Adventures – Page 5 – My Truant Pen

Kindly disregard this letter

It was almost a month ago that I made the journey north to New Hampshire to pick up my son from Camp Wilmot. I had to get up crazy early in the morning for a Saturday, like 7 am, but I was so eager to see my son again – to hear how it had gone – that I was markedly less grumpy than you would expect. (I am _not_ a morning person.)

I arrived at the camp just a bit early – just like I had been to drop him off. Sure sign of a noobie parent a little anxious about her first-born, I think. Grey was just headed up the hill as I pulled in and I got the biggest, completest, least “hey-that’s-not-cool-my-friends-are-watching” hug ever. I breathed in deeply as I held him tight, and felt that all was well. (Happily this might be less dangerous than you think as daily trips to the lake nicely negated the complete neglect evidenced by the optimistic soap I’d put in his dopp kit.) He introduced me to some friends, and I gathered his belongings and watched the “Purple cabin” clean up the firepit before we all settled into the cafeteria for the closing ceremonies.

They started with a flash from the past. The campers and counselors did “Energizers” familiar to prior generations of Christian campers. I was amazed that “Star Trekkin'” – not an obviously Presbyterian tune – was as popular 25 years later and 3000 miles away as it was in the Presbytery of Olympia in my youth. The spirit moves in truly mysterious ways. I watched Grey, my eyes hungry for him. (Constantinope and Star Trekkin here ) He was in the penultimate row, hidden behind the much taller, more confident kids in front of him. I’m used to Grey being the biggest one – the oldest in our group of friends, the tallest in any portrait. On this day, he was the baby, unsure, learning, in the back. He was circled gently by a loving ring of twice-his-height counselors and I could tell by how they all moved together that these young men had helped Grey through what I know was a challenging week for him. I watched my son slightly out of synch and a step behind the others (an unusual spot for him) and wondered what he’d say to me when we got in the car and he was ready to talk.

There was some song singing (unfamiliar to me – I stopped listening to Christian Pop with Amy Grant) and then they launched in on a photomontage of the week. A number of the kids had opted for photography lessons, and to the accompaniment of more Christian pop I didn’t recognize. I was terribly grateful for this chance (never offered to my parents) to see his week through the eyes of his fellow campers. (Best of all, the CD of the pics was for sale. WIN!) Grey didn’t show up until about 20 in, and in the early pictures he looked shy. But as the pictures went on, he started to show up more – in the funny outfits, kayaking, hiking (an area where he apparently distinguished himself).

He fell, exhausted, into the car after all the goodbyes had been said. He had seemed very reserved, but passionately wanted a t-shirt, and the pictures. His counselors told me he’d been great.

“So what do you think?” I asked, heart in my throat.

“I can’t wait to go back next year! Man, I’m soooooo tired!”

It was exactly what I hoped to hear.

Here are some of the fast facts I’ve been able to wrest out of him:

They stayed up until past ten every night. The night they stayed up to see the stars, it was 11.

Archery was his favorite part.

He’s totally going back next year.

The food was the best, especially the BBQ chicken the first night

They had a wacky clothes day. He crazily wore his SOCKS on his HANDS.

We did this one hilarious skit …. and then we said, “oh no, a horsefly!” and pretended to panic. It was soooo funny!

Also, horseflies are a near-mortal peril

He wasn’t a fan of the Scottish country dancing. “It was ok I guess”. I was jealous.

The worship didn’t seem to make a big impression on him, but he liked some of the music. I have NO IDEA what songs/artists they were listening to, so I haven’t been able to spring it on him. Anyone know what was likely?

Since he came home, Camp Wilmot has been sprinkled sparingly in his conversation. A note about what Ethan said once. This hilARIOUS skit they did. How much he liked the food. How he can totally stay up later than this. I asked him, tonight, what I should tell you about Camp Wilmot.

“Tell them” he said “That Camp Wilmot is a great place to go if you want to make friends. If you need some time alone, they give it to you. If you need some help, they’re there. If you want fun, there’s tons of fun. Tell them they will like Camp Wilmot!”

Consider yourself told.

Scottish dancing - that's what you get for being Presbyterian my son! — Scottish dancing – that’s what you get for being Presbyterian my son!

