even my father-in-law to this day.  Dropping out of high school during the Depression to support his family, he still managed to teach himself electronics long before it was fashionable, and wound up working for American Science and Engineering in his later years, and he went to England, Russia, and China to present papers which I magically turned into English.  He was a Sonar Man in the Navy during WWII and my entire childhood is scored to the dot-dat-dit of Morse Code long into the night.  He was one smart dude.

He probably suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after the War, but of course, no one called it that back then, and he tended to take it out on those nearest and dearest, especially my younger brother, and although he never laid a hand on the girls, my poor brothers caught it in spades.  I'm not posting his picture on FaceBook today, although I loved him in my own way, but I married the person in the Universe as least like him as I could find.

Himself is the gentlest soul and the deepest.  I didn't know when we got married what kind of a father he would turn out to be.  We forgot to discuss minor stuff like "How many children do you want?" or "Are you a disciplinarian or a 'Let them do what they want!' kind of guy?"  But my boys and I got very lucky.  In over twenty years of marriage we might have had two arguments.  Maybe three.  These children grew up hearing their father say, "Thanks for ironing my shirt" and "Thanks for making dinner" every day.  They hear their parents say "I love you" several times a day.  Dad is the one they go running with, hike Mount Washington with, bike with.  He sets a wonderful example in staying healthy, as does his father, who is also one of the gems of the world.  Himself kisses his father whenever they part, so the boys do, too.  My favorite memory of Himself as a Dad is reading "Casey At the Bat" as a bedtime story to Son Number One on the day in second grade Little League Baseball when he made the last out that lost the game.  Himself got so choked up, lying on the bed between two little boys who were propped up on their elbows, that he couldn't finish, so Mom had to step in and read the end.  There were tears in Dad's eyes.  I thought I couldn't possibly love him more than at that moment.  I was wrong.  He continues to touch my heart in amazing ways.

So to all the fathers out there, whether it's biology or a kind and caring heart that gives you that title, enjoy your day.  "Uncles" count. So do priests, coaches, Scout leaders, and those teachers that change your life forever in the most wonderful ways that never make the papers.  This is your day, too.  And we couldn't do it without you.

The neighbors are out there power washing their deck.  It's noisy, but it's almost 11:30 on a Saturday morning, and really, good for them.  I, on the other hand, sit here surrounded by so many things to do that I am doing the square root of nothing, paralyzed by the overwhelming size of each task.  This is my first day off in quite a while, and it's a lovely morning.  The temptation to sit on the couch and catch up with the last season of "Desperate Housewives" is strong.  Equally strong is the desire to gather all the old magazines which are creating teetering piles, the "Oprahs" and the virginal "Writers' Digests", and drive over to my doctor's office, scattering them throughout the waiting rooms in the building. Or to take Mother's clothes out of the front hall closet and donate them to Morgan Memorial, giving us more room, and me another iota of closure.  Or to tackle the mountains of laundry, clean and otherwise, which are taking over my bedroom like some monster in a Grade D film.  At the very least I should go for a walk or cut the grass.  But plantar fasciitis is tuning up, and by the end of a five hour shift at the mall I'm walking with a cane, and I don't bloody feel like it.  So I'll set the timer on the stove and do fifteen minutes of something.  Anything.  But first I'll have my tea.  And maybe a biscuit.
The fact is, with all this lovely weather and a day to myself, I am down in the dumps.  Finally I have time to stop and think and breathe, and the Bogeyman has caught up with me.  Griefs which I thought were healing are not, and will not until I sit with them, listen to them, maybe write a poem about them, and move on.  I'm disappointed in myself that finally getting back into the work force hasn't produced the job of my dreams, but one part time job which I very much like, and one in retail, which I very  much don't.  And the excitement of re-inventing myself has become the resignation to another round of "Aw well, it's something," but I was hoping for so much more.
So it's tea and a biscuit and something for now.  Because at least that much I can still control.

