8.7.15 Saying hello once again

I love photographs.I do. Yours, mine, theirs....I know most of mine like the back of my  hand.

When you take photos, you have to reserve some time for culling. Editing. Exactly like a garden.

The other day, my computer decided to tell me how many photos and videos I have. 15,845 photographs and 297 videos. 

Yeah. I know.

It was complaining to me, something about getting too full.

Something about ....if you want to dump more of those things here, well then you're going to have to organize and pare down. Right? Pfft.

 Not just your kitchen or your clothes, but your photographs.

Oh well. It's been kind of fun, checking out all the moments in time that I have saved there. Ditching the unnecessary, saying hello once again to so many times, in life.

8.7.15 The last Mt. Washington story

A few years ago, before one of my kids was going to be busy doing something pretty tough for quite a while (so we were all going to be busy doing something pretty tough for quite a while) I lugged everyone up the road to Mt. Washington, as we were not prepared that year to climb and stay over and climb again, btw my idea of the ultimate heaven. So up we went to Mt. Washington, and at least I got to show my oldest and his wife-to-be a taste of the wonder of standing there. 

     They grabbed all the warm hats and things and a back pack, and set off down to Lakes of the Clouds hut, where we'd hiked for a few years with the two youngest. He and his beloved got to gaze over, down Tuckerman's Ravine, and pass by the Lakes and inhale the experience. And I got to have a small cheat Mt. Washington moment, I suspect my last.

     

But you know, I remember every minute of climbing with my kids all those years. I remember all the places and the spoiled red squirrels who you would catch sight of, running down the trail, and if you didn't have your snack offering at the ready, well, off they'd go, right on past you, to the next hiker; very efficient. The last few times I hiked Mt. Washington, with my lungs I was slower than the grandparents; but who cares?
     

I got to wander and the Old Man of the Mountain was still intact, and at night, you'd look out over the terrain of all those mountains and forests and alpine flowers and it is still there inside of me today.

8.5.15 As we sit here holding tired hands

Out in the forest early this morning, the summer days move along ... done with July, slowly making their way into the thick of August , where the Sparrow families have hatched a record three clutches of eggs, and the latest small siblings are out of nests and birdhouses , tentatively hopping about, meeting other families and learning to hunt elusive seeds of tall grasses , and insects alight in thick fields . 
     I'm imagining the various parents panting with the effort of shepherding so many young ones into life , this summer, and commiserating together as the sun sets and all the wildly excited youngest ones make their way home . 

     As brazen young Doe stand far down in the conservation field , eyeing the enormous vegetable garden , possibly thrown off by all the canine and human urine carefully deposited there , a deterrence in their honor.
     As the evening finally gets the guts to cool off a bit, so that a steady stream of deliciously cold air comes churning in through all the windows all over the house , sending dust and stale bits on their way out into the hemisphere ,
     and we sit here holding tired hands , looking forward to nothing more than a night deeply breathing the delectable breeze, come here from afar .

8.5.15 Re: Aging. I wonder what pay- it- forward possibilities we can come up with,

Re: Aging. I wonder what pay- it- forward possibilities we can come up with, to somehow share the work and necessary efforts , and have some peace of mind that there will be support for us , also , when we grow older , and need it . 

Often I wonder if anyone has yet created good templates for aging individuals to share homes and resources for care . I know it's far more complex than wishful thinking would let on. Still , I wonder what's possible : 

"Somewhere at the heart of all this, aging in the US, is the kind of individualism that sometimes is thought of as “rugged” but which usually resolves itself as stupid and cruel. All of us need care and company, at whatever stage of life: that we may be in need of quite a lot more towards the end of our life should not mark our old age as a stage of life with a dread set of requirements all its own. "

8.5.15 "Great!" we said, going about our lives, but day after day

When my firstborn became 1 1/2, he one day informed us that his name was 'Eenie'. I know , right? I was 28 and had raised a bunch of siblings, but nothing really ever prepares you , especially for an assertive alpha kid in a tiny little kid body. 

"Great!" we said, going about our lives, but day after day he reminded us. With vehemence , as in. ' Are you all even paying attention ?!". 

"EENIE!" He'd assert, pounding on his small chest for emphasis . "Whoa , ok , sorry " I'd tell him. "I'll try to remember.". But just in case, there he was, holding the line. 

When we went down to the newspaper to pay for the Grandparent's Day Ad for Kevin's amazing mom and dad, my kid would be watching me with an eagle eye , since I'd given him the heads up of the ad for his Nanny and Papa, after all, and he insisted on looking at the proof , pulling it from the clerk 's hands, asking me "EENIE?" Because he somehow got that this was a name situation, with his proper name , and must not be messed up. 

Who knew that years later, he'd catch sight of and immediately, before one date, fall for his wife, who had, in her youth, imperially ordered her parents to call her "Norton", chastising them for their intermittent but unforgivable forgetfulness . 

Once firmly together , they got a Hedgehog , who they promptly christened ... Nortini. Now how do you like that?!