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July 2010

Dear Front Garden,

Dear Front Garden:

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Is it wrong to say I love you? Well, I do. I love that  you are growing and blooming and spreading your blossoms everywhere without any help from me.  You've been a long time coming and we've helped you all the way. We've taken down trees, dug in compost, pickaxed new beds, weeded, and mulched, mulched, mulched. We've spent a trip to Italy on plants and bushes over the years.

Now, after all the time, attention, and money we've spent to get you to grow up and out, you are doing just that. We haven't had nary a minute to do more than pull the weeds as we walk past you on the way to work, or set up the sprinkler, or throw a little fertilizer your way. Despite our inattention, you have shown your good stock and breeding and are just flourishing on your own.

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Good thing, then. It's okay for us to take time away, to not hover, but just make sure you have the right amount of nutrition and watering.  To tell you we love you as we pass by and your spicy lavender fronds tickle our legs.

Family is like that.

It's okay to let things grow on their own. Sometimes you just have to. And if you've put in the time, the bushes grow full, the trees grow straight, the underplantings fill in the bare spots, and the weeds don't have a spot to take over.

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A lesson I keep repeating to myself:  Plenty of food and water and sunshine and they grow big and strong and the weeds can't find a crack to take hold of.

A lesson I'll remember, come September.

Families are like that.

Good thing.

A Small Cup of Chowdah, Please

Two alone with a licorice nib of a dog, furry and sweet.  The darkness provides excellent cover for a surreptitious sneak into the beach but the licorice nib barks just as the attendant waves us in with a reminder that the beach closes at midnight. Shamefaced, we hang a left and drove out before we are handcuffed to the outdoor showers, two alone with a licorice nib.

No matter, here.  There are many other stretches of sand and water  lit by an almost full moon, a moon that graced our long drive like a  flashlight beacon trained on a backdrop sky  at the fifth grade play. This weekend we play gadabouts and pretend we've joined the circus, or at least the Coast Guard.

Enough weekends of  serving platters of fruit and cheeses; this weekend, the only glasses we raise are to ourselves and it is sweet. The cottage awaits, set for the next act and we never fail to smile when we turn the key in the rusty lock and apply brute shoulder force to a swollen door and let in the fresh piney briney air.

White curtains float on a sea of blue and polka dots dance in the next room. Is it really ours? It seems it is so long as we make the payments. And suddenly, this morning, it was summer! No, I mean really, really summer, here, like 25 years of summer rushing up to meet us at the rotary.

I am bobbing in a small red kayak. My vest is school bus yellow and from it hangs an orange whistle. Oars breach water with a splash and I hug the coastline, a timid little paddler for the first time out. Surely anyone could hear my voice, whistles notwithstanding.

The tiger lilies waited for me; the weeds have laid out the welcome carpet! I itch to dig my fingers into pots and create vistas of pink geraniums and variegated vinca, to line my paths with bobbing heads of buddelia and mops of blue hydrangeas. But they wait patiently at home for me, spread lavender across the walk to give me a reason to return to my little brown house and plug in the fairy lights and sit with my girls in the evening and trade stories of toddlers crying and clients missing and disasters on the loading dock.

But for now, we are adrift in a sea of summer. A little red plastic boat points the way across the cove and if I could ever figure out how to get it back up on the car, I'd be there now, while Mr. Pom snores in the bedroom and the licorice nib pants on the wood floor. It is a long road home, both by car and of the spirit. Here on our knoll, we float in and out of reveries, pick up books that lay open on our laps, watch the birds flit from roof to limbs,  swat the skeeters, search for the pantry shelf for that last piece of salted caramel, and plan tomorrow's breakfast: cantaloupe and proscuitto with a side of toasted marshmallows, a hot dog with sauerkraut, and cinnamon rolls from Fancy's.


June-y

The summer night is like a perfection of thought.

-Wallace Stevens


We gathered at the edge of the Sound, snug in a little bay formed by an outcrop of land and rocks that juts out just far enough to form a cove perfect for launching both boats and lives. We were there to launch two young adults out into the world and like all families, we brought food and drink and balloons and cake and noise and children and aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins to celebrate. 

The past two days, we'd shopped and grilled and cooked and chopped and mixed and roasted both the food and ourselves. We'd led a caravan of cars loaded with trays of hors d'ouevres, bags of salad,  blue and white cloths, yellow sunflowers and purple violets, baskets of cookies, and boxes of chocolates down to the water. Carts were employed to truck our bags and boxes across the bumpy path and up the ramp onto the deck of the little boat club.

