ALS 5K in Covid time

"Our doing the 5K for ALS in memory of Jimmy is the equivalent to a memorial mass," I tell my kids.  "In my family you go to mass each year to remember the person who died.  Instead of doing that for Jimmy, we do this 5k."

In the beginning, we all went to the ALS 5K each June.  Jimmy died in 2007, and I think we started doing the race in 2009.  As the kids got older and had activities and opinions, some of us went.  So attendance -- which some years meant hanging about with my extended family and eating treats and not actually running or walking -- went from mandatory family activity to optional event if you want to come.  Some years it was all six of us; others, two or three of us.  

(One year I was in Colorado for a conference.  My husband left me a voice mail the night before the ALS 5K, saying that they were going to skip the race because they were all exhausted, having attended end-of-year events and preschool graduation that week.  He said to let him know if that didn't work.  I could understand his weariness and his not wanting to get four kids (ages 4, 6, 8, 10) out the door at 7:30 on a Saturday morning.  I called and left a message: "You do need to go to the race.  Christine is counting on you, on us.  Showing up means a lot to her."  When I called him the next morning, hoping that he's heard my message, the noise was loud and excited: our oldest ran the whole thing!  they were with my sisters!  they were eating pizza!)

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Annual memorial masses were part of growing up.  When someone died, we went to the funeral or maybe just my parents went to the funeral, but a year later and in subsequent years, close to the date of the person's passing, we went to a memorial mass for the person.  Uncle Joe, Gramps (paternal grandfather), Pat (maternal grandfather).  A year after my mom died, my dad started the ritual for her.  He expressed to me at one point that it was a custom that he wasn't sure about, though he is still a practicing Catholic.  He just wasn't sure why we did it and whether he wanted to do it.  But still, for the past fifteen years, he's organized a mass in her memory -- which means that he has called St. Peter's Church, put her name in, and at a regularly scheduled mass on a Saturday afternoon, the priest says my mom's name -- Ann Sullivan -- twice during the mass.  Then we go back to my dad and his wife's house and have a dinner with everyone who has showed up -- aunts, uncles, cousins.

It's a nice ritual, whether you're Catholic or not, setting aside a few hours to be together in memory of that person.  Rarely do we actually talk about my mom at this annual gathering.  But we all know why we're there, and that's enough.

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My brother-in-law Jimmy wasn't Catholic or religious.  He told my sister not to have a funeral when he died, so she didn't.  A year or two after he died, she had shirts made for the run, and then, a few years later, when she married again, she and her husband made a team called Team Jimmy, to honor the memory of both her husband Jimmy and her new husband's father, also named Jimmy, who had also died from ALS.  (Yes, strange coincidence.)

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It's COVID time 2020, so there's no ALS gathering this year -- no balloons and pizza and bagels and cookies and Ben and Jerry's and face painting and shoot the basketball for $5 (which I never have on me, and my Dad and sisters give my kids money for).  I plan to do the 5K here in my city, so eight-year-old Hannah says that she'll join me.  When we wake up, we search different websites that can map a route for us; it's possible that we spend more time dealing with the computer's making us a route than we will spend running.  We decide that 5.4 kilometers is close enough since it's a loop, and we want to begin and end at our driveway.

Hannah borrows her brother's phone (he's fourteen and has a phone), he makes her a playlist for the run, and we write out the route on a piece of paper -- Bacon to Lexington to Beaver to Main and looping back to Bacon then Greenwood then Claremont (our street).  I'm expecting that I'll run the 5K in about thirty-five minutes, and I'll spend a lot of time going back to check on Hannah, run with her, direct her.  We've got a plan.

But her brother's phone needs to be charged, so we have to wait for that.  And I want some new songs on my phone, so I purchase those and wait for them to download (no matter how often I buy songs from itunes, I make this process time-consuming and confusing -- how do I get off the screen that advertises apple music for $9.99 a month?  how do I find my song?  how do I get the song that I've bought on the computer onto my phone?  how many times do I need to restart my phone to see the songs and get them onto my running playlist -- the only playlist I have?).  Hannah makes me a playlist on youtube also, so we'll have some of the same songs -- "High Hopes" and "Senza Farlo Posto" and "Count on Me" and "Shotgun" -- and Sebastian can't believe that we still haven't left.  We're about an hour behind schedule (yes, our own, since there is no set time for this virtual race or event...in fact, we're doing it a day early to accommodate another kid's birthday wishes).

We finally get up from the table with our map and playlists, ready to go.

Ten-year-old Connor runs in the door.  

"I'm coming!"  he says.

