On our recent vacation, I took pictures of sunsets, crashing waves and Mayan ruins. And those are all coming soon.
But I think this one is my favorite. Just kiddo, sacked out in the hotel bed, watching Curious George, eating her raisins.
Fun with automatic dispensers at the Atlanta airport. (We went to Mexico on vacation last week… look for a deluge of additional images soon.)
It’s technically only nine seconds, but they’re good ones.
I feel so bad for my mom and sister when they come to visit. For all the things they get to do while they’re here – like getting to see their granddaughter/niece, catch up with us, and pet Vince and the cats, there are so many things they *have* to do. Like flying down here in the first place.
For instance, after getting up at 3:30 in the morning to catch a flight out on Friday, Mom had to go pick up Katie, in the dark, deal with a layover somewhere and ultimately arrive to a son who was gone to work all day. I trust that Penny and Veda entertained them both in the meantime.
While they were here they had to get woken up early, kept up late, fed weird vegetarian meals and subjected to annoying music and long, rambling conversations about advertising and antique cameras. My beard makes my mother just shake her head slowly, muttering under her breath about Yosemite Sam. I took unflattering pictures of them both with old, unforgiving lenses, on grainy, black-and-white film that I mis-developed myself in the upstairs bathroom. I consistently cut Katie out of Polaroids until Mom showed me how to pull the dang film in the right order.
They had to deal with two-year-old temper tantrums, dog-triggered allergies, back-seat carsickness and sleeping in a nightlight-less room with no drapes. Katie nearly electrocuted herself trying to turn out a light I’ve got rigged to a remote control on top of the stereo cabinet. And we endured about five minutes of the movie Horrible Bosses before returning it to Redbox for something else. *Anything* else.
Our coffee was unfamiliar, our shower ill equipped. We rushed them to get out the door whenever we were going somewhere. The memory was probably fresh in my mom’s mind about the last time she came to visit, during which she had to sit for more than an hour and listen to an elderly Tibetan man clear his throat. Sorry about that, Mom.
But.
There are some things you get to do here that you just can’t do anywhere else. And I like to think they enjoyed those things enough to make up for all the things they “had” to do. Like going on a sunny morning walk with Veda, who rode her bike about 23 feet and talked us into carrying it the rest of the way. Then carrying *her*. And walking alongside a gorgeous, sun-streaked stream that dribbles over the rocks here in the neighborhood and makes everybody happy.
They got to dine on a fantastic veggie grilled cheese at the local cafe, along with fried green tomatoes and fingerling sweet potato fries and other deliciousness I can’t even rightly describe to you.
They got to check out the Handmade Market here in Raleigh, which is likely the best place around to spot vintage-looking jewelry, home-built pinhole cameras and woven yarn jellyfish that have soft, fuzzy tentacles. And a two-pound dog outside that lets you pet ‘im.
They got to sample local draft beer, Carolina tomatoes and a fun run on local trails. They got to hear Veda play her new “piano,” a mini-Yamaha keyboard I got at Goodwill for four bucks. They got to see Vince run through leaves chasing squirrels, a fine Fall sight if ever there was one. They got to find out firsthand just how good Veda is at stalling during the bedtime routine. (Asking the detailed back story of every character and object in the final pages of the second book is a classic and effective ruse.)
They got to do hot yoga in a local studio and nearly pass out on the floor, repeatedly. (*I* didn’t get to do that personally, having had the good sense to skip it.) They got to come with me to Southeastern Camera and see me dork out over a bin of expired film, hunting for the hidden gems. They got to go to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science and hang out with big-eyed butterflies, who flapped their giant wings in slow-motion and landed on damp leaves right in front of their faces. Oh, and a turtle with a mustache.
And they got to have big, crowded meals with us in folding chairs at our ridiculous kitchen table, which still has white paint threatening to flake or peel off the top and into your ziti at any moment. They got to face off against me in smartphone Scrabble, losing pretty consistently I might add.
