It's happening again....It's only July and already the best birds have taken off for parts unknown.  If you don't believe me, set your alarm for 4:30 and open your window.  Oh wait.  It's DARK now at 4:30.  That's almost a good thing since you can now sleep for an extra hour at least, but when you DO open that window, you'll hear a mourning dove, a crow, and maybe a sparrow.  The divas have left the building.  There is still a lot of summer to go, though, and it doesn't seem quite fair, but there we are.

Meanwhile, my own nest will soon be temporarily full again.  Son Number One flies home this Saturday from a summer internship in Washington, D.C. and will be in residence for a couple of weeks before heading back to his last year in college.  Son Number Two has been home since May and has been working at my place of employment since June, so we commute together.  OK, sometimes he sleeps going in or out of town, but often we chat about whatever is on his mind, or he'll run lines with me to help me memorize my script for the play I'm in.  It's been a joy to breathe the same air for the whole summer.  I'd forgotten how much fun he is.  I'll have him until just before Labor Day.  My mother used to call this "having all her chicken's in one roost" and it was her greatest joy.  I didn't understand what the big deal was back then.  I do now.

They'll both be back to school soon and the house will be quiet again.  And that's OK.  I'm getting better at letting the birds leave the nest.  I understand that it's their turn to fly and that soon they won't be coming "home" because they'll be making nests of their own.  To my complete astonishment I'm finding that my claws are retractable after all.  Not only do I not have to hang on for dear life, I don't really want to.  I'm enjoying watching the process and I am dazed at the talent and resourcefulness they both show.  But for the moment I am thoroughly enjoying the prospect of time with my boys.  Himself and I will have time for dinners and movies again, instead of playing chauffeur.  We'll be back to washing the dishes ourselves and taking out our own trash, and we're quite capable of doing all that and more.  But just as the quiet mornings make me sad once the birds leave, the quiet house will be bittersweet.  Silence can be good, too. And, as for the birds and the boys, as a very smart friend once told me every time I wept at his departure, "How can I come back if I don't leave?" and that was and will always be cause for celebration.

It's nearly the Fourth of July and I still haven't put a toe in the water, either the ocean or a pool.  Still, summer is upon us and I am more or less ready for it.  I don't have the bathing suit body I was hoping would have magically arrived by now, but there is something about having the windows open in the morning that just delights me.  In the U.K. they don't bother with screens, a fact which always fascinates me.  I'm sure it's true other places, too, where the climate is less conducive to the happy propagation of flying bugs.  I don't understand why they don't have a house full of birds, and speaking of the birds, they must be eating something, so there ARE bugs, but I digress.

We've had no obnoxious "3 H" days yet, which, for those of you not from the area, refers to "Hazy, Hot and Humid", so I can afford to be cheerful about summer still.  As is the family tradition, modified due to the internship of Son Number One in Washington, D.C., the clan got up at "zero dark thirty" on the day of the Summer Solstice and went to Nut Island to watch the sun rise.

For the second year, Papa came with us to round out the number and the view was very pretty, although I must confess it hasn't changed much since last year.  Still, it's a lovely tradition and breakfast is always fun afterwards at the Wheel House Diner.  I said to Papa, "I married into this insanity, but why do you drag yourself out of bed at this hour when you don't have to? and he replied, "Who knows how many more times I'll be able to?" and then he laughed.
I love that he laughed.  He's 84 now, which makes it no joke, but that is how he feels about life in general, I guess.  Recently he spent hours on his hands and knees putting pansies and petunias on the outside of our hedges, where there have been no flowers, no signs of life (except weeds) in twenty years.  It looks so nice that now I find myself weeding every time I go by.  OK.  Not every time, but often.  I guess it's a break from his twice daily trips to the nursing home to visit my mother-in-law.  She doesn't recognize him most of the time, but he lives for those fleet bursts of clarity when she does.  So here's to another season with Papa, who puts me to shame in so many ways.  He's at the Y or off on a walk every day, or when the weather gets really bad he's on the rowing machine in his attic.  He dotes on his grandchildren and the feeling is beyond mutual.  And he loves me, too.  How blessed am I?  All this and chirping  birds, too.

I am in such a strange mood.  Tonight is my 40th reunion from college.  At the last one of these I went to, five years ago, I thought I looked pretty good.  Then someone put up pictures on Face Book and that was the end of that delusion and the beginning of my reunion with Weight Watchers.  I'm not expecting much to be different tonight. 