How goofy can you get? (The glasses came home safely)

PS – I notice he’s wearing the same shirt in all these pictures. In at least one of the pictures, he’s wearing a different shirt. What I don’t know for a fact doesn’t hurt me, right? Maybe these pictures were all on the same day, right? Right?

The Last Camp Gramp update

This is the last update from Camp Gramp. Hopefully this week I’ll update with all the stuff Adam and I were doing while Camp Gramp was going on!

The family that kazoos together annoys other people together

Day 8 — I don’t know if this one counts. We had mac and cheese for lunch. A Camp Gramp favorite. Then, when Uncle Adam and Aunt Brenda returned home, Uncle Adam ran a fabulous game in which everyone emerged alive, and Aunt Brenda took Carolyn to town to get her ears pierced! Isn’t that awesome!

We had roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, wilted leaf lettuce salad for dinner. Then went for a Mineral walk to the lake side. The evening ended with baths, PEACH crisp and drama. Puppy had gone walk about. 15 minutes were dedicated to finding him on my desk ….???? How did he get there.

This is the last night in the tents. Another Camp Gramp. Thanks to Heidi and Brenda, Adam and Matt who make this activity possible every year. It has been a real joy to watch the cousins play together and enjoy one another. And it has been a privilege and a joy to have them. Tomorrow they start departing, and Papapa and Gramama collapse in a heap, just like the famous Collapsible Frink!

Hello mudder, hello fadder

I don't know about all this, mom. — I don’t know about all this, mom.

I have often thought about a “Baby Book” to capture the truly meaningful firsts our children present us with. Today’s first is a doozy: first time I dropped him off in a place where both he and I knew exactly zero people and drove away with a promise that I’d be back in a week. Not only that, but you go to podunkville (aka Concord NH) and take a left for about 40 minutes. The route there involved actual dirt roads. I felt like Abraham going on a nice little walk with Isaac.

Grey was super subdued on our trip up. I’d opined that I thought it would be good for him to do the trip up without screens, expecting that this was completely unrealistic. I also bought him Garrison Keillor’s “Pretty Good Joke Book”. This lead to predictable results. Also, the book is clearly less G-rated than I thought, as I, um, had to explain quite a few vocabulary words I was hoping to have a few more years on. I guess it was a good chance to tell him what they really mean? (Sample: “Son, let’s have a talk about sex” “Sure dad, what do you want to know?”) But even without any screens on a 2.5 hour trip, the back seat was very, very quiet.

“Mom? Is it normal to feel both excited and scared at the same time?”

Yes son. It’s very, very normal.

Last night he had a rough night going to bed. I think packing his bags helped impress upon him that he was really doing this thing. He was really going to a new place he couldn’t visualize with people he didn’t know doing things he couldn’t imagine. It probably doesn’t help that 100% of his knowledge of overnight camp comes from Foxtrot cartoons. (“Will people prank me?”) I called my folks, and my brother the Presbyterian-Summer-Camp-Champlain who all reassured Grey it would be fine! Great! I could hear his skepticism. He squirmed and looked miserable. “I’m not going to know anyone! I wish I wasn’t going.” He finally fell asleep with his head on my lap, for the first time since he was a baby.

I was super relieved this morning when he insisted on an early departure because he didn’t want to be late. There was the quiet ride. We drove over the highly civilized dirt roads, and got to Camp Wilmot maybe a half hour early. He and I walked the grounds while the camp got itself ready for the latest influx. He insisted on carrying his very heavy backpack (“I need to learn to carry my own things!”), but didn’t want to see the lake. Or the cabins. Or the labrynth. Or the big hill.

As we were walking back up the hill to register, a young man – Ethan – came to introduce himself. “Hey, I think I’m your counsellor!” They hit it off like a house on fire. Grey stood up straighter and looked much less skeptical. As we registered, he confided to me that he and Ethan were “just alike!”. When the time came to walk down to the Purple Cabin that will be his home for the week, his stride had the strength of a kid who no longer knew no one. I said goodbye and turned to go. He sentimentally started showing Ethan the “Grossology” section of his Bible. (Mom knows how to keep a kid’s attention!)