We were hot when we got there. Fancy dress was eschewed for capris and flats and thin sweaters. Hair was pinned up and back off our necks. But the wine and  beer was cold and the heat and humidity of the day was scoured away by the off sea breezes that buffeted the deck.

Before we began the flurry of  setting out the buffet, we stood with wonder at the railings of the deck and drank in the smells of summer: sea water, mowed grass, and smoky grills. The wind caught the bundles of balloons tied in school colors and bounced them against the clapboard of the building with a pleasant sound.  The buoys bobbed in rhythm and clanged, and the docks knocked against each other in the wake of the boats passing by.

Then in a tizzy of preparation, we dragged out tables and chairs and spread out cloths with a snap of wrists and the aid of the wind. Arugula, carrots, and lentils were mixed. The grill was lit and bratwurst and sliders began to sizzle. Round trays of salmon wheels and crab cakes were uncovered. Baguettes were sliced. Chocolates were plated. The beer was tapped, the ice was unbagged, and the plates and napkins weighted down in a basket against the wind.

The long tables were soon filled with ribs and brats, cornbread and potato salad, string beans and shrimp, and trays of cheeses and charcuterie. Before we knew it, the wide porch  lined with high-backed rockers  was filled with kisses and hugs and exclamations of greetings. Aunts and uncles and Nanas and babies filled every chair and every table.   The wind caught the laughter of the teens gathered at the far end of the dock and brought it up to us like sweet summer rain.   Kids ran up and down the gangplanks and sat with feet in the water and hot dogs in hand.

And then, suddenly, as dusk fell in a bruise of violet we were whisked aboard with champagne glasses and putted out of the bay.  Like children cutting school, we raced past the mooring and followed the coast, waving at our friends. We laughed as the sparkle of champagne and stars blew the smoke off of us and the prow bounced into the waves and sent up a spray that cooled us off.  

The city rose in light and the bridges glowed behind us as the sky deepened.  The little boat continued up the coastline, leaving the party behind. We were so daring! Four parents ditching their own party, sending text messages to plug in the coffee and cut the cake without us.   

We circled the mooring and someone grabbed the stick. The engine was shut off. The slap of the waves against the hull was the only sound. We couldn't hear  the party but without warning, we saw the fairy lights snap on and our family and friends were wreathed in a garland of light just as the moon seemed to flip on right above the mast and I wished for more champagne.

The champagne, the bouncing little boat, the stars popping out,  the water reflecting a thousand moons, melted the months and months of frozen stillness and I remembered, finally, what mad love is and I let myself submerge into the depths of it. 


Pretend I'm On a Cruise

One of the paralegals is on a cruise for her 50th. She invited her entire family - ENTIRE family! Mom, stepdad, children, grandchildren, and her siblings. I don't know what I was more impressed by: that she wanted to go on a cruise with her entire family; that they all wanted to be together; and that they could all manage to take the time to do it.

I know it seems like my family is together all the time, but we're really not. We do holidays, grads, and birthdays, but we really don't hang out together. When I lived in Memphis and California, we used to come up each summer for a few weeks. We had barbecues and craft days and sister dinners. We don't do that anymore. Of course, our children were all little and now they are almost all grown and have lives of their own.

My goal this summer is to be more in touch with my family on a daily basis (yo - call me/don't just read the blog!) LOL!

Now what was I saying? Oh, yes! Tomorrow is The Artist's (formerly known as The Teen) high school grad. My youngest sister's daughter is graduating, too, so we will walk together to the high school and sit together. Pray for a break in the rain cause otherwise only two people per student  can attend if it's inside.

Saturday is the big grad party, which we are having with friends whose son is graduating also. We (Mr. Pom) will be cooking ribs and I'm making some sides. Friday is Mystery Man's birthday and he will be here for the weekend. And Sunday is Father's Day.

Kids, I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

Work is ra-a-a-ther stressful right now. A few different things going on that have ratcheted me up into the no-sleeping stage. That, combined with some really bad return of poor eating habits is wreaking havoc with my energy level. Too much coffee and sugar. I am at the point of buying only good food to have int he house, bringing it to work, then leaving it in the fridge and having a BLT and cookies for lunch. How stoopid is that??