I look at my sons, who are already going into their Junior and Senior years of college and I see little faces and plastic knights' helmets and Fisher Price castles with cannon balls flying. How on earth did we get here this fast?  And now I get to face the strange fact that I haven't been a college student in four decades.  A large number of these women were also classmates of mine from grade seven right through high school.  Nineteen of us went to Emmanuel in the fall of 1970 from Girls' Latin School.  Trembling with anticipation in our very first class of freshman year (English with Dr. Jerry Bernhard at 8:30AM) we all gasped when he told us our first assignment was to read "The Aeneid".  Eyes widened.  Furtive glances were stolen.  Notes were passed.  "In TRANSLATION?  ALL RIGHT!"

But that was long ago when the crust of the earth was cooling.  So much has happened since then.  There have been jobs and deaths, romances and broken hearts, children and grandchildren (not mine yet, thankfully) and 9/11 and cell phones, ATMs and iPads.  It's all new and more than a little overwhelming at times.  Yet we cope, some of us better than others.  How does one start a conversation after 40 years?  "What's new?"  Well, there's always wine.  Or I could stuff my face with cheese and crackers and feign a migraine.  At least we're not quite at the age when we don't drive at night.  Or at least I hope that's true.  You never know.  I may be in for another shattered delusion.

Then tomorrow my older college boy goes off to Washington, D.C. for the summer to serve an internship with our Congressman.  This is the very first summer of his life when he won't be home with me.  Oh I know the days are numbered anyway.  His life is taking off like a rocket, as is his brother's.  They have their friends, their own interests, and this coming year, their own apartments instead of living on campus.  I realize they may never really move home again, and that's fine.  But you'll forgive me if there is a tiny bit of mourning going on.  I don't feel needed any longer, and that is as it should be if I have done my job well.  But this letting go thing is so much harder than Virgil's "Aeneid" in Latin or in English.

Forty-seven years ago today my childhood came to a screeching halt. My brother, then 22 and eight months back from Viet Nam, died in a car accident in Louisiana on his way back to the base. His car hit a patch of ice as he drove on an overpass, skidded into a tree, and that was that.

This is not a plea for sympathy.  We all face these things over the years.  My other brother died of lung cancer at 42, and my niece at 19 in another car accident, and I've lost more precious friends than I want to count right this minute.  Still, there is something about the first really close death that truly slams the door on the first chapter of one's life and starts the second.

Wayne's picture is on my piano, along with several other pictures of people I miss on a daily basis.  Wait.  That's not technically true.  Some days I get so immersed in the day to day trivia of laundry and subway rides and planning what's for supper that I guiltily admit I forget to think about them.  They have just become part of the fabric of my life.  The information about my brothers, my niece, and my friends has become a statistic about me, like the color of my eyes (hazel) and the color of my hair (silver..not gray, please) and my height (about which I will just say that my head and my feet are way too close together).  But on days like this, on anniversary dates, on birthdays (theirs and mine) I get sentimental and I open the floodgates of longing.  I miss their laughs, their voices, and all the years out of which I feel cheated.  It reminds me of the times I would re-read old love letters after the messy endings of relationships in order to tear the scab off the wound, to prove my loyalty by preventing my healing.

So today, "Big Brother", although you are forever one year older than my son is now, and almost forty years younger than I am today, I send a kiss heavenward and tear the scab off once again.  When I was fourteen you became the first member of what I think of as my "advance team", and you have been my constant reminder of how fragile and precious life can be.  It sometimes makes me over-protect your nephews, or try to, but all in all that's not such a bad legacy.

With love from your forever "Baby Sister".

As usual, Christmas came and went and we all survived.  It wasn't the Hallmark Movie of the Week, and "the perfect life-changing present" (which doesn't exist) wasn't under the tree, but it was lovely in its own, quiet, and ever-changing way.  One sister and her husband and daughter and her friend made it for Christmas Eve and brought meatballs and cookies (two different dishes, you'll be relieved to hear).  The other sister has grown fearful of traveling in the dark and didn't feel brave enough to venture forth, and while I understand and sympathize with that, it also made me a little sad.  Nothing stays the same.  I have to keep reminding myself that it's not supposed to.