Grey's home for the next week — Grey’s home for the next week

He was great. I was fighting tears. And that’s it. I will have an update in a week, if all goes well. So will you. We’ll both wonder together how things are going. Will he remember his sunscreen? Will he have trouble going to sleep without his brother? Will he like camp cooking? Will he feel the Holy Spirit sneak into his soul at the evening campfire?

You and I will never know the full story. Grey is the writer of his own tales now.

Someone who is temporarily an only child spent the day creating wooden Dragons of Kir pieces with his daddy.

Four Flynns in a tent

It’s a great question why any of us choose to have children, in this age. We don’t need them for their labor. We no longer expect children to provide for parents in old age. We aren’t allowed to use them for spare organ parts. Kids are tremendously expensive, and an iffy proposition since it turns out their eventual success is much more about their efforts than ours. Having kids comes along with a burden of bearing others’ judgements, not sleeping in, cleaning up vomit, worrying and making excellent meals that no one will eat. And yet we continue to have children.

If I thought about why I wanted to have children, other than just seeming like the thing I ought to do, I think I wanted children so that someone else would get to enjoy childhood as much as I did. I thought back the the joys of my youth and wanted to offer them to someone else.

I remember in particular one car trip we took as a family. (My family practically grew up in a car.) My brother was a nascent reader – maybe four or five. My sister and I – eight and six years older – were already well versed in reading. On this particular day we drove through the rolling desert hills of Eastern Washington and told my brother about all the books we were jealous that he’d get to read for the first time: Mrs. Buncle’s Book, The Lord of the Rings, Shakespeare. My entire family breathed a deep sigh of relief when my brother finally picked up books and started reading along with the rest of us. We spent our vacations with book bags larger than our clothing bags. I married a man with the same predilections.

But the last decade or so has been somewhat lacking in the reading department. We’ve had a non-reader as part of our family for the last eight and a half years. Until now.

Last night, we sat around the fire on an incredibly buggy night on the shores of White Lake. (Ask me about how I and my phobia survived my first ever tick bite!) Adam was reading some book of Cthulu horror on his Kindle. I had managed to lure Grey into reading “My Side of the Mountain”. Ah – is there anything sweeter than watching your child devour a book you had loved as a child? He was deep into it, head dancing with dreams of living off the land, just as I did. And Thane was doggedly working his way through beginner books. He read “Are You My Mother” and “Put Me In the Zoo” and slogged his way through a Pokemon book. For an hour or so the four of us sat around the campfire swatting mosquitos and reading.

The joys of slightly older children did not stop there, though. Finally chased into the tent by the ravening hordes of starving, blood-sucking insects, we broke out a board game. On the tent of the floor, we played through an oddly cooperative round of Carcassonne – an actual game that Adam and I play for fun. Thane played a tough game, and Grey actually won. Then we read some more before bed. Thane tired before he finished his book, and I woke up to the sound of him slogging his way through it in the morning light (at a reasonable hour).

This Memorial Day camping trip was wet, but dryer than last year. It was cool, but warmer than last year. (Actually, Friday night was one of the best night’s sleep I’ve had in a long time.) It was irredeemably buggy. But it felt like the dawning of a new age, with the company of these cool kids who like to build forts, imagine themselves as outdoorsmen and sing old folk tunes in front of the fire. They can open the zipper to the tent, go to the bathroom by themselves and be safely out of my sight.

In the buggy, moist air above the loons of White Lake I had that moment of joyful realization: this is why I had children.

You can see all my pictures for May, including video of Thane reading, by clicking here!

An adventure of 12,000 steps

The last line of the love-note reads, “PS. Cats are already eating flowers. Disaster may ensue. Mea culpa.”

My husband left us for a weekend of gaming, leaving behind a clean kitchen and bouquet of flowers. The boys and I have consoled ourselves with his absence by watching “Back to the Future” last night. This morning, cold and gray but bearable, I hatched a plan.

Tragically, the super cool headband was lost on our sojourn.

It started by winding our way through familiar streets and over long-used routes to Oak Grove – starting point for many a foray and adventure. I held Thane on my lap to keep myself warm (I underestimated the temperature by a layer for myself) and quizzed Grey on Boston’s history. Once on the Orange Line, we whirred past miles of new construction and gleaming buildings rising out of graffiti-strewn rubble, and on to North Station. I know the North Station area very poorly. I’ve spent hardly any time there. So we carefully picked our way across streets, swimming up-current from a horde of Bruins fans come to see them play the Flyers (Phlyers?). I found the Starbucks that was a necessary first stop, and then we discovered the soaring, twirling pathway across Storrow Drive to the Esplanade.