"Why?" I ask him.

"Because I was bored at my friend's house.  So I want to come."

"All right.  Let's go over the map.  You sure you'll be okay to do this?  It's really really hot, and you haven't run in months," I say.

"Yep.  Let's go over the map," he says.

So we do.

He draws it twice and we review it, and he's ready to go even without music.  Tracking Connor and Hannah around Waltham was not how I had envisioned this run (I run once a week both because it makes me tremendously happy and because I love to listen to my music.  Running more than once a week I would feel in my knees or hips or back -- at forty-seven years old.  Ah, well.  Once a week is perfect.), but I go with it: an eight-year-old and ten-year-old who want to go on a 5K run or walk with me on a summer day of eighty-five degrees -- I am delighted.

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Connor starts off fast, but stops and waits patiently at the first light.  I usually jog at lights, a break that I like, but if I keep moving, even in place, I count it as part of my run.  He runs with ease, even without music, calm and quick (or quick to me).  Hannah turns around and points to her feet while boogying a bit: this means that she's listening to "One Foot" (Walk the Moon) at the moment.  I've run with Hannah before, so I know that she won't put too much pressure on herself: she'll stop when she needs, walk a bit, sit a bit, get going again when she feels ready.  I worry more about Connor, who is competitive and might want to prove that he can do this 5K better than his younger sister and I can.  He'll push himself, and I'm a little concerned about his passing out.  But he's stopping at the lights and standing in the shade.  He's walking a little.  He's not blocks behind, and I haven't even once gone back to find or check in with either Hannah or him.  They both stay ahead of me.

Hannah turns around again, crosses her arms and puts a leg out to show me that "Wherever I Go" (Miley Cyrus) is on.  I smile as she taps her foot out a bit.  I smile as she catches up to Connor, and the two of them run side by side until they get to the next light, then stand in the shade together.  Their faces are so red, and they are sweaty and breathing heavy, but when the light changes, on they go.  I cannot adore them more.  

Some years ago a neighbor called Connor and Hannah "the littles," in distinguishing them from their two older siblings.  It stuck.  As a kid, I was one of the "three little kids," so I project on them the comfort I had in belonging to the "three little kids," (as opposed to the big kids, who were our older brother and sister).  The Bigs are at home hanging out, at age thirteen and fourteen.  But The Littles are running and walking around Waltham, passing each other, slowing down, taking breaks, doing dance moves, checking in, passing me.  

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They speed ahead as we get near our street, gunning it to our driveway.  Later, when they discuss the race, Connor says, "Hannah beat me by a second or maybe two."

Hannah responds, "No.  Definitely two seconds."

I arrive thirty to sixty seconds after they do.

Connor says to me, "Can we do that run again next week?"

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My brother-in-law, their Uncle Jimmy, died in 2007.  He was thirty-six.  Connor and Hannah never met him.  But I imagine him smiling at them as they pour water over their heads and walk around the block to stretch out and discuss the final two seconds of the run.  

A mass.  A dinner.  A run.  A walk.  A laugh.  

There are so many ways to remember.

What you notice in quarantine

If not for quarantine, would I have spoken up?  would I have insisted that Daniel leave?  You hear that couples and families and singles -- everyone, then -- have trouble during this pandemic, but I thought back in March, Are you kidding?  I get more time with my kids than I ever get; I get to take walks in the woods daily; I have zero commute; and my husband and I are spending more time together.  These are serious silver linings.

As always with being home, I noticed more: the windows in the kids' dressing room need to be replaced; the yard needs work; my husband is on his phone a lot; the new chairs in the living room are fabulous; the little kids have so much love for me; my husband's phone dings a lot; the big kids work hard at school; our Italian friend responds to my husband's messages more promptly than to mine; our fourteen-year-old cares a lot about how he does in school; our twelve-year-old gets happier when she talks to her friends over zoom; the little kids can actually write decently; I like the break from school life; I don't need as much sleep because I'm not commuting and spending all day at school; my husband is doing Italian and texting with our Italian friend before I am even up in the morning.

My awareness of these things was not entirely new.  On some level, I had already noticed all of these at some point or points and had put them aside.  Raking one afternoon, I listened to the podcast Modern Love.  The topic was relationships during quarantine: some couples were beginning their relationships; some had just ended their relationship but were still living together, trying to endure; some were in the middle of a break-up when quarantine began.  I raked and listened, mesmerized.  I thought, I'm lucky that I've had more time during quarantine to talk with Daniel, to walk him to work when he goes, to hang out.  It was easy to find the positive.

