I just have time for an entry before leaving for the airport to pick up Eson, who is returning after a month in California with his father. He is as loud and active as Yson is calm and introspective--since Diana and I tend to be more like Eson, it's been a calm month. I find myself a bit tense in expectation of his stubborn insistance, his passive aggressive unwillingness, his all around flaming teenage stuff. But he's as good kid, and I'll be glad to have us all together again.
Over the 4th I too went back to CA, to attend a wedding of my daughter's best friend and to see my first (step) granddaughter, less than a week old. It was an exhausting but deeply satisfying trip. I find that holding babies is like riding a bicycle--you never forget how once you've learned. She is such a darling, and she snuggled down next to me and I held her for hours. My step-daughter couldn't figure it out--she said that nobody else can hold her for more than five minutes. Experience, my child, experience.
My step daughter and her husband and baby and two dogs (and, two weeks before the baby came, six puppies) and a bunch of chickens are all living at my house where it used to be just me, all by my lonesome. So strange. Clearly the same house. The view was still wonderful (I haven't been able to find anything here in MA that displaces the picture above), the property enchanting, the house open and light and airy. But all the furniture was different, and there was so much stuff... I seriously doubt that I will ever live in that house again--that is sad, but probably true.
Last weekend, off to Vermont. A weekend in a ski area hotel, and lots of bumming around backwoods Vermont and New Hampshire. We stopped at a restored mill, and talked to the resident tinsmith (who had the same family name as my first wife. I couldn't figure out a way to work that into the conversation...). A couple of the little towns were charming enough to overcome their obvious tourist trappiness. We drove through a long covered bridge. We tried to find the Bennington Monument and missed it and ended up in New York State. I confidently turned south on a route that soon became a dirt road. Diana and Yson started freaking out as I continued on. One of the joys of the East is that dirt roads go somewhere, unlike the West where they end in box canyons or sheer dropoffs. Sure enough, before long we dead ended into a paved road, to sighs from Diana, and stumbled into Williamstown, dominated by Williams college that is seriously beautiful.
We were listening the whole way to a book on tape picked out by Eson--a Regency mystery by Amanda Quick, read by an actress with a hundred voices. It was so nice. From time to time, it would get a bit racy ("she sensed a strange wetness between her thighs, and he, too, seemed to be aware of it as he reached downward...") We fast forwarded over those parts--I think Eson was more upset than we were. We joked about coming back later and listening to the parts we'd skipped. In the old days, the pages from the library with the "dirty" parts would all be dog eared and clearly well pawed--I don't know what the cassette tape equivalent of this would be.
A busy few weeks coming up. Diana's parents are coming, we are going to a wedding in Maine, we are talking to an architect about doing some work before winter, etc. I am giving a talk in church (the services in the summer are lay lead). And, wonder of wonders, it looks like we have at least one person who wants a Reiki attunement from us. She is a church member, and seems very enthusiastic. It's so good to be getting back into some of my farther out stuff again, especially since it looks like I won't get back to Hawaii this fall either. There is a second possible student, as well. We are "newly minted" Reiki masters, and still feel a bit shaky about it all, but I'm sure it will go OK.
Well, it's about time to break for the airport, so I'll sign off until who knows when...
Thank you for reading.
Copyright © 2002 Pete Stevens. All rights reserved.
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