The presents from the boys were thoughtful and whimsical and required no help from Mom and Dad except for transportation to the mall.  Son Number One gave me a tee shirt which reads "Vassar College  - undefeated since 1861" and there's a football on it.  Well the school was all girls until 1969 and there never has been a football team, and I thought it was very funny.  He also gave me a book on how to make money from writing my blog.  A certain celebrity on the west coast will read that line and rub her hands in glee and shout "See!  I told you!" but we'll talk later, Susan.
Son Number Two gave me a New York Times Crossword a Day calendar and I'm really looking forward to using it.  I love crosswords, but never make time for them.  He also gave me a tee shirt.  This one is flaming red with the Wonder Woman logo on the front.  I've already worn it to work, prompting some rather interesting comments.

It's still hard to think of all the missing friends and family who have been here in years gone by.  An ornament recalls a face or a time, a picture on the piano grabs my eye, and my heart gives the same kind of twinge I'm getting used to from my knees, except it hurts more.  But, as with the knees, I acknowledge it, suck it up, and move on.  Nobody wants to hear about my aches.  As they say about the Virgin Mary, "I ponder all these things in my heart."

Himself is a gift all on his own.  In addition to Herculean struggles at cleaning the house in preparation for company, he has continued to toil away at bringing order to chaos in the days that have followed. It has been a trip down Memory Lane as his archeological dig has unearthed bits and pieces from the past that I have long forgotten.  I'm beginning to think there might actually be a cozy home under all the piles, and that might be the greatest present of all, along with the purchase for at least the tenth year in a row of "The Writer's Market", which assures me that he still believes in my dream.  Some years the binding is never cracked.  Other years there is a tentative dive into certain sections to see what the possibilities are.  But as Father Hugh used to say, back in the day when I thought I'd be alone and misunderstood forever, "The groundwork doesn't show until one day...."

So here's to Christmas miracles and Hallmark moments and learning to "go with the flow", which reminds me of another famous Father Hugh quote: "Don't push the river, kid.  It flows by itself."  I am only beginning to learn at 61 how much courage it takes to get on the raft and enjoy the ride.

It's the morning after the first major snowstorm of the season in New England.  Luckily, it's Sunday, so most people have the luxury of being off the roads, which will give the towns the ability to have the roads in passable shape before very long.  What would paralyze Washington, D.C. for a week we turn around in hours.  Normally I do not like to awaken to the sound of heavy machinery, but after a storm the scrape of the plow blade outside my window is welcome music and somehow cozy.

Christmas shoppers are likely having fits at the inconvenience, but I am perfectly happy to sit here at nearly ten in the morning and contemplate what kind of eggs I feel like making.  There will be a fire in the fireplace soon because on most days we are never home to enjoy it.  Today Mother Nature has decreed that it really is time to do the decorating and list making and cocoa sipping.  No one is expecting me anywhere until four this afternoon when I will face the throngs at the mall, but as a salesperson, not a shopper.  My shopping is far from done, but I'll figure it out later.

Meanwhile, the wooden nativity set is on the mantle, and the stockings are hung.  The garlands are at least as far as the living room (although they are still in trash bags) and somewhere in here I just KNOW there is a vacuum cleaner head.  If not, I'll get the broom and worry about that later.  The coffee is perking in the kitchen, Himself gave me a good morning kiss to curl my toes, and my heart is getting ready to welcome the boys home this week.

Word came yesterday of the health problems of some very dear friends.  Monday will mean a trip to visit the hospital instead of to the store to buy what nobody needs.  People are what matter, and not just at Christmas.  My friends are all amazing, and I refer to them as my "F.B.C." or "Family By Choice".  Sometimes it takes a snowy day, some enforced "down time", and a bit of scary news to remind me of that.  I raise my cup of cocoa to you all.  Blessings on you!

On this, the day after Canada Day, I will sing at the funeral of my 95 year old friend Annie, who hailed from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.  The wake was last night and I saw so many faces I haven't seen in more than 35 years.  How did we all get this old?  Most of the faces hadn't changed.  The two nuns are white, not gray now, but otherwise unchanged.  Aunt Isabel continues to exude joy and leave a trail of peace in her wake.  There were new faces (to me) as well.  My old "boyfriend", Annie's son, was standing with his two grown sons.  The kids I held in my arms are parents now.  Some of them are grandparents now.