And I ignored the things I was noticing, things I had noticed for months, but had convinced myself out of.  Cristina and Daniel text much more than Cristina and I do; he's putting more time into learning and improving his Italian.  Cristina and Daniel leave each other many voice messages.  Daniel's enthusiasm for Cristina and hers for him seem more than I'm comfortable with; I can work on not being jealous -- we're all friends.

Cristina and Marco and their son Emanuele had planned to come to visit us -- and stay with us for three weeks -- in June.  Daniel had mapped out a schedule, including a camping trip to Lake Umbagagog.  I hadn't committed to going, thinking that, with a three-week-stay, I might like a break from all the company at home.  I vacillated though, because being out camping sounded pretty great, too.  I like camping (provided that our kids or Daniel sets up all the tent gear).  Back in January or February, I had thought, I don't think I can go camping with them.  It will be too much to be around Daniel and Cristina and their flirty energy.  I'll need a break.  I didn't think that anything physical was going to happen between them; it was more their excessive admiration of each other, an admiration that seemed to have grown since our return to the states, that now, I sensed and saw on some texts, was more than I was comfortable with.  I told myself, They're friends.  We're friends.  It will fade.  He needs attention, and eventually this will run out.  I'd seen it before -- twice with an ex-girlfriend and once with a woman who lived in our city.  Not full-out romantic relationships, but emotionally-charged-building-in-intensity-time-consuming relationships that gave him energy and made him feel happy and purposeful.  Until I said, You can't be in touch with ex-girlfriend because you told her that you dream that, if something happens to me, you'll grow old with her.  Or until I emailed same woman years later and said, No more contact between the two of you, and does your husband know about these emails reliving the past?  Or until I said, You lied to me about Gabby.  You lied.  You said that you were by yourself one night, but she was here, too.  You need to move out of the house.  (It was a brief three week exile of which our kids never learned since he left after bed and arrived by breakfast.  They were small.)

So I told myself, Don't be jealous.  Check in with him.  Put more time into your friendship with Cristina.  Work on your Italian and your communication with Cristina to get rid of your jealousy.  Give Daniel more attention.  He needs attention.

I did all of these.

Ding, ding, ding.

The texts came in during the day.  I heard his speaking in Italian leaving voice messages before I even got out of bed.  When he'd been up for a couple of hours before me, and I asked, Oh, did you meditate?  He'd sometimes say, Not yet.  I was working on my Italian flashcards.  Flashcards that had not only Italian words but entire phrases and sentences in quotes with dates from Cristina's WhatsApp messages.  I asked him one day, "Don't the flashcards with Cristina's sentences on them make you then think about her and her messages or the conversation you had?  They would for me."  "No," he said.  

I said, "These are pretty effusive, this message about how you send messages with enthusiasm, passion, with the heart, with happiness."

"Yes," he said.

In response to her list of emotions with which she sent him messages (con entusiasmo, con allegria, con cuore, con passione, con amore), he wrote: "Tutto per me?"  (All for me?) and she answered, "Tutto per te, Daniel William Keleher. 😊"  And I thought, But that's a line from one of our favorite movies, Love Actually.  The secretary says to her married boss, when he compliments her on her planning of the holiday party, "It's for you.  It's all for you."  So we have used that line, too.  I tried not to think too much more about it.  Even if he wasn't aware of the movie reference here the way I was, it was still a line that goes over a line.  

Having conversations about his friendships with women in the past haven't gone well.  Even now, years after I insisted that he not have relationships with the ex-girlfriend and the woman in our city, he told me that he didn't like that he couldn't have these relationships; that he didn't think it was fair and didn't really get it.  I thought, I can try harder, try to accommodate his need for attention and Italian learning.  But it wasn't enough.

I started checking his phone when he was outside or in the shower.  Him in Italian: I love you.  This friendship isn't just fun for me; it's integral to who I am and how I live and brings me so much happiness.  Her: I love you, too.  Last night I went to sleep smiling thinking about this message of yours.  You're my favorite/best friend.  

And the mundane: I'm at the grocery store that you used to shop at here in Italy!  Here's how you say "than" in Italian, depending on the context.  You are amazing, wonderful, incredible, talented.  I am full of admiration for you.  I woke up so happy today and with a hundred smiles and I am sending them all to you today!  

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I was becoming more unhappy.  My attentions, no matter how much, were not slowing down Daniel's outreach and messages to Cristina or hers to him.  

I started asking for reassurance in ways I never had before: Am I your number one?  Will I always be your number one?  Will we stay married forever?  Questions I never could have imagined asking.  He said, "Yes," and moved on.  