By the time I drove them back to the airport on Monday morning, they’d had and gotten to do a lot of things. But I hope the main thing they did on the way home was a “got to,” rather than a “had to.” And that’s to think back on all the fun we had.
So last time I made a short video at the end of the year, providing a little musical compendium of our adventures in 2010. (See below for a reminder.)
And it’s coming time for me to start thinking about what to do for this year’s mini-movie. Now, you already know what little redhead is going to be featuring prominently throughout the presentation, but I also thought I’d try something I haven’t done before: Taking requests. Are there any scenes you’d like to see included in the 2011 edition? Any features I left out of last time that you’d rather not live without?
I can’t promise I’ll accommodate every request, but I’m interested to know what those of you who were in the last one – or who weren’t, but should have been – would like.
(You see, I just started looking through the iPhoto library for videos taken in 2011, and it comes to 1,108. So far. If you happen to remember something we did together this year and can kindly remind me, I can hop right to that event and see if I have any good clips from it!)
Thanks.
NC State Fair 2011, a set on Flickr.
Last week a fine fellow from the local photo shop (that’s two words, note) invited me to take pictures with him and some friends at the North Carolina State Fair. We went, walked around with gigantic tripods, confused passersby who assumed there must be someone famous around, and generally had a fine time. I went back the next day with Penny and Veda, of course.
Improbably, I have been deeply affected by another short video, just a few short weeks after that last time.
And since I see that that sneaky, beautiful chicken commercial I was talking about seems to have been taken down from the site I linked to, it’s extra time to present this new mini-film, featuring Willie Nelson singing a Coldplay song.
I promise, this time the ending is more satisfying.
Two years ago. Can it be? I’m not sure if that seems like just yesterday or like an eternity has passed since then. Somehow, I’m thinking it feels like both.
Squam, a set on Flickr.
Okay. At the brilliant and otherworldly Squam Art Workshops in the Rockywold-Deephaven Camp on Squam Lake near Holderness, New Hampshire, I did not actually attend a class. Neither did my daughter Veda.
We were there instead in a support capacity, and a tagging-along capacity, as our brilliant and otherworldly Lope was teaching classes on Earth Art and hand lettering. But we were really lucky to get to go this time, and we still learned a lot.
In fact, even before arriving, I learned that Google’s estimate of 15 hours to drive there from Raleigh, North Carolina is wildly optimistic, and also does not mention the $40 in tolls you will incur en route. (But some other folks came in from places like Sweden and, um, Japan, so I’m not going to grumble too much.)
And as soon as we got there on the first day, I learned that the sun coming in off the lake at 6 pm or so tends to flit up off the water and filter through the trees and fill the old wooden cabins with the most golden, gorgeous light you’ve ever seen. The many smiling faces and welcoming greetings we received may have had something to do with it too.
I learned that Penny has some pretty awesome friends, including our dining-and-hiking pals Shari and Austen, who also taught me that there is always something more to see, that knitting is kind of badass in its own way, that transplanting yourself starts working when you stop trying to make the new place fit into the old mold and that a napkin ring makes for an instant telescope.
I learned from Penny’s fellow teacher Susy that my friendly hellos and hugs still have a lot of room for improvement, that the cylinder of paper stuff on the counter by the sink is actually a “kitchen roll,” and that I was waaay underestimating the possibilities of a garden-variety cigar box.
I learned from the workshop’s organizer, Elizabeth, that boundless energy can be manifested out of sheer nothingness, somehow, for days on end, that a bohemian art chick can still look totally natural with a walkie talkie, and that it’s possible to find what you’ve been looking for in an empty field drawn with white labyrinth lines. I saw her do it.
I learned from her friend Jen that light bulbs and fixtures and lanterns and windows are actually extraneous. You can light up *everything* with a big enough smile.