But here's a good thing! To help me calm down at night, I am painting again! I filled almost a whole journal last winter with a daily painting and I'm back to painting at night now. I am doing watercolors, but summer seems the right time for watercolors.

Here's the fun part: I am investigating doing some prints, so you may see me selling some prints right here on the blog. As soon as I get a good inventory of paintings done, I will let you know.

I am taking a few days off from the blog. I hope to be back next week when life goes back to normal. I may pop in before then, but I honestly don't have the energy to be creative. Painting is less cerebral and I am enjoying indulging in it at night and not worrying about stringing sentences together or uploading photos.

So tell me what you are doing, what your summer plans are, and don't forget to write!!

; > )


Week Ends

And how happy we are!! 

Though we wish every weekend could be spent at The Pom Cottage, the reality is that it is really, really lovely to be home in our little house with a whole weekend spread before of us of puttering around.

And if we spend one more Sunday for six hours on I-95, there will be a divorce.

Since we can't get there this weekend, we're bring you a recap of weekends past:

This is Memorial Day - via The Princess who may be the only person left in the famly with a working camera (my 4-month old Nikon will only take a shot if you turn the camera off in-between.. Sigh.)

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One meal per visit has to be lobster.

What you don't know is that these are plastic lobsters that we trot out each visit after plying the company with cheap wine (yes, even the children) and then they just say, "wow, these lobsters are rubbery", to which we reply, "yeah, it's all the oil from the Gulf. Really lubes them up." Soon all crustaceans will be rubber anyway as they'll be the only ones left in the sea.

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Note how The Fiance is leaning. That's from the cheap wine and the fact that we do not own 11 chairs and he's actually crouching at the table and one leg has gone numb. Or maybe he's crooked from sleeping on a cot in the laundry room. (Two year engagement: that'll teach him!)

Sidenote: notice how I look like my face has been devoured by flesh-eating arachnids. Fear not. The flesh that used to be in my face has merely migrated to my stomach and thighs. For it seems that once you drop a whole self in weight, if you gain any back, it will all coagulate in one or two places, to wit (note the fancy legal language), the area right over the knees and the incredible expanding muffing top/apron.


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The Princess. Note the dark glasses and the sly expression. She who is lounging on the beach after booking her parents into two wedding venue appointments.  One of which she knew her mother would go ga-ga over. Nice try, Princess. But no way are we shelling out for the Lobster Clambake, ok? Not even on the beach. Especially not even though you want hydrangeas and pomegranates for the flowers. Huh! Picking pomegranates and my favorite flowers. That old ploy! Yep, no way we are gonna ante up for a glorious site right next to the water with great food and a room wrapped in windows and tables full of hydrangeas and pomegranates....

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A wicked mini-golf game was won by L! Or that's what the three cousins are telling me, anyway. Looks more like they pulled a fast one and instead of mini-golfing they are clubbing in P-town. Or after hours with the townies down by the docks.  Who would know? Not Mr. P, the chaperone. You can see what an influence he is in the photo below:

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Men gather where grills go. Note the wicked grin on my nephew as he poses with his father's beer. Very funny. Mass CPS will be down on our heads in minutes. 

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Don't for a moment think the men grilled these. Mrs Pomegranate herself was in charge of these beauties! Men only do meat.

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For allowing The Nephew to hold a beer in his hand, thus opening us up to all sorts of liability, we punished the men and sent them to their rooms. But then we didn't know how the meat was going to get from the grill to the table. So we let them out. Now don't go thinking that the women were waited on hand and foot. It was just foot.  And we outnumber the men, as you can see. Therefore, they pretty much do everything we want. Except make vegetables. 

Side note: Notice my Cape hair - I'm starting to get that dustmop-on-top-head-summer-on-the-Cape-good-thing-nobody-knows-me-here-annual-style. I usually dress it up with a preppy headband and then I look like Jean what's-her-name who killed The Diet Doctor, but without her breeding. If you don't know who Jean-who-killed-The-Diet-Doctor was, then you are too young to read this blog and ought to be in bed.

Sometime in the future, I will do a whole series, a la Poppy, on Cape Style.