I noticed that I needed to speak up.  Okay, with the help of two girlfriends who said that I wasn't just being jealous.

I noticed that even then, his focus was more on how Cristina felt after I sent her an email than on how I felt.

I noticed that again, I was told that I had misunderstood, that it was only friendship, that this friendship was important.

I noticed that he couldn't stop being in touch with her even after I asked for their not being in touch.  He still texted her son on Cristina's phone, facetimed her and her family on his birthday, called her by accident one Saturday morning.

When I thought that the worst was over, after we had read Olive, Again aloud in bed and made love one midnight, I lay there afterwards and asked, "What do you understand now?"  I was curious, hopeful, eager.  I wanted to know that he understood what hadn't been okay, how hurt I was; I wanted reassurance. 

He said, "I understand that you were hurt by my relationship with Cristina.  Cristina has been a huge part of my life.  She plays an integral role in my life.  She lives out what I'm learning in meditation.  She has given me more support than anyone else in my passion to engage citizens."  There was more.  Ten minutes more of Cristina's enthusiasm and love of life and engagement and insight and generosity. 

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I was miserable.

Finally I had to change something -- and this time it wasn't myself.

I noticed that the rules I was living by -- that you stay married, that you compromise and find depths of flexibility for your marriage and your family, that you speak up but you don't fight in front of the kids, that you try to understand the other person's needs, that you use only "I feel" language to talk about your hurt, that you support your spouse, that you accept your spouse -- were not good enough.  Finally not good enough.

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I noticed that I wanted more.  That this was not enough.

I noticed that I didn't have to follow these rules any more.

Writing: no matter the age

In the summer our four kids need to write for fifteen minutes each weekday.  They can write about whatever they want.  During quarantine the two of elementary school age need to write for ten minutes each day, and then review with an adult for five minutes.

This is hard work.  For everyone.

There's a good bit of push back: 

I don't want to.

I don't know what to write about.

This takes so long.

It's fine.  I don't want to go over it with you.

Why are you saying it's bad?  It's bad!

Can you not make me do it over?

Can you give me some topics?

No, I don't like those topics.

I have nothing to write about.

I want to go play.  Can't I just go play?

I hate this.

And then you're going to say I have to go outside.  I have no free time!

Then I still have to do my chore.  I have no free time!

This is boring.

Yesterday morning I plopped myself down on the couch early while the house was quiet and I wrote.  Even with only five hours of sleep, I felt happy for so much of the day.  Today I intended to do the same thing.

I woke up and journaled.   Then Hannah wanted to show me a card trick.  Three times.  I needed breakfast.  I needed a walk.  I needed to clean last night's pyrex that was still in the sink.  I needed a little snack.  At 11:30am I finally got back to the couch (o the discipline to plop on the couch!  not even trying to get myself to sit at a desk!) and opened my computer.  Sebastian, age fourteen, sat down.  He wanted to chat.  It's hard for me to pass up an opportunity to chat with one of the kids.

I opened the computer again.  Got the blank space.

I have nothing to write about.

I don't know what to write.

What do I write about?

Is there anything worth writing about?

Maybe I should go clean the basement.

Maybe I should offer to play ping pong with one of the kids.

I shouldn't be on the computer so much.

When am I going to review those resumes?

I need a topic.

What's a good topic?

I am my children.  Any topic is fine.  Just write.  Tree trunks.  Apologies.  Getting started.

Living Again

My husband and I are separated.  Rarely these days do I have a conversation with a friend or family member without talking about this difficulty, change, sadness, development.  He moved out two weeks ago.  I don't want to go to couple's counseling or spend my days talking with him about our marriage/relationship, but I also don't know how to spend my days without talking about our relationship with other people.  My friends are my bedrock at the moment.  They always have been, and now they are even more.

That's a realization: my friends have been my bedrock.

Don't people usually say spouse?

But this is not the point.  The point is that, as I read Lori Gottlieb's Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, I think, Oh, time to move on from topic of Husband (hers is Boyfriend), and get to what I want.  If I don't want him or this marriage, it's time to think about what I do want or to actually do what I want.  I can't have it both ways: miserable with him and miserable without him.

This morning, I biked to the post office to mail back clothing returns from Gap (v-neck t-shirts too low), L. L. Bean (tank tops too loose), Eddie Bauer (cute sleeveless shirts too falling off shoulder).  Walking down the sidewalk (marciapiede! -- I remember a little Italian!), I saw a postal worker emptying out the blue mailbox.  He opened the bottom half of the mailbox, slid out a white crate with United States Postal Service stamped on it, full of envelopes, reached in to grab the other loose envelopes that had missed the crate, added these to his crate, then put in a new white empty crate.  So that's how it works, I thought.  