A gray day, but above freezing means it’s worth playing!

Now, I’ve lived in the greater Boston area nearly 14 years, in three different places. As any Bostonian must, I have many times traveled the storied route up the Charles from the Zakim to Brookline, passing past the hallowed markers of the Hatch Shell and Citgo sign. Since my first son took his first steps, I’ve passed the parkingless playground and thought to myself “That looks fun! I should bring my progeny here!” On beautiful days where the sky was blue and the Charles was sparkling with waves and white sails and yellow-sculled boats, and the grass between the road and the water was hopelessly green… I’ve thought how pleasant it would be to stroll up the river.

The zipline was awesome. The kids didn’t need us to tell them to take turns, but lots of parents hovered by the line anyway.

And I’ve never once, in that twice-seven-years, set foot on the Esplanade. So harsh has this winter been that 45 degrees seemed like a downright invitation to make today that day.

I pondered “right or left?” at the bottom of the stairs, finally trusting that there was far more Esplanade to the left and I’d hit something fun if I went that way. My youngest son danced errantly up the path in front of me shouting out numbers that represented the score of some sidewalk game whose rules only he knows (but which apparently involve not stepping on cracks and stepping on anything interesting that is not a crack). My serious-minded eldest took long strides with wide eyes. We saw the very cold boaters on the water. We noticed the pile of their brightly colorful shoes like a spiral on the gangway. We dodged runners and bikers and inline skaters – all faster than we were. And then we finally came to that playground I’ve eyed for years and my sons broke into flat out runs to get there as soon as possible.

Both boys fell on this contraption, but it was designed in such a way that the falls were minor.

And it was WONDERFUL. I recently read a story which has influenced me greatly about Adventure Playgrounds and the disservice we do by trying to make even play risk-free for our children. (Which, yes. I got a call from the Stoneham police a few weeks ago because I let my 8 year old walk two blocks to a used book store by himself. I asked the officer if my son was behaving appropriately and he said he was. Which left me sorely wondering why he thought I needed to be called. I digress.)

So here, in this marvelous playground with soft, bone-friendly falls and risky-feeling fun and other children, I found a spot sheltered from harsh April winds and watched my sons be boys.

The swing did required someone else to push, but the boys just loved it.

For two hours they played. The scaled heights, and fell. They rode the zip line and struggled to return it to the next kid in line. (It was really interesting to watch just how many of the parents “handled” this difficult task for the kids. I watched Thane struggle to pull it back. And I watched him succeed. And I watched him stand a little taller at having done a difficult thing, a right thing, and having done it himself.) At a break in the play, I pushed the boys on this fantastic dish-shaped swing. Grey slung his arm around his brother and they both lay in a sunbeam swinging together – eyes closed. Thane sang a little song to the rhythm of the swing.

There were many paths to the top – some easier and more obvious than others.

A game of hide and seek broke out among the bigger boys, and Grey disappeared behind a wall. I watched his small hand snake out to draw pictures in the dirt as he waited to be found. Thane became fascinated with a wooden climbing structure – color so warm to a winter palette. He was frightened of a particular gap, and drew back afraid. I heard him cheer himself, “I’ll see if the drop hurts.” He took a big breath, swung out again, and dropped. Dusting himself off, “It didn’t hurt at all!” The next time, he crossed the chasm. Moving further around the perimeter, he came to a really high part he could not swing across. He gathered his courage and belly-crawled across a log so very high that my breath caught in my throat. I had to stop myself from singing out “Be careful!” He inched, so scared, across the great gap. He got to the other side. “Mommy, come get me down!” “Thane, you can get yourself down.” And he did. And once his feet were rooted in solid wood chips once more, he immediately went to go do it again, and again, and again. He never got blase, but he did get better.

The section to the left is the high chasm upon which Thane tested his courage and found it strong.

Finally, we got hungry & cold. I struck a path in towards the Common where I knew we could find sustenance. At the end of our blood sugar rope, we found a bistro and had noodles and orange juice and laughed in a lit window of a corner building, hundreds of years old. I showed them the Starbucks my father and I had visited some 19 years ago when I came out in the middle of a blizzard for my college tour. The august establishment was celebrating its 20th anniversary, and I realized that I had been there so very long ago.