In addition to informing us that the mid-September water in Squam Lake is “really pretty nice, once you get used to it,” the fearless and damp Pixie shared the knowledge with Veda and me that the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center, right down the road, is quite amazing. She was right as rain. And *there* we found out, on our first morning to run around together while Lope was teaching, that Barred Owls will stare holes right through you, that the Bobcat, or lynx rufus, can walk so gracefully over rocks and logs that it looks like water flowing, and that, um, the slide leading down from the river otter exhibit is definitely too steep and fast for a two-year-old. Sorry about that, Veda.
From our cabin-mate Sarah we learned that we’re not the only family to make up ridiculous names for kids’ toys (Veda’s pig goes by Pokey, which I thought was silly but can’t hold a candle to little Ada’s pig “Pigliacci”) and that the cabin’s electrical circuits aren’t quite up to the task of running two space heaters at once. The morning after that first 30-degree night, I found out that a woman can sleep fairly uninterrupted in a coat and hat. Sorry about that, Sarah.
And when Sarah’s husband Jesse came along on Friday, I learned all kinds of interesting stuff – like the theory that the character of an area’s people can be loosely correlated to its bedrock. Soft, gentle marble and limestone beneath the rolling hills of Vermont make for friendly, easygoing farmers and ice-cream purveyors, for example, while the hard, acidic granite underlying New Hampshire makes for flinty individualists who would rather die than live un-free. I don’t think Jesse would want to stand by this principle for a thesis dissertation or anything, but it sure made for some illuminating fireside conversation. And then on Saturday, we all went for a hike around the lake and he taught us how to spot non-poisonous, totally edible and actually delicious huckleberries to snack on. Veda probably liked that lesson best.
What else?
We learned that there’s no shortcut between Mountain Road and Mountain *Trail* Road in Holderness, not unless you’re a goat or hovercraft, so if you’re trying to get from Plymouth to Rockywold in time for dinner, don’t listen to your stupid ol’ GPS.
Oh, but we learned that the Book Mill – you know, the one in Montague Massachusetts? Which is kind of on the way to Squam? Totally rockin’. “Books you don’t need in a place you can’t find” is the slogan, and I like that because if I ever get back there, checking out room after room of weird and fascinating old books in a former grist mill on a scenic waterfall, I won’t want anyone to ever find *me.*
Which reminds me of the other thing I learned: I cannot stop taking pictures of everything in sight when I’m up in that part of the country. I brought the Mamiya RB67 with me, you see, which not only kept me thoroughly entertained (and laden) but also started up a fascinating conversation with the intimidatingly accomplished but 100% nice Jen Lee. (That’s me and Veda on the dock on the left, I think, in her collage of Squam snapshots.) I promised to send her information about the camera, so I better at least get her a link to this Flickr set.
Above all, though, I learned that to be in such a beautiful place with so many beautiful people is a privilege indeed, and I really hope we get to go back next year. Next time, though, I’m thinking I ought to take a class or two.
Hey, and I also learned that my wife is just as inspiring as I always thought, but in ways I never realized. Rena and Louise, two wise ladies who’ve spent as much time in the education field as I’ve probably spent drawing breath, were also students in one of Penny’s classes. And they told me that she’s not just a good teacher, but an *excellent* one. So there you go.
I’ll sign off here with a quote from Pixie, who had it pretty much right in my opinion, when she got to sharing her own learnings from that gorgeous, special place by the water:
“Something about the woodfires and the lake ice in the old iceboxes makes me feel like I’m at camp in the twenties. Everything my eye sees is picture-perfect and timeless.”
In a couple of days I’ll pack up the pets and the paintings and head off for Raleigh. There’s not much to leave behind anymore, now that all our stuff is in boxes or given away, and the walls are bare and hole-y.
Still, this is all the home I’ve got. And there’s a decent chance that once the car pulls away Saturday morning, I’ll actually never set foot in this building again. If it sells (fingers crossed), we’ll likely mail the keys up here for our realtor to hand over at closing, and we’ll be down there, somewhere, doing something.