And I laughed at myself, thinking, Do I want to take a picture of this blue mailbox, this postal worker, this process of his removing the mail?

My family spent a year in Italy for the 2018-2019 school year.  Even though I'd spent time in Italy before, everything was new: the grocery store, the streets, the people, the post office, the mailbox.  So I focused not on the big details and big trips we took, but on the daily, ordinary details, the things that made up daily life.  I didn't want to keep a travel blog so much as a blog of daily, ordinary life.  Life is in the details.  One day I wrote about going to the post office and spending seventy euro on stamps; another day I took a picture of a red mailbox and wrote about snail mail.  Now I've been back in the United States for almost a year, and finally I realize that I have things to write about.  A mailbox.  

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While I still have a good bit of work, teaching life is done for two and a half months.  The days are opening up.  And I realize that I have wanted to be happy, to feel free, to do what I want to do, to have the mental and physical space to take care of myself.  Now there's no more blaming Husband or Marriage.  It's up to me.

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Today is Monday, and I know that I have ten-hour work days for Tuesday and Wednesday (we are interviewing for a new Head of School), so today is my free day to do whatever I want and to be off my computer and zoom or bluejeans meetings all day.  I didn't sleep well (eight-year-old slept with me and kicked a good bit), and I feel a little stuck when I wake up (sveglio!), unsure of what to do with myself.  I write in my Five Minute a Day Journal, text a friend about talking on her commute, and do a meditation with Headspace for fifteen minutes.  I walk around the block talking to said friend on her non-commute (because of social distancing, she's doing appointments virtually from home).  I eat my Cheerios and read the local paper from last week.  I do eight-year-old's challenge assignment that she made.  I do two short pilates videos of Robin Long (one abs, one legs).  

I admit it: I feel both a little lost and a little overwhelmed.  I have errands and chores, but I don't want to do errands or chores.  I want to relax, but I don't know what to do.  Finally I decide to bike to the post office to do my returns.  I borrow eight-year-old's lock, pack up my returns, and head out.  It's maybe a mile and a half to the post office.  We're all wearing our masks inside, giving each other space, standing on the marked yellow circles in line.  An older woman is ahead of me in line; she takes her time, getting some stamps, mailing an envelope.  

When I leave, I head to UPS on the corner to take care of the final return.  I walk in, ask where to put the package, drop it, walk out.  On the walk back to my bike I see the postal worker emptying out the mailbox.

Yes, I think.  This is it.  This is the living that I did for those two weeks alone in Italy before Daniel and the kids arrived.  For two weeks I made simple plans, like going to the post office or finding a store.  I took my time, I noticed a lot without trying, I rested and read and wrote some each afternoon, without ever making a schedule.  I had apartment projects and cleaning to do to move in and to prepare for my family's arrival.  One day I worked on reading the cereal box.  Another day I worked through learning the recycling system (which I still messed up more than once).  I reveled in the necessity of slowing down in order to understand anything around me, of getting used to a new place and adapting.

Waltham is not new.  Having my kids home all the time is not new.  Not being responsible to or for another adult is new.  Having more independence and autonomy is new.  Mary Oliver: What will you do with your one wild and precious life?

I will live as I lived for that year in Italy -- exploring and noticing and listening and growing.  I can do that right here in Waltham, it turns out.  It's more of a challenge for me, but I can do it.

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At times I've felt that I needed to move to change.  Staying in the same place and changing sounds more difficult than moving and changing life up.  After teaching for two years and feeling like I wanted to try social work, I felt like I needed to make a big move in order to leave this stable, fascinating, wonderful job.  So I moved from Massachusetts to California.  It seemed too hard to stay in Massachusetts and leave the good, loved job.

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I'm not moving.  Daniel moved out.  I'm in our house with our kids.  It's summer.  The purpose and necessary being present that comes with teaching are not happening now.  I need to make my own purpose.  Biking and standing in line at the post office and watching that postal worker at the blue mailbox, I thought, Oh, okay.  I can do this.  I can treat the days this summer as I treated the days for those two solo weeks.  There are more complications and interruptions because I have four kids with me every day, but I can get back those solo Italy days, those days where I felt emotionally free and available and thrilled to explore my world.

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I took out my computer to write when I got home, but our fourteen-year-old wanted to debate my summer rule of one hour outside by 1pm.  When I finally sat down at the computer, he came and called my bluff, "Would you play basketball with me now?"