I was here 19 years ago with my father, before I decided on the college where I met the father of these two fine young boys.

We wandered the common (wondering if any historical cow dung was still to be found there) until we chanced upon one more playground. There was much less playing before disaster struck in the symptom of a torn thumb nail – truly a painful injury.

It’s all fun and games until someone breaks a nail.

A cold quick journey to Downtown Crossing, then home again, 12,000 steps later.

I was thinking, on our journey, of this same time a year ago. Last April I took the boys to the Circus on a Saturday that Adam was aikidoing. It was, not to sell it short, one of the worst times I’ve had. Thane threw an epic fit, refused to watch half the circus and at the end I carried him a mile over my back kicking and screaming to the T. I despaired of ever adventuring again with him. But over the course of this year, my four year old has grown to a much more mature five year old who was indefatigable and cheerful the whole time (Two-hundred niney-two! Two-hundred-ninety-three! He counted his points the entire trip.) My eldest, sorely injured as he was, was a solid and cheerful companion.

How lucky I am to get to have adventures with these children as they grow!

Sad to say, but I’m on my way

A fortnight ago I picked my careful way through icing puddles to the nail salon. I drove, even though it is two blocks away and I had time, because the sidewalks are nigh impassible. I asked for a pedicure, and picked a completely unprofessional, unseasonable, inappropriate robin’s egg blue. I watched ice skating and slalom while my toes were transformed. I carefully covered them in layers of thick socks and sturdy shoes for my homeward journey. It seemed impossible to me, in that moment, that there would ever again be a time when my toes would willingly encounter non climate controlled air.

A week ago found me rising at 3:30 in the morning, and pouring my dressed-before-bed children into a taxi, which wound in the predawn darkness to the airport. (Which airport was absolutely chock-full of other parents with other tired children.) My sons both blew my mind with their exceptionally awesome behavior on the first flight to Houston and the second, down to the small island of Cozumel – just across the channel from the playground of Cancun. The island is very small – a teardrop off the cheek of the Yucatan. We stood in unaccustomed heat in an outdoor line. The returning travelers looked tanned, relaxed and sad to be leaving. The pale and pasty newcomers, waiting for immigration, had anticipation writ large across our tired & dark-eyed features.

It was nine years ago that I last came to Cozumel. I was gravid in pregnancy, and longed for the weightless relief of warm waters. I noticed the changes as we took the short taxi ride from the airport to the resort (a new one – I discovered the one I’ve been to twice before is in the midst of a major remodel, which explains why it had no rooms available).

We are at the Presidente Intercontinental. Even the driveway made me feel like I was about to experience something rather more luxurious than my standard expectation – which was true. Our room is small, with two full beds and a fine carpeting of Legos (to make it feel like home). Strangely, there was no lamp on the balcony (the phrase “you get what you pay for” usually refers to what happens when you cheap out. In this case, a more-expensive-than-I-would-have-liked vacation has come along with excellent service and facilities, and within moments sent two guys to figure out how to get a light on the balcony.) But I have watched warm pacific waters through a peek-a-boo curtain of palms every day here.

I have taken somewhere between a bajillion and a quadrillion pictures (discovering that the lighting conditions on tropical beaches are actually quite challenging for people pictures and also that my children have come to see me as unwelcome paparazzi when I have a camera in hand). The resort has a fantastic child care offering (paid for as part of the overall price, which I appreciated), so all the days but two Adam and I have gotten to snorkel together, as we have on romantic vacations since we got married. We visited Mayan ruins and watched the wild, unchecked waves of the Caribbean. We saw many, many, many iguanas. The boys played in the sand, learned to love the pool, learned to swim way way way better and learned absolutely nothing about effective bargaining techniques. (Ask me about the shark tooth necklaces!)