Yesterday was also the birthday of my older brother.  He would have been 69 if he hadn't died at 22.  I wondered if he would have had gray hair or gone bald, how many barbecues we have missed at his house and how many children he would have had.  What would his wife have been like?  In this Year of The Big Losses nostalgia is creeping in, and I find myself aching for I know not what.

Tonight, however, there will be a dinner with "Uncle Vinny", an old friend (in both senses) and a joy.  He has driven to Boston from Ohio again (at age 82) and loves to see my kids, especially the one I named after him.  But first there's a funeral to attend on this gray day, and like it or not, it's time to face (and make) the music.

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.

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.

I'm loving the new job (well, one of them) and the people with whom I work are committed and focused.  It's an adventure going into Boston every day for the first time in fourteen years, and it's quite nice to watch the savings account grow just a little once every two weeks.  The learning curve, however, has become a lesson in humility.  My aged brain, while amazing in its ability to remember many many new names, is showing some wear and tear when I try to figure out the accounting system.  Or to put it another way, the people in the Accounts Payable Department are wondering if I am on drugs.  There's this spreadsheet, you see, with too many columns and codes and numbers and stuff.  There was a one hour conference call with the director of AP who just couldn't take it any more and had to try to pound it into my head herself.  And then there was the royal mess I made of it, which had me feeling inadequate as I pondered it at three o'clock this morning.
If I were my own best friend (which I usually don't manage to be) I would tell myself that I've only been there six weeks, that I should cut myself some slack, that it will come.  In my more enlightened moments I realize that while people are trying to learn to walk with one leg, and others are wondering where their next meal will come from, my feelings of inadequacy are rather small potatoes.  Still, one worries:  "Is it because I'm getting old and my brain can't hold any more?"  There might be something in that.  Or it could be lack of sleep.  I'll get it.  I'll make myself get it.  But it bothers me that I make mistakes that others can see.  Wouldn't you think after six decades I would have figured out how ridiculous THAT is?

The need to "parent" never ends.  After the usual snowstorm/airport fiasco which I've come to expect when Son #2 comes home, and having received the 3AM phone call from Son #1 who had safely landed in Seattle, I toddled downstairs and woke Son #2 from the couch and made him go upstairs to brush his teeth, wash his face, put his precious head on a newly laundered pillowcase and go to sleep.  I was feeling a little silly about this until the phone rang at 6:45 this morning and my 82 year-old father-in-law called to warn me (age 60) that I should be careful of the ice on the front stairs.

We all need to feel that our children need us.  Or that somebody needs us.  Otherwise all the mani-pedis and massages and book clubs become pointless.  Of course, it's important to take good care of and to occasionally pamper ourselves.  We deserve that, and it's good for the ego and the body and the nerves.  But I feel so much better after I've called a mourning friend and been able to make her laugh just for a moment, or shot an e-mail to a friend battling cancer to remind her that I'm praying and that she's not facing the day-to-day battle alone.  I don't think it's ego.  I think it's an awareness that we've got a job to do while we're here.  We all fall down at different points of our lives.  Our friends (and sometimes wonderful angel strangers) are usually there to pick us up.  When they fall we pick them up.  Eventually we help one another get to the other side.
As long as we don't all have our breakdowns on the same day, the system usually works, and I find it satisfying to be reminded once in a while that even though my babies are not babies any more, someone is still glad that I'm there to reach out a hand.  And I'm glad I have someone to remind me to hold the railing when the stairs are icy, even if I might have figured it out on my own.

I find the period after a "hit" physically exhausting.  Going to the boutique and pasting on the happy face as I deal with ladies buying clothes I couldn't begin to afford and which they don't need serves to distract me, but doesn't begin to deal with the issues.  I want a bit of quiet, but that doesn't seem to be on the schedule.

It has occurred to me that I need to start cultivating younger friends or I'm going to run out.  Since I was a child I have always gravitated towards "wisdom figures".  I wept bitterly on the last day of school from the third grade right through high school.  My teachers were my first real guides and friends.  After school I would sometimes stop by for a cup of tea and then work in the garden.  While I was in college I was the weekly housekeeper for my retired eighth grade English teacher, and we remained friends until I was well into my thirties when she passed away. 