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I am not solo as I was in Italy for those two weeks, and I am so glad.  I am so glad that I get to be around these four kids for the summer, that I can notice them and life and myself again.  

Week Two

I've done it.  We've done it: Daniel has moved out.  He is still here at the house every day, and we have some figuring out to do with that.  But perhaps rather than be fixated on how much he's here and how hard that is for me, I can focus on the first big step: he's not living here, not sleeping in my bed, not here when I wake up in the morning.

And I am grateful.

The energy in the house feels lighter for me.  I don't tense when he lies beside me in bed.  I feel some ease and some freedom.  When he's here, I do wonder what he's doing and whether he's helping the kids with their schoolwork; when he's not here, I don't wonder what he's doing.  I'm glad to have this space to myself, this physical, mental, and emotional space.

When I wake up, I don't feel that sinking feeling in my chest, wondering how many texts he's already exchanged with Cristina or how much Italian he's been doing since 4am while his clothes and papers are strewn in various spots around the house.  I don't feel relegated to meditating in bed because he's meditating in the living room.  

I'm grateful because I feel like a better version of myself.  I sit with the kids for breakfast if they ask.  I make dinner simply, happily.  I laugh on the phone with my girlfriends.  I go for my walks.  

During a faculty meeting two days ago, I had a sudden thought and wrote it down.  It went something like this: "I am healthy.  I can be healthy now."  I don't feel weighed down by every small decision that must be debated when he is here, whether about loading dishes into the dishwasher or buying a car that holds six of us or how he should manage female friendships.

We haven't figured out a schedule yet, but we'll get there.

For now, I feel lighter, and this is be a good thing.

Trunks and Mounds

The trunks swayed in the woods this morning.  I sat down while talking with a friend on the phone, and I watched them.  They were tall and skinny for tree trunks, and they swayed, and I thought, Oh, this is how they go down.  I never see them when they fall, only afterwards.  After a storm, we take walks through the woods and we notice which trees have fallen, admiring the trunks or walking on them, checking out the uprooted roots (polyptoton!  Maddie Farrell's favorite figure of speech...).  We climb and explore and check out the place where the trunk split.

I've started to slow down on my walks.  During the school year I am focused and goal-oriented, wanting my one hour walk through neighborhoods near school or so focused on chatting with a girlfriend in person or on the phone that I don't notice my surroundings as much...except maybe the flowers on the corner, near the water tower in Braintree.  You can't miss those.

But today I sat on a downed trunk and looked across fifty yards, as my girlfriend and I talked, just sat there and watched the swaying trunks.  Maybe they'll be down tomorrow.

Today the mounds were gone.  Six or seven huge mounds of dirt that have covered a trail for the past three years -- gone.  

Before the mounds, as we've called them in our house, were trucked and dumped here, there was a trail that we walked when we didn't have time or energy to go to the top and do the full loop.  This trail cuts across the creek, then by a metal bench that looks like it came from a soccer or football field (how did that get there and how many years ago?  I've imagined teenagers wanting a place to drink, and one night hauling this metal bench up to the woods, pleased with themselves to have set up their own drinking spot in the woods rather than a parking lot, as kids did when I was in high school -- I was never cool enough to be in the parking lot crowd, but I my older sister was and my soccer and cheerleader friends, too), then by a ledge edged (polyptoton again...well, sort of...) with poison ivy on both sides.  When I walked this way with my husband, who gets poison ivy easily, he'd say, "We need to wash our pants when we get home."  He did; I didn't.  The trail winds a bit more and then finally comes to the top of a dead end road.  It was our short loop, the loop to do before dinner with a friend and her dog, with a child who needed to get outside but didn't want to be out too long, with myself when I needed a feel of the woods.

One day (maybe) three years ago, the last fifty yards of the trail, the part that led to the road, was gone.  Where the trail had been were huge mounds of dirt, seemingly impassable.  The city had forced the owner of this land to take down his radio tower nearby in the woods.  The owner of the radio tower was so angry with the city that he put these hills of dirt, about ten feet high and seven feet wide, over this part of the trail, we assumed, to block it.  (When I asked our City Councilor about it, he said, "I've told the owner that he's not hurting the city by putting the dirt there; he's hurting his neighbors.")  For a long time, we didn't use the trail.  It was blocked.  But at some point, likely because of a child's curiosity, we tried going over the mounds, as we called them.  The kids loved to climb over them, and I got used to them as just part of a the walk, a different way to do this part of the trail.  We came to love the mounds, as obstacles or fun or just another aspect of the park.