Today we coaxed Grey, who had spent days snorkeling in the pool and avoiding the ocean, to join us for a snorkel. I was entirely prepared for it to be beyond his courage. It can be intimidating, seeing the vast seascapes of the ocean unfold as an unknowable world before you, the colors fading in distance. When we encountered a barracuda in the first five minutes, I was entirely prepared for a hasty retreat. As we, holding his hands, pulled him further away from shore and towards the coral-encroached sunken ship, I could hardly believe his courage held. But it did. We saw so much together. It was a moment past what I could have hoped for, where the vistas of his dreamscapes expanded. He also devoured, in a heart-warmingly familiar way, “The Westing Game” For a day or two there, any question pointed his direction was answered with an “mm-hmmm”. I loved seeing his sun-burnt nose stuck in a book. For all he was an early reader, I have had trouble moving him into chapter books. He prefers the easy familiarity of comic books. I hope that an affair or two with a good novel might change that.

Thane is, as ever, indomitable. Fearless in the water, he started the week nearly drowning himself. A pool noodle added just enough buoyancy for him to not drown mostly. Towards the end of the week, we just put him in a life jacket and let him go in the pool. (Actually, his wonderful caretaker Keri thought of that first. The Kids Club here isn’t just Screens R Us. She takes them to see the iguana habitats, and to go swim at the pool. Thane refused to join us twice today because she was helping him sew a very cool alligator puppet.) He also loved hanging out on the beach (I wonder how long it will take before he has no sand in his hair?) He and Grey have been amazing brothers this week. I just loved seeing his excited face and bouncing eyes above his third cup of strawberry yogurt every morning – so full of joy and wonder and gratitude.

While I was writing this on the porch, a fire dance broke out on the beach below. So cool!

I’ll post again once I go through the pictures. When Adam and I came here last, we had a film camera. This time we took pictures on: my good camera, my old point-and-shoot, Adam’s phone, my phone, my iPad. It’s funny how many changes a decade can bring.

We prepare our return back to our land of cloudy skies and gales. I confess to being unenthused by piled snow, chill drafts and stinging cheeks. I prefer the nuisance of sunscreen. But I feel thawed, rested, invigorated. I have connected strongly and deeply with the people I love most in this world. I have visited the Summerlands from the heart of winter, and won a respite from the seasons. I’ve seen lionfish and stars and smiles. I return to my labors with a lighter heart and darker skin.

Why we have children

When I was pregnant, I used to joke with people that we were having kids so that my husband would have a built in gaming group constantly available. Anyone who has ever been with my husband on a quiet evening and seen the glint in his eyes and he pulled out a dice bag and asked who was up for a Cthulu one shot knows that I wasn’t really kidding.

Still, kids have had more of a dampening than enhancing effect on our gaming life. Our weekly game has survived (the fourth kid has recently been added to the table in the person of a wee little boy born on Christmas Eve), but… well… let’s just say that Adam missed Gencon hotel reservation because he was picking up a sick kid. If anyone has an extra spot in a Gencon hotel let me know. He’ll only be there from midnight to 7 am.

But lately the kids have been getting old enough to do some real actual gaming. Grey is a full on reader, and pretty patient with games. What Thane lacks in literacy he makes up for in spacial reasoning genius. I refuse to play the game, but I bet he’d whup me in Ricochet Robot.

Adam has been playing games with the boys for years. He’s taught them to roll dice and simplified systems. He’s drawn maps and created compelling npcs with silly voices. Grey has played “Eric of the Golden Sword” for years. Thane calls his 1:! game with dad “Lord of the Rings” (it’s not).

On the plan to Cozumel – in which tropical island I currently find myself – Grey read a 7 page Fate rulebook. (Reading a rulebook cover to cover puts him one up on me…) And right now, on the front porch, Grey is running a game he’s been working on all day. There are puzzles and NPCs and monsters and props. Thane and Daddy are sitting with the GM, enjoying the story. Grey is doing a great job – I’ve played in worse games than he’s currently running.

Adam may not have been waiting for this QUITE his whole life. But he has been waiting for it all Grey’s life. Let the gaming begin.

Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above

The Northern Lights have a special place in the pantheon of my history. They are the ever-sought, ever-elusive prey of family adventures and lore. I have yet to see them dance across a dark horizon, but one of my fondest family memories was a six hour quest for them that brought us over mountain, through desert and back home again.

My family has been here for the last several weeks. It was only supposed to be about ten days, but thanks to JetBlue I got an extra week with my mom. Their presence brought out the Johnstone in me, a bit like Gandalf brought out the Tookishness in Bilbo. And so, when I heard that the Northern lights might be spotted in darker northern exposures tonight, I looked at my eight year old son and his five year old brother, and my patient and loving husband, and I packed them all in the car.