My first priest friend fell into my life when I had surgery at the age of thirteen and hit it off with the hospital chaplain.  Since then I have met and added to my list of "inner circle friends" a number of priests.  I'm not sure why.  It's not a plan.  If there's someone in a sweatshirt and jeans at a party and we have a wonderful time talking about important things, at least six times out of ten I'll find out he's been ordained.  I guess I see the human being behind the Roman collar, and treat him accordingly.  And sometimes very irreverently, which we all need once in a while to keep our feet tethered to Earth.  My husband considers the clergy part of my dowry, and he and my children have become the family that some of these men never had.  It's "win, win" until you get to today when one of them leaves and then everyone is reeling in pain. I suppose that's true any time you open your heart wide to let someone into the inner circle.  The pain is in proportion to the depth of the joy received. And over the years this family has been blessed with great joy.

Nursing homes really are not funny places.  I should know.  I'm visiting one an average of five days a week to see my dear Mom who is 89, wheelchair bound and dealing with Alzheimer's.  But why is it that I so often want to write a sit com for some brave network about the residents?

All of my mother's neighbors have their "quirks".  There is the one who puts her makeup on with a shovel and flirts with everyone.  There is the one whose dentures really need adjusting and who sends her teeth flying when she gets yelling, which is fairly often.  There is the debonaire guy with severe arthritis who rolls out to the nurses' station every day at the same time to get his two cigarettes which he then takes down in the elevator so he can smoke them in peace outside.  There is the guy who does amazing bird calls....all. day. long.  And then there's Snoopy.  That's not her real name.  I won't tell you her real name.  But you've probably met her.  She hangs on every conversation, especially the ones in which she is not a participant.  From another table she will chime in with her two cents on any subject.  She asks unbelievably personal questions, and is guaranteed to make at least one very unwelcome personal observation in the course of a week.  "Geez, you've packed on a few pounds," she will tell you, whether it's true or not.  "Your mother's hair is getting thin.  It's the medicine," she kindly offers, even though Mother could probably have lived without the information.  It goes on and on.  The nurses have moved her to another table for meal times.  It's not for my mother's sake.  It's for mine.  And for Snoopy's safety.  Because one of these days I'm going over the table and strangling her.  I'll just snap.  I can feel it coming.

I realize that she can't help it and that she is bored out of her mind by sitting in the same place all the time.  I do know that I represent "the outside world" and that she is starving for conversation and company.  Sometimes I even try polite chit chat with her, because I'm not a monster.  I have a heart.  The foibles and weaknesses of all the other residents I view with patience and compassion.  The nearest I can figure out is that she represents all the traits I see in myself which I like least.  And if nothing else, she does help to keep me humble.  Because for all my smugness about what a wonderful daughter I am, I am truly ashamed of how often I dream about hitting this poor old lady right in the smacker with a large cream pie.

Audio books are fun in the car.  I'm currently listening to something called "Don't Miss Your Life" which seems like good advice and is read by the author in a perky voice.  One of the challenges thrown out there as I wended my way home from a gain at Weight Watchers (never good for my mood) was to "think about your happiest childhood memory."  The first thing that came to mind was an enormous cardboard box which had contained a refrigerator.  It became, in turn, a house (complete with "curtains"), a train with an empty coffee can chimney,and after my brother and  I upended it, it became a store.  We sold mud pies, made from the backyard dirt.  There was no garden and very little grass  We grew up in the city in a three-decker house and my grandparents lived next door in a one bedroom apartment.  The stairs on their fire escape became the "shelves" for the mud pies.  I suspect that we broke several fire department regulations that day, but it all turned out well, as most things we worry about do.  We played for hours and days with that box until eventually the rains turned it into mush.

When I think of my sons' childhood, it is largely populated with plastic toys marked "Fisher Price", a fine company and the source of many hours of enjoyment.  I've already told you about the pirate ships and castles which will outlive all of us and may, someday, make it out of my attic and into homes of their own.  But I wonder if they missed out on something.  Most kids today are proficient at computers and video games, and can program an iPod, an iPad, and the Space Shuttle from the age of three on, but given a long summer afternoon with an electrical outage I wonder what they would do.  The pace of "Sesame Street" and life in general has produced a generation that is not very good at doing nothing.  Or at doing something simple and non-electronic.  There were the occasional "forts" made out of kitchen chairs and bed sheets (mostly when Auntie Lynnie babysat), but not a lot of going into the back yard (or "back of the 'ard" as Son Number One called it rather endearingly) to just "hang out".  I'm rather sorry about that.  Oh, they read like fiends and even wrote their own books but I don't remember a single over-sized cardboard box in their entire life that wasn't dutifully taken apart and recycled on trash day.