But today, after I pass the metal bench and the poison ivy and wind around to the road, the mounds do not hinder my view.  The ground is flat.  It's dirt, just flat dirt, looking like it's ready for a paving.  Our mounds are gone.   The kids might be disappointed.  Part of me is excited and part of me is disappointed, too.  I had come to like the mounds.

I wonder if that's the way changes go.  In one moment a hardship or obstacle; in another, a challenge; in another, a familiar part of life that you come not just to accept, but like and enjoy.

Italy Saturday here in Massachusetts

Once every week or two, I meet my aunt Margo, who is seventy-six, to do her grocery shopping.  We text to set up the time; she sends an email with her grocery list (I don't know how she lives on so little; the list is a tour through the store, ordered just as the store is -- a work of art, both the store and her list); I send a text when I leave here since I'm almost always leaving later than I planned; we meet in the parking lot of Wegman's after I've shopped, we load them into her car, she gives me cash (since quarantine shopping I've not had to go to an ATM once), we stand in the parking lot and visit.  Sometimes our visit is ten minutes.  Yesterday it was an hour.

When I was a kid, I didn't find it easy to talk with Margo.  In fact, I felt a bit uncomfortable around her.  My mom's only sister, she seemed more serious and more strict than my mom.  I didn't know the rules, and we needed to be good around Margo.  We needed to be good around Gram (our grandmother, mom of her and my mom), too, but Gram's affection for us was so obvious that we knew that she'd always forgive us anything anyway.  She loved the very existence of us.  Margo was single and adventurous and serious, or at least that's how I saw her when we were kids.  She was a special education teacher and traveled every summer; she took cooking and baking and photography classes; she had lots of friends; she practiced her tests on me before she administered them for real; she read the newspaper and disagreed with my dad about politics and education the way my mom didn't.  We knew she loved us and paid attention to us, too: she made our birthday cakes every year, each one decorated differently and especially for the birthday kid.  Incredible cakes.  Before our birthdays we'd discuss what she might make for the upcoming birthday.  I remember a yellow phone -- two pieces because that's what they looked like back in the 1980s, receiver and base; Cookie Monster; softball Snoopy; tennis Snoopy; Miss Piggy; a book; Huey Lewis and the News; golf Snoopy; soccer Snoopy.  One year for Halloween she showed up at our house dressed as Miss Piggy.  She took us to every Muppet movie and to the Fogg Museum and to Swensen's.  And we loved her and admired and appreciated her.

But I wouldn't just sit down and chat with her as I did with my grandmother.

At twenty-three, I moved to San Francisco.  The night before I left, Margo and Gram came over for dinner at my parents'.  When I walked them out to their car, Margo gave me a hug and said, "We'll miss you.  She'll miss you."  She was referring to Gram, besides my mom, my favorite person in the world.  Margo would miss me.  She knew that Gram would miss me.  Somehow this was revelatory to me.  You don't say these types of things in Irish Catholic households, or at least you didn't in 1996.  Margo liked me and appreciated me: I could feel it and was so surprised and pleased by this.

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It's almost twenty-fve years later.  Gram has passed, and Mom has passed, but Margo is here.  And over the years we have talked about love and teaching and working and parenting and friends and travel and family.  We talk often.  We laugh.  My kids are more comfortable with her than I was at their age.  She takes them for ice cream or to movies as she did for us.  She sits and chats.  She drives them when I'm in a bind.  She comes to their plays and games and performances, and she adores them.  She gets the girls their Christmas dresses and Easter dresses as she did for my sisters and me when we were kids.  She still reads the newspaper and can tell you every detail of Trump misconduct.  (Yesterday it was his insistence on being at the West Point graduation.)  Our teenagers say, "You know, it's really easy to talk to Margo.  It's like she's interested in what we're saying.  She really listens.  And she asks questions, and it makes it easy to talk with her.  It's nice."  (Maybe they're more mature than I was at their age? or more confident? or maybe Margo seems less serious to them than she did to me?)

We stand in the parking lot at Wegman's, and we put the bags into the back of her RAV4 (she's had Toyotas for the last thirty years).  She hands me a bag of cookies for the kids and me, cookies she knows I'll eat some of us the minute I get in the car.  Somehow I go into Wegman's for her, but she gets to a store and bakery to get cookies or chocolates or fudge for us.  Every time.  She pulls out cash, and we do that exchange.

And then we stand in the parking lot for another hour and talk.  Just talk.  We talk about whether people can change and we talk about her friends and we talk about my kids and about me.  And the news.  Aways the news and whichever of her electronics are not working -- tv or phone or computer.   She has an unspoken rule that she won't give advice, but today she gives her opinion in little bits, and if I pay attention, I catch them.