I shouldn’t say “somewhere.” I know our address, where we’re going, but I can’t really picture it. Besides, we’re just renting it anyway, and just for a year.
We’ve been here almost three. When you’ve spent that much time trying to make a place your own, and when so much has happened since the first time you walked in (like, for example, Veda’s entire life), it’s difficult to accept the process of putting it all back the way you found it.
But that’s the goal — wipe the slate back to clean. Let a potential future resident envision the house as theirs, not ours, and that means not only taking the pictures down but rolling up the rugs, unplugging the nightlights, taking down the dumb little “I’m hep” lapel pin that I’d poked into the ledge above my downstairs desk. And it all goes into cardboard boxes. Taped shut, so you’re never quite certain what all is in there, and your labels never quite suffice.
X ≠ Zero. That’s the equation I keep reminding myself of. Just because I know what I’m leaving behind doesn’t mean it’s better than what we’re moving toward. The future in North Carolina is an unknown, and my brain has a habit of equating that with nothing. Which it so obviously is not. There are fantastic, amazing, comforting, fulfilling and unforgettable things awaiting us there. We just don’t know what they are yet.
Things like the lilac bush at the bottom of the hill outside my door right now, which comes into bloom in the spring and smells so sweet and perfect that Veda and I both love to run out in the park and stick our faces right into all the branches. Like the sunset over the lake, coming in just right and warm on your face, and sparkling off a million dancing mountains on the surface if the wind is just right. Or like the kind, generous, open-armed friends I’ve made here — not many, but a few — who I’m still dreading going and saying goodbye to.
And, of course, the families. X really *does* equal zero, almost, if we’re talking about proximity to relatives. Here Mom and Katie (and Tom and Niki and Zoë) are just a couple hours down the road in Indy, and Grandma Lawson can pop over for coffee in five minutes or so. Britt drops in with very little notice, which I love. I’ve always wanted someone to do that, actually. And Veda’s favorite cousin Gianna is never so far that we can’t schedule a play date for today or later in the week, and we can all watch the two of them streak around the house like maniacs and dance together and shriek together and steal each other’s crackers.
We won’t have any of that where we’re going. (We *will,* however, be a heck of a lot closer to Grandma and Grandpa Kline, who will be right there just a Carolina away. Looking forward to that.)
So I guess we’ll have to find new goodness. And I trust that we’ll be able to; honestly I do. For one thing, the climate in North Carolina seems to be a lot like Northern Indiana’s if you delete the months between November and March, which is precisely what I think Lope has always wanted to do anyway. I’m looking forward to riding my motorcycle more often.
I’m looking forward to paddling some new lakes in the old canoe, which will be going down on top of the Pacifica with me this weekend. Looking forward to cajun food, oddly enough, which I always liked in Indy and have missed being able to get up here. Looking forward to visits from Mom. (The first one is already scheduled, which is just as reassuring as I thought it would be.) And I’m looking forward to getting to know the people I work with better.
It’ll be great. And you can’t say I haven’t taken plenty of pictures of the old place by now. And the memories don’t take up any space in the moving truck at all. Right over there, by where Penny is sitting with Noah in the puffy old chair that I hope survives the move, I remember Veda taking her first steps. Over on the other side of the room is the door I remember bringing her in through, the day we brought her home from the hospital. We stamped off the snow and hoped she was bundled tight enough and tried to get her cozy and warm.
Over there, by the stairs, I saw her smile for the first time, and it was like the sun coming out. And upstairs is where I saw Penny and Brooke doing breathing exercises, the night it was finally time to go over to KCH and have ourselves a baby.
But you’re probably noticing something as I indulge in this moment of nostalgia. What I really love about this place is actually going with me. And we’ll all be in the new place together.
And then that place, too, will be Home.
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