One of my favorite pictures of Son Number Two has him lying on his back in the middle of a field, legs casually crossed, arms under his head, and just staring at the sky watching the kites.  He wasn't worried about dirt, bugs, or dog poop.  He was enjoying the tickle of the grass and the colors darting across the ridiculously blue sky.  I don't know about you, but I think that sounds like a brilliant idea.  And I think I know where to find a kite!

I've heard about the "sandwich generation" who are torn between taking care of elderly parents and taking care of their children, but I haven't felt the intense pressure of it until now.  My mother is 89 and has Alzheimer's.  I won't say she "suffers from it" because for the first time since 1967 she seems at peace and charming.  That was the year my older brother died in a car accident after returning from Viet Nam with a Purple Heart, and my mother hated the world and everyone in it until she had a fall in her bedroom almost two years ago and broke her hip.  I don't know who this new lady is, but she is much easier to deal with.

I try to get to the nursing home about five to six days a week and I always come at meal time.  There is nothing to discuss besides food and how sleepy she is.  She calls me a "Deah"  and a "Dahlin" (this is Boston, after all) and some days I think she knows I'm her youngest daughter, but most days I think she thinks I'm a REALLY attentive aide.  "Why are you so good to me?" she asks at least twice a week.  "Because you're my Mama and I'm your baby girl!" I reply.  The answer is usually, "Well, I'll be damned!"

Watching her fade away a little at a time is strange.  I still have my mother, but I don't.  There has to be a bubble of protection around me when I visit or the sadness will crush me like a bug.  She had her hip repaired, but has been in a wheelchair since January of 2011 because she's too afraid of falling.  She has gone from regular meals to ground food, to puree.  I ask sweetly which lump she'd like to taste first, the green one, the beige one, or the white one?  Sometimes there's gravy.  None of it looks appealing.  She takes a mouse-sized nibble of each and then announces that she's full.  She has been on a gastric feeding tube overnight for a long time.  The coughing is starting, even though I always remember to put the thickener in her coffee.  She always wants her coffee.  They tell me that once she forgets how to swallow (and it's coming) they will rely on the gastric tube for all her nutrition, and then eventually her body won't be able to process that either.

Knowing what to pray for is getting more difficult.  I feel guilty if I want the end to come more quickly.  Part of me really doesn't want to be an orphan, even if I am 60.  But she doesn't participate in the music, or the "activities", because she is legally blind along with everything else. It doesn't seem fair to pray that she hang on for this life.  The next one is bound to be an improvement and she deserves the rest.  For the moment, I'm glad that she is not in pain, either physical or emotional, and that she has no clue that she is in a nursing home.  Because if she ever figured it out it would kill us both.

Summer's back would appear to be pretty much broken.  While there might be an 80 degree day hiding around the corner, autumn has arrived.  The edges of the day are cool and require a sweater, and the mornings arrive later and later, while the nights sneak up on me earlier and earlier.  I'm not a beach bunny and never have been, so it's not as though I'll miss "summer fun".  The closest I get to a tan is when my freckles all come out at the same time.  But this time of year always makes me wistful.  The ghosts of first days of school, my own and my sons', come back to haunt me, and I have an uncontrollable urge to go out and buy new notebooks and pencils in spite of the fact that we could supply a small country with what we already have in the desk.  Reason plays no part in this.

There is something poignant about autumn.  The trees are tired of being green and are getting ready to put on their big show before November strips them bare.  And to tell the truth, I think I'm tired of them, too.  I'm ready for something different.  Still, I am not altogether happy about the fact that the boys have another summer under their belts, that my mother is that much frailer, that my hair is that much grayer (or "silver" as my younger son, the diplomat calls it) or that so many of my friends have joined what I euphemistically call "the advance team".  I'm missing people and times gone by.  For some reason many of my friends have decided to take their leave of The Big Blue Marble during the month of September.  Then there's 9/11 to think about.  All in all, it's becoming one of my least favorite months.