Since the aurora was not considerate enough to fall on a Friday or Saturday, I was forced to keep my peregrinations reasonable. I headed up to Cape Ann, as my best hope for a dark northern exposure in an hour’s drive. We wound our way through Manchester-by-the-Sea, then up to Essex and through to Ipswitch. We kept our eyes glued for inexplicable dancing lights on the horizon, while Adam gave the boys a crash course on the magnetosphere and explained radiation poisoning in a preschool appropriate way. (“Those electrically charged particles make leetle tiny holes in your body…”)

In the shadow of Castle Hill, I found hoary flat ground and a northern exposure. I pulled the bumper of the car to where salt spray would have bedecked it in summer. Thane and daddy braved the cold to go outside and count the stars – greatly multiplied from their paucity in Stoneham. Grey and I snuggled in the front seat and waited for our eyes to grow large enough to see the elusive waves of color and light. The moon, half-full and spilling light, illuminated the cracked ice along the shore of Crane Beach. The approach to Logan was busy with planes, each looking like planets until they made their turns. We argued which direction was North (Google and I disagreed on this point) and talked and watched and talked and watched.

We did not see the Northern Lights. We saw no such thing. Before long the windows blurred with foggy breaths and tired children drooped in their seats. Tired tires turned towards home. I was secretly satisfied by the quest begun, but not completed. Where is the joy in a quest completed on the first try? Quests should be hard, so that we value them correctly.

On the way home, Adam and I sang hymns to the children. We sang the old, evening hymns that struggle to find a place in the modern morning worship: Abide With Me, Be Still My Soul, Be Thous My Vision, Peace to You. We sang the great hymns of joy: Great is Thy Faithfulness, Come Thou Fount, How Great Thou Art. We sang Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. We sang, as we crossed again into our town, the Red River Valley. And we remembered those we love, gone before us, and we felt their love. We looked at those small children, crumpled into sleep in the back seat, and we see the future of love, leading on ahead of us.

I look forward to hunting the elusive aurora on future nights, with my growing sons. Perhaps some day we shall catch those dancing lights – those leprechaun high-energy, high-atmosphere particulate impacts that make it through our magnetosphere. Or perhaps we shall not. Perhaps, some cold January night, my beloved children will bundle their wee ones and their spouses into a car with a glint in their eyes and a promise that the quest for the Northern Lights is one worth the undertaking.

Saturday morning vignette

My boys brought me breakfast, and my laptop, in bed this morning. About the time I’d caught up on all the latest hijinks of my Facebook friends, my beloved eldest son came in to snuggle me. “Whatcha reading?” he asked. (He is the world’s most obnoxious over-the-shoulder reader.) Well, I wasn’t reading much. So I pulled up “Glorious Dawn”:

That led us to reading about Black Holes (Grey made it through quite a heavy article on the topic). And that led us to an hour long Nova special on the nature of space:

Grey watched the whole thing, rapt. I did step away a few times, and when I came back he’d say, “Mom, you missed a lot.”

Following that, Grey wrote this letter to NASA:

Dear NASA I was wondering if we could go faster than the universe to see the universe EXPANDING, and if you could send a rectangular prism filled with water covered on all sides and launch it @ detect it and send the progress in our mail (redacted, but correct) if you could do that it would be very helpful. Is it nice being a scientist? If so i’m looking for a future job that could buy me a lot of books in a month. Make a lot of discoveries! Your friend, Grey , age Eight. 🙂

It’s just been a calm, quiet, lovely day – with time for Nova videos, Lego battles and Christmas music. As the first flakes of a major storm begin to fall, along with the cloak of darkness, we are together as a joyful family. This would all be even more peaceful if we weren’t headed to the Mythbusters: Behind the Myths show tonight in Lowell. I admit to some trepidation, between the 8 pm showtime and the major winter storm. But mostly, I’m excited, happy and content.

Gone to Melville Castle

Last Saturday, our wheels cut through the early morning mists on a journey North through just-coloring leaves towards our summer haunts in Lincoln New Hampshire for the New Hampshire Scottish Highland Games. As we sped away, I turned on a playlist of ALL THINGS SCOTTISH, landing as I always do on “All the Best from Scotland v2“. (No, I do not have and have never heard volume 1.)