Italians are visiting with family all the time.  It's not just for big holiday gatherings: it's a way of life, being with family all the time -- parents, kids, siblings, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles.  It's a Saturday, and we're not sitting at a bar with a cappuccino, but we're standing here in a parking lot, just the two of us (and a car every twenty minutes or so moving in or out of the parking space beside us), visiting, talking, being.  

I'm back in Italy on a Saturday morning.  This time I'm not in awe of the Italians and nostalgic for people I know.  I'm just with Margo, talking, listening, present (though a little worried about the strawberrries and blueberries and spinach that might be wilting in the heat of her car on this June day).

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Starbucks is across the street.  Masked, I order a chai tea latte.  "What size?" the barista at the table at the door asks.  "Big," I say.  I can never remember the Starbucks sizes, but I know that I want the biggest one they have.

I take my iced chai tea latte (courtesy of our letter carrier's gift cards, which she received one Christmas; she doesn't go to Starbucks, so I've lucked out), sit on a bench nearby, and read my book, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone.  (I heard an interview last year with the author, and then two friends told me that they had read the book.  So I gifted it to two other friends, who loved it.  So this copy belongs to one of these friends who then sent it back to me so I could read it.)  I sit there in the sun, reading, sipping, laughing out loud.  (Friend who sent it warns me that other parts are not laugh-out-loud but cry-cry-cry.)

An hour of sitting.  Reading.  Sipping a drink.  

I used to do this in Italy with no concern about what was coming next or what was on a to-do list.

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I drive ten minutes to Blue Hills.  Blue Hills is a reservation with trails.  I drive by every day when I commute to work.  It's only twenty-five minutes from our house, but I've never come hiking here.  We have Prospect Hill and Paine Estate, two wooded areas minutes from our house, so I don't often drive to go for a walk or hike.

But today I need the change.  We've been social distancing for three months, and I need occasional change.  I park on the side of the road and start up a trail.  I have no map, no direction, no plan.  I just walk higher.  I call my friend Christa (roommate in California), and we talk for two hours as I walk, and then sit on a rock.  The sun, the woods, a talk with a girlfriend.  I want for nothing else for these two hours.

In Italy, we walked the Via Francigena sometimes on Saturdays.  We had no house projects or people to see, so it was easy to motivate the kids to take an excursion.  Blue Hills by myself today -- and with Christa.

Tomorrow, I'll bring some kids.

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Waltham is a city.  It's not a cute town with a quaint center.  It's a wonderfully diverse city with great restaurants and woods and a mix of families, singles, and older folks.  There is the Waltham Common, green grass with benches and concrete walkways, and there is a main drag of restaurants nearby, Moody Street.  So it has the Common, and it has restaurants and ice cream and even a cafe.  But it's not cute.

However, for restaurants to open back up during phase 2 (of opening the economy), the City decided to shut down Moody Street to cars and allow restaurants to place tables and serve food right in the street.  Dining al fresco.  I walk up and down Moody Street debating what to eat and where to sit.  I choose nothing.  Instead, I walk up and down, staring at people and restaurants, checking out menus, mostly admiring how cute the street looks, how quaint.

Quarantine has actually made Moody Street look pretty.  People are outside talking and laughing and eating.  I'm not sitting down, but the scene beautiful.  I belong here, just looking, the way I would do if I were walking through Rome, watching people eat outside.

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Moody Street, with all its good restaurants and outside tables, didn't call to me.  I got back in my car and headed to Chipotle.  There are some tables out there, too, where I can sit with my chicken burrito and chips and read my book and write.

A family I know walks by on their way home from a Black Lives Matter march.  We talk.  The husband and daughter move on.  The mom, a woman my age (40s), and her neighbor, who seems our age, too, stay and we talk at a distance -- they stand about fifteen feet away and I keep sitting, not wanting to make the neighbor I don't know nervous.  I'm not wearing a mask, and I don't want to make them anxious, so I sit and they stand, and we keep talking -- kids, parenting, education, life.  I also don't move because I don't want to shift the dynamic.  The three of us are not just talking: we are connecting and understanding each other and laughing.  My computer is open, but I don't want to get back to it.  I just want to stay in this conversation.

Last year we had some friends in Italy, but we didn't often just stop on the street to chat with someone we knew.  We were the Americans in our walled city.  I envied the Italians as they bumped into people they knew at the bar, on the street, in a piazza.  I'm outside Chipotle, not some cute Italian bar, but it doesn't matter.  I feel connected.

I am home.