The titles of my posts shall be:

  • Frizzy hair?: Try Sperm Oil (From Whales, Sillies!)
  • Why God Invented Hats (When You Run Out of Sperm Oil)
  • I Hate Showering Away From Home, or Why God Invented Swimming
  • Did Anyone Bring Tweezers or 50 Ways to Braid Your Eyebrows
  • How Much Is Too Much Sun Exposure, Or Daddy, Why Doesn't Mommy Need a Nightlight?
  • Are Those Bananas Embroidered on Your Lime Green Pants Or Are You Just Glad To See Me


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Oil Sheen on The Gulf.

Or Cape at sunrise.

Or One Hour After Cucciolo Gets Up.

Or Does Anyone Want a Dog to Walk Every Morning at Sunrise? Call me, we'll talk.

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Sundown.

Or why we all tolerate 11 people in one house, including two on cots in the laundry room with the dogs, drawing straws for who gets to sit down for dinner, 6-hour rides home, and dive-bombing mosquitos. Oh, and don't forget when we play that fun game called, "Walking the Dogs In The Pre-Dawn Dark and Hoping The Local Coyotes Are Stuck In Traffic On The Bridge".

But no weekend on the Cape ends without an important lesson being learned. The Memorial Day Lesson Was:

11 people divided by 2 bathrooms (one of which is in the Girls Dorm) = Get That Damn Outdoor Shower Working!


Prom-ise

  

19 years ago, I knew that we were not ready to be done with having children. We had a beautiful 7 year old daughter, a blond-haired blue eye baby with took in the world with serious intent.   We had a 5 year old rough and tumble little boy with the most infectious laugh and sweetest heart. We had the perfect girl and the perfect boy.


But we knew we had room in our hearts  for one more child.



Being a mother and a father was  the most joyous experience of our lives. It seemed as though we were meant to raise kids, have dogs, and fix up old houses.  It just was a path we had been on since we first started dating. It always seemed clear what we were meant to do. 

We were not  without concerns: what if another baby upset the apple cart, our happy family dynamics? What if my age and some health issues caused risk to the baby or to myself? Would the age gap be too much between the older two and a new one? And then my younger sister announced that she was pregnant and I knew  I was not done having babies. 

With our first two children, we seemed to just wish it and the pregnancies came true. Age and reproductive issues  made this time around more difficult. I seemed to be buying a pregnancy test each month, only to throw it away. And then my Dad become ill and passed away in a matter of months and it devastated our family and my desire to have one more child became overwhelming.

And finally it came true. 


We came home on Christmas Eve with our new baby girl in our arms and handed her to my mother and the three of us stood together  thinking of my father and looking down on this little sleeping face and weeping over her.

Our Bonus Baby was born.

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And here she is!

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How could we ever imagine our lives without her????

 
How could we ever have lived without experiencing all that parenthood had to offer one more time?  How could we have missed her playing softball at 5, drums at 10, and painting pictures that make me weep at 18? Who would insist on Easter Egg hunts and hidden baskets well into her teens? Who would be the keeper of the traditions, enforce the "surprise" pajama gifts on Christmas Eve, and never let us miss going to the beach at night to look at the stars?


Who would have taken her place as the middle of the three girl cousins, each separated by 7 months time? There would have been no one to drag us to skateboard parks, to buy a tiny wetsuit and a large surfboard for, or make us buy a series of pets. What other child would have known the names of all the residents at St. Francis when she helped her Granny pass out the juice and cookies? Who would have convinced the other cousins to make rap and dance videos in her aunt's apartment? Or taught her Cape Cod cousins to skim board at the beach?



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Now here she stands poised on the brink of adulthood. Only one more rite of passage separates her from culminating the grand adventure of her childhood and adolescent life: her graduation next week from high school.


Then we truly will have raised all 3 children into their young adult lives.


But I have one more week to be the parent of a school-aged child. One more week to get a child up for school, to remind her to return her books, pick up her cap and gown, and pay for her yearbook. One more time to go to the high school and sit with all the other parents and see the faces of her friends and her teachers and know that we are still a part of a community of parents raising children in our town.



And that is why she is The Bonus Baby.


Still, always, and forever.


Book It, Dan-O

Summer is here though I do admit that even with just one child in school (albeit for just another week), summer does not officially begin in my head until school is over. We've pushed summer up a bit here, of course, by our more frequent trips to vacationland. 

One of the highlights of vacationland has always been my Tour of Bookstores. The vacation could not be over until I was allotted my visit to the 3 or 4 independent bookstores that I dream about all year. Over the last twenty years, several of the bookstores have closed, moved, expanded, and gotten smaller, and a few new ones have come on the block. 