It's been "One Of Those Weeks".  I've worked the office job from 10 to 3 Monday through Friday (after working at the boutique on Sunday) and then Thursday and Friday nights I worked at the boutique until 10.  Saturday I worked from 11 to 3:30, and today it's 2 to 7.  Son Number One's girlfriend arrived (love her!) on Saturday morning at 1AM and I am, quite frankly, a tad fatigued.  The grass is almost peeking in at the window sill and sobbing for attention.  It will wait a few hours, I'm sure.  Plantar fasciitis is tuning up for a symphony in my left heel.  For right now I am enjoying sitting still.  The torrential rains have left, and this Sunday morning the windows are open for a cool breeze and birdsong to start my day.  There is a book at my elbow which is singing its siren song, to which I have every intention of succumbing.  Give me a hot cup of tea and I shall rule the world.
I don't know what I did during the fourteen years I was lucky enough to be at home with my children.  It certainly wasn't housework.  They had their music lessons and sports, karate black belts and play dates.  My universe revolved around their schedules and that was our choice and our privilege.  Most people don't have the option of walking out on their careers and taking an orchestra seat at life.  Getting back into it (not a "career", but a "job") has been challenging.
So much of how we define ourselves involves how we make money.  At a party, when approached by a stranger and asked "Who are you?" the answer often is "I'm a doctor" or "I work in computers" or "I'm a cashier at Walmart and a pole dancer on weekends".  I was stuck for an answer for a while, feeling a little guilty that my life was mostly driving the car and making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  There was the embarrassment of not making a paycheck, but also an embarrassment of riches.  I had time with my children.  My friend Flanagan (whom I miss with a white hot heat) would call many days and be the only adult I spoke to between the hours of 8AM and 7PM.  He would chide me to "Be a human being, not a human doing!" and remind me of how blessed I was to be in my situation.  He would repeat the importance of the airline safety drill of "putting on your own oxygen mask before trying to take care of everyone else".
While the children were in school I would visit with retired friends, and eventually, with my mother in her last years at the nursing home.  I was free to spoon feed her lunch and amuse her cohorts with a song or a borderline-appropriate joke or two.  I got to learn what really mattered.  After a year of emptying out my routines, children off to college, Mother and Flanagan and Webb passing away to where they don't need me, I'm filling up my life with other things.  But I have learned to appreciate the sheer luxury of sitting with a hot cup of tea and counting my blessings.  And on this sunny, bird-filled day, I gently remind you to stop and do the same.

A telephone call from abroad got me thinking this morning.  My friend Terry called from Wales and we were both missing our mutual friend, Jim.  Jim was a wonderful priest (as is Terry), and a character extraordinaire.  His brilliant mind, his rapier wit, his unexpected bursts of boyish glee added so much to our lives, and his absence is keenly felt.  Terry had just come back from some liturgical conference or other in Galway, and it was the first time he had had to attend something like this "on his tod" (or "flying solo" as I found out when I asked what the heck THAT meant).  The nature of mourning is that it doesn't happen all at once.  Just when you think you have the pain under control a word, a fleeting resemblance in a face, a song on the radio will tear the scab off the wound and start the bleeding anew.  Terry was reflecting on how much about the priesthood (and life) he had learned from Jim, and how much he misses his guidance. And then it dawned on both of us.  We are now the front line.

My mentor was a teacher at Girls' Latin School, Miss Reilly, who passed away a long time ago, but whose photograph sits in my living room next to the piano, nestled in with the pictures of some of my other friends who have left me "on my tod".  In fact, it was through Rosemary that I met Jim and Terry.  They were my inheritance, and much more valuable than anything else she might have left me in her will.  I talk to her when I'm in the garden.  Her garden was spectacular and immaculate.  Mine is a collection of weeds, but the ones with flowers on the end are welcome to stay.  I have grubs and overgrown grass, but I also have the odd tulip or jonquil which I actually planted.  Occasionally I do get out there on my hands and knees and start hacking away at the chaos and I talk to her.  "Rosemary, what the hell is THIS?  Is this a weed or a flower?  Do I prune the dead branch after the azalea has stopped blooming or can I do it before?  WHERE ARE YOU WHEN I NEED YOU?"  There is no answer. 

Terry and I have discovered that we are now "the grownups".  We are the "wisdom figures" who make the world seem (hah!) a safer place to the younger generation.  We have discovered the secret: grownups don't know nuthin.  The illusion of protection has been shattered.  We are now the ages of our mentors, our parents, our teachers when we thought they had all the answers.  What passed for peaceful surety has been unmasked as weary exhaustion brought on by decades of just coping with each disaster as it comes.  We're not calm and in control. We are tired and glad to be on the back nine of this golf course and heading for the club house.  But whatever you do, don't tell the kids.  Let them feel safe for a little while longer.