I'm listening to Thomas Moore's "Dark Night of the Soul" in the car these days.   There are some interesting observations about the positive aspects of dwelling on "the dark side" and most of them involve personal growth, which I believe happens far more often during times of sorrow than joy.  I don't want to become a permanent citizen here, though.  I'm already planning my escape from the doldrums.  I think I'll start by planting a sea of daffodils for the spring.  But first I'm buying myself a new notebook.

Tomorrow I will do something I haven't done since Jimmy Carter was President of the United States.  No, not "wash the kitchen floor," although that was a good guess and I can see where you might come up with it.  I am going on a job interview.  That's right;  after sending out fifty resumes and pleading cover letters, I got a call.  Actually, I got two calls, one for next Tuesday.  The interesting thing is that they are in two completely different fields.  This is the time in life where I get to re-invent myself.

For thirteen years I've been juggling piano and violin lessons, soccer tournaments, karate classes, and basketball, not to mention the gruelling schedule of the high school musical (both my boys love the stage and they're both great).  But the nature of work has changed significantly since I left the wacky world of local television.  There is no such thing as videotape anymore.  Everything has gone digital.  I don't want to go back to television anyway.  But since I had been in "the biz" for 22 years, everything from finding leads to how to write one's resume has changed.

I took a course on interviewing.  There is a wonderful non-profit group in the Boston area called "One Life At A Time" which helps people who are re-entering the workforce to catch up with what the world has been doing while they've been elsewhere.  I re-wrote several forms of my resume, I did mock interviews which were recorded and critiqued, and I learned the culture of searching on-line for job openings.  A dear friend of mine even gave me a three-piece suit for my birthday so that I could look professional on interviews.  Luckily, it will be ready at the tailor's today.  I told you I was short.

Now all I have to do is figure out what I want to be when I grow up.  Substitute teacher?  Concierge?  Town official?  Office administrator?  Writer?  Voice Over actress?  The number of possibilities before me is almost enough to paralyze me.  Another one of the gifts from my dear friend, Flanagan, is the sudden realization that I don't have all the time in the world to live my life.  None of us knows how long he has.  So I'll dust off my sensible shoes and go see what the world has to offer me and try to make them realize that I am just the right fit for whatever it is.  Because once they meet me they have to love me...who wouldn't, right?  But it's tough to get your foot in that door.

I'm off to research the companies I'll interview with (that's very important, I'm told).  But first I think I'll go wash the kitchen floor, because you were right.  It really is time.

I had the insurance money all spent this morning.  Himself went for a run.  Sundays are his "long runs" and I should know that.  If I make it through two miles I pat myself on the back and celebrate with a doughnut, but his long runs tend to be between fifteen and twenty miles.  On purpose.  Really.  But when he wasn't back in two and half hours my stomach started doing that "top of the roller coaster" thing and my breathing was getting painful.  Because the worst part about getting older is that you are in on "the secret."  Bad stuff does not just happen to other people.  Good people are not always protected by angels (at least not the way I think they should be).  And people we take for granted will always be there just won't.  I had pictured cars, heart attacks, and killer dogs.  I had police on the way to the house because they couldn't break such news to me over the phone.  Have I mentioned that I tend to be dramatic ?

Some of this comes from the recent loss of my darling friend Flanagan, who added so much joy to my days with his Irish fire and fury and fun.  Some of it comes from losing other people I love...young people..much younger than I am now.  Intellectually I have always understood the fact of human mortality.  I just didn't believe in it.  By the time you hit my age, however, it's rather difficult not to.  So no one (please believe me on this...NO ONE) leaves this house without a kiss and a hug and a prayer.  OK.  Maybe the Jehovah's Witnesses who interrupt my movie, but that's it.  I hug shy people, priests, gay people, poor people, rich people, people who need a bath (remember, my husband is a runner!), I hug them all.  It's not just that I am ridiculously friendly (although that is the rumor).  The reason is that I know as sure as I know my name that any goodbye could be the final one.  This sounds gloomy and depressing.  It's really not.  Think what the world would be like if we all remembered this every time we parted with someone we loved.  Think of all the stupid arguments we could avoid and the silly minutia that we could overlook.