What is it that draws certain people to independent bookstores?

I  have never regretted visiting an IB, wherever we lived or visited. There were beauties in Memphis, jewels in California, and Portland, well, it had Powells, the mother of all IBs. 

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My all time favorite bookstore on the Cape is The Brewster Bookstore. . Small, crowded, very edited, and absolutely brimming with gems of nonfictions, natural history tomes, and memoirs about the topics I love:nature, turning points in lives, art, history, restoring old homes, beginning rural lives, living by the water, and running bookstores! I have put everyone in my family on notice, that should it ever go up for sale, I will sell everything including the dogs and the kids to raise the money to buy it.

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Located in historic Sandwich,  Titcombs Book Shophas a lovely collection of vintage books and I have spent many hours browsing through their vintage children's books.  I have picked up some beauties that I use in mixed media pieces, but most I would never take apart. I just adore seeing them lined up on my bookshelves in their dusty, sweet colors of wine red and pea green, ocher, and cobalt blue. They are books from a gentler, more romantic age when childhood was an innocent time. And they have a statue of a colonial man outside the bookshop that drives Bella Sera nuts, so it's fun just to drive by and watch her try to go right through the car window to get at that strange tritorn hat dude. 

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A recent addition in Orleans,  Main Street Books   fills in a void after my beloved Compass Rose closed up. Very small, but exquisitely stocked. Wonderful travel books, a varied fiction collection, and very well edited nonfiction. I bought 5 on my last visit - don't tell Mr. Pom!

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One of my favorite bookstores was in Chatham and it lose its lease a few years ago, moved to the second floor of an indoor mall, and lost its cachet for me. Happily, a new bookstore has opened on Main Street and it more than fills the void. Where the Sidewalk Ends is two stories high with a children's annex, fireplace, armchairs, and an area with wool and knitting needles, this bookstore is a vital part of the community. Their summer literary luncheons are brilliant though I've yet to be there for a one. Maybe this summer!

But listen up! My placard says: Will travel for books!

What and where are your favorite independent bookstores - around the country and around the world???

After all these book trips, what am I reading this summer?

Stay tuned - coming up soon!!


Been Away Too Long and Cat's Got My Tongue

It is a very, very busy time here at the Pomegranate house. The Teen is finishing up her senior year. Today is her high school prom! Next week is graduation! In additiion, my lovely niece is also graduating from the same high school, and her younger sister is graduating middle school, and her brother is graduating grade school. Celebrations abound!

Lots of appointments to get to, also. The Teen needs a college physical, everyone needs the dentist, I need a series of yearly poking and prodding that I have squeaked by without doing for two years now.

The Pom Cottage has to be ready for rental in about a month. As we get one improvement done, something else decides to go kaplooey. Our good friend fixed up the outdoor shower . . . but it started leaking before we left, so we had to turn the water off to the house. My brother in law repaired our circuit panel so the dryer and hot water heater weren't on the same circuit and blowing out all the time . . . .now the stove keeps beeping to warn us to take out the thermometer probe - that we don' t even own. So the circuit to the stove is off and I am due a phone call to a repairman and one to a sister to bribe her to go up there for a few days of R&R . . and to meet the repairmen.

I have been scurrying to and from court each day, in addition to the usual projects I do in the office, I just got two big new projects to do, just in case I was feeling underwhelmed. They like us to never be underwhelmed at work. Lawyers need adrenalin.

Today, I was to run to work and leave an hour early to get The Teen ready for prom and to go to pre-prom with her. (This prom stuff is exhaustingly ceremonial and I have a kid who could care less about it, so you can imagine how worse it can be,)

Sometime about yesterday, I started to feel over-tired, of the crash and burn variety. Then I noticed some odd stomach issues. And by dinner - whop! There it is!  Full blown nausea and exhaustion and in bed at 7:00.

I'm lying in bed right now, gingerly getting up to assess whether I can make it to work. I really, really don't want to use a sick day as everyone is accounted for until the end of the year and are as scarce as hen's teeth.

And I don't want to be the mom at pre-prom with sunglasses on, barfing into the onion dip.

So send me some get well wishes, tell me what you've been up to, and remind me that I have to slow down and actually do something that is worth of blog-writing.

Miss you guys!

I have been running to and from court and trying to handle all the usual projects I do in my job. I just got a new, big project to do and


Cape Chowday

Sometimes, when you travel away for the weekend, you leave the good weather behind.

