A Birthday

Through the years, birthdays become attached to the people who hold them. Today will always be Nancy's day, even though Nancy is gone. 

It was on this day, long ago, that I landed in Europe for the first time. The date wasn't accidental. It was Nancy's 20th birthday, and I was meeting her in Luxembourg. We had planned to be chamber maids in a Swiss hotel, but our employment fell through at the last minute. Instead, we traveled through Europe for two months on what I will politely call a lean budget. 

We trudged through London in rain so heavy I thought my shoes would never dry out. We explored what seemed like every Viennese hovel in which Beethoven had ever lived (and there were a lot of them). We toured Paris, Venice, Florence, Rome and Pisa. We scrambled to find places to sleep, and sometimes they were train compartments. 

The trip cemented our friendship, brought it through the decades. I think of our travels now with great wonder and gladness. They bring Nancy closer, which is where I want her to be. 

(Nancy and I spent many hours in train stations, though not this one, which is in Edinburgh.) 

Immortality

Today, my dear friend Nancy will be laid to rest in the Indiana earth, less than 150 miles from where we first met. But where is she now, really? 

My faith tells me that she is sleeping and will rise in glory on the Last Day. My skeptical self says, "Hmmm..." 

One thing I know for sure: Nancy lives on in the hearts of those who love her. It's an immortality in which we all can believe — and to which we all can aspire. 

(The Bernini columns in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