This album has been, uh, enjoyed by my family often, and Adam and I certainly know all the words. And as we passed red-limned swamps and yet-green-groves, Melville Castle came on. Since there’s an off chance that you are unfamiliar with this apex of Scottish accomplishment, here’s a version for you to listen to:

Anyway, as the song went on, a small – anonymous – voice from the back seat joined in the chorus. When the song ended, he asked for it again. And again. When the album was allowed to continue, a wistful voice said that it couldn’t wait until it could hear it again – a wish soon to be granted.

We arrived at the games – a chaotic and crowded enterprise with pipe bands to the right of you, Red Hot Chili Pipers to the left of you and Haggis straight ahead. (Yes, I did have haggis for lunch.)

No one would dare make fun of these guys for wearing pink and skirts.

I explained my Scottish heritage to my sons. I told them the rated-G version of what it meant to be a Johnstone of Clan Johnstone. (“Now what’s your clan crest again?!”) Then I took them to the Clan Johnstone tent where their great-uncle was presiding as Clan President (US) over the annual Clan Gathering. Accidentally showing up just during the clan meeting, my eldest son (the one with the Johnstone in his name) proposed that there should be awards such as best video game player (he would win) and best pie maker (an apparent shoe-in for his mother).

We wandered the booths, bought shortbread, watched the world championship caber toss, and saw more people in tartans than I thought possible. (I mean, I don’t have a tartan skirt and I really want one and am a Johnstone of Clan Johnstone! How do so many people gear themselves up so well and so expensively?!) My sons did this super cool bungy jump flip thingy. And a few hours later, we left the buzz of the bagpipes behind and returned home.

My son demanded “Melville Castle” on his DS. While I was at it, could I please add the depression era anthem “Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound”:

These two songs have been ringing through my house ever since. Two young voices in my backseat, this morning, were arguing through the lyrics of Melville Castle (is it ‘what will all the lassies dae‘ or ‘what will all the lassies say’? and singing together.

So music, this folk music – the kind sung by people you know who are like you – has been much on my mind lately. On Wednesday, word came through my Facebook feed (is it heretical of me to admit that I really love Facebook, and how it has helped me preserve relationships that otherwise would have long since withered?) that one of my old Tacoma Youth Symphony alumn friends was in the region, and playing house concerts.

Ryan McKasson was a violist when we played through Sibelius and Rimsky-Korsakov together in the first flowering of youth. We probably played together for four or five years. So when my Friday was inexplicably free, and my babysitter (God bless having a babysitter!) was available, and … I found myself in a house in Lexington with the lights on, original art on the walls, an expensive grand piano and cheap folding chairs. Ryan recognized me, remembering my instrument if nothing else. We chatted briefly, and then the sparks flew.

Is there a better way to listen to music than in a small group of music lovers, in the aging house of retiring patrons of the arts? I watched the shy boy I once kind of knew strike like flint against the steel of his pianist friend, challenging with fiery eyes to go one farther and one better. Physics cannot explain how fast those 20 fingers flew across string and ivory. I was rapt, and entranced. (As an aside, Ryan is one of the best all-over performers I’ve seen. If you ever have a chance to watch him play, do so. And try to figure out a way to stay late for the after-concert-session that is apparently an inevitability.)

Ryan's skill was only exceeded by his passion — Ryan’s skill was only exceeded by his passion

There were a few moments, in this modern-day-salon, where I thought about the choices of my life. I come from a corporate job, a skilled craftsman in the new economy. I sit in a cube from 9 am to 5 pm writing emails and connecting threads of different thoughts to weave into a complete cloth of strategic understanding. But perhaps I could have been a musician, an artist. Perhaps I could have chosen to write books or perform trumpet, or teach. I did not. Even in the rosin-dusted air, although I am wistful for my choices, I do not regret them. While there is no art without the artist, there must also be an audience or there will be neither art nor artist. The Tacoma Youth Symphony made my high school years joyous, but it also taught me to be the audience and patron. I gladly and cheerfully accept my role, and would love to practice it even more actively!

You can see pictures from the Highland Games, plus a few more fall pictures here.