Or so it seems this weekend, when we have had mist, rain, thunder, lightening, and general coldness yet mugginess, too, but have heard via the Pom girls that New York is 90 degrees and sunny.

However unfair it seems as we are entertaining our oldest friends, it's just another weather event here on the Cape. We are here for it all: the hot, breezy sun-scouring days of crystalline brilliance and the smurry, windy, damp days of mosquitoes and thunder claps, lightening flashes and frizzy hair.

Still, we managed to bring home armloads of asparagus from the Farmer's Market and crates of strawberries like spring jewels that we ate in the car, recklessly flinging strawberry stems from the windows. This is what strawberries are supposed to taste like? we wondered aloud. We sampled bluefish pate and bought scallions with juicy bulbs the color of cranberries.

What better way to spend a Saturday morning than with old friends tucking into omelettes of goat cheese and asparagus, ginger cake, and juicy blackberries. The strawberries made an encore performance before dinner when they were dropped into our flutes of prosecco.

Have we done more than eat?

Surely, in between cheese and salamis, ribs and roasted asparagus, we had coffee and ice cream cones, rides to Fort Hill and Chatham Light, visits to the beer distributor for Cape Cod beer, "a vacation in a bottle", and tours of Rock harbor to find the oldest house in town.

In the meanwhile, the outdoor shower was fixed up with a new faucet and gleaming copper brackets, and we are ending the evening watching Pirate Radio, which is a dream of a 60's we all wished we'd lived in.

I managed to paint a picture and continued reading The House on Oyster Creek. Then I went to a bookstore and bought another book despite my resolve not to buy any after the four I bought last week, and then Mr. Pom picked out his father's day gift and I got a brilliant idea of painting one of our chairs at home like one I saw in a gallery here, the dog ate some of the ginger cake, a package of scones, a rib bone, several napkins, and sampled two socks. 

Just a usual weekend at Pom Cottage, which is really just a long Friday night drive and a jam-packed Saturday, a bittersweet Sunday morning, and the traffic of I-95.

Also known as the best days of our lives.


Renewal

Thank you all for your thoughtful comments on my last post. There is so much compassion for the earth out there and so little idea of how any one of us can make a notable difference in the fate of this planet. We woke up Monday morning thinking there was a fire in town, but learned hours later that the acrid smoke was in fact from horrific fires in Quebec. I won't pretend that I didn't feel a little bit closer to a doomsday scenario as I said good bye to the ocean and my eyes teared from the smog. I can't imagine what it is like in Quebec right now as the smell was terrible all the way southeast on the Cape.

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We spent four days on the Cape. It was deeply relaxing, crazily exhausting, and renewing all the same. I took Friday off and The Teen and I drove up. It was a lovely time in the car, listening to her Ipod selections, taking funny pics of the dogs snoozing between the seats in the sun, and talking about all the little stuff going on in her life that I usually don't hear about because we are passing each other on the stairs on the way to school or to bed.

You see, The Teen is leaving for college in three months. Mystery Man has a full time job and an apartment 4 hours away. The Princess is home, but we know not for long, just until she finds her career path.  My hope is that the Cape Cod Cottage (I really must find a name - CCC is way too impersonal and the full phrase too annoyingly lengthy to type), becomes the gathering place for all of us. So I try to take off time when one of them can be there, to drive up together, to spend some hours alone with each of them. And this weekend accomplished that for the girls.

Renewal is found here, on the shores of this narrow land that curves like an upturned fist into the Atlantic. It was a busy weekend with lots of family coming and going and meals served, coffee poured, trips taken, chores done, and evenings together.

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The air was warm against our bare arms. The water was cold on our feet. We were tired and exhausted when we got there with so many errands, cleaning, groceries, unpacking, arranging beds, doling out towels and sheets, finding the beach towels and chairs, figuring out the parking for several cars on a narrow driveway, and even just configuring enough chairs for the living room and most importantly, around the dinner table.

And then it was all done. Figured out. Set, eaten, cleaned up, and put away. We are growing a tradition here, a shaky little start, a bare-knuckled fight against our natural selves who want to keep cleaning, arranging, fixing, improving, until we finally knuckle under our natural tendencies to be on the go, and just ...let go.

Our little tree is planted. We had our first weekend of family and it was wild, noisy, busy, tempestuous, over-fed, under-slept,  and in the end, ultimately relaxing and satisfying.