So the worst part of getting older for me is the loss of the illusion of invulnerability.  My boys still both think they can fly and walk on water.  I envy them their ignorance and it worries me, too.  At the same time I am grateful for the knowledge, because it makes me pay attention almost all the time.  My motto is "Life is short and so am I."  It's only partially a joke.  Although I love to horrify people by telling them that if I were any shorter my hair would smell like feet.  But every day really is a gift.  Today's gift for me was the sound of the key in the lock when a very sweaty runner came through the door.  And if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go celebrate with a doughnut.

It's happened again.  They sneaked away when I wasn't paying attention.  I distinctly remember June, when I'd wake up at 4AM to trot down the hall (why do I keep having that late evening beer with Himself?) and being amazed at the racket that was coming through the window, absolutely guaranteeing that sleep would evade me for the next two hours.  And it was light already.  At 4AM.  That's the middle of the blooming night.  Since I wasn't sleeping anyway I lay abed and listened for a while, and I was charmed.  There was an amazing array of different songs.  I am always mystified at how such tiny vocal chords (I mean THINK about it) could create a sound that could carry so far.  Then the weather got warmer and I suppose the fans went in the windows, then the air conditioners took over for a couple of months so I could sleep, and now that I need neither I am aware of an eerie silence when I do my wee hour trot (pun intended).  Oh there is the odd crow, and the blessed faithful starlings and sparrows who stick around all year through thick and thin and snow.  There is even the occasional cardinal (non-denominational).  But the rich fabric of the morning has changed.

Those of us "of a certain age" as the French say (they make everything sound sexy) may remember the old Judy Collins song, "Who Knows Where The Time Goes?" which asks the question about the birds, "Ah, how can they know it's time for them to go?" and I often wonder the same thing myself.  Their brains can't be all that big, yet I hear about these incredible distances they travel without benefit of a GPS.  I must say, I am very impressed. But I'm always a little disappointed that I don't notice the transition.  When does the song start to thin out?  Do they post on Birdie Facebook in August "This is it.  Next Saturday.  Stock up on bugs."?  Do they have one last bash in the birch tree outside my window before taking off?  Or do they, like too many of my aging friends, just slip away quietly, one by one until I look around and realize that I'm not living in the same world anymore.  It's still nice but it's different.

Soon it will be time to close the windows altogether because the nights are getting so much cooler, and then even the crows will be muffled and maybe I'll get more sleep (if I knock off the late night brew with Himself), but I must confess that I'm already looking forward to the racket that will accompany the spring.  And this time I'll pay attention!

It's trash day and I'm missing "my staff."  Granted, the trash is a lot smaller when the boys are away at college, and also that I am quite healthy and capable of hauling the recycles and bins out to the curb, but it is still making me sad.  I'm finding that I don't like having less trash.  Or noise.  Or chaos.  I rather liked being the center of the cyclone, and now that it's quiet around here I need to figure out what my days will look like.  There is a loneliness involved in this. 

The fact that autumn is fast approaching is not helping a bit.  Fall is supposed to be the time of new notebooks, backpacks that would make a burro cry, and endless papers and forms to sign.  And it is.  But not here.  Not this year.  I am so excited that my sons are getting a great education at two very wonderful (and expensive...never forget expensive) schools.  People ask me how I am doing with the "empty nest."  I get the feeling that I should either respond to this with a tear in my eye and a quivering chin, or a lurid wink and the impression that my husband and I are chasing each other through each empty room of the house and rediscovering the wild passions of twenty years ago.  Neither one is quite true.  And each is a little true.  It's nice not having to figure out what I'm making for dinner for four and not having to play chauffeur (that's right...neither drives) to various and sundry social engagements that really mess up whatever it is I want to do.  And, yes, it's very nice not to worry about who is going to come bursting through the door when Himself is working from home and we "break for lunch", but the truth is the house does feel empty.  What is my purpose these days anyway, if it isn't to be "Mom"?  I could be cleaning up around here, but that doesn't strike me as particularly fulfilling...or likely.

l guess this is my "back to school" time for a change.  Time to figure out what it is I need to learn.  Learning something new always makes me feel better.  I picked up piano 7 years ago.  Maybe I'll dust off the Evening Programs catalog from the local high school and see what they have to offer.  Because the evenings are worse than the afternoons around here.  The storm door gets locked a lot earlier than it used to, because once Himself is back from work, or his run...we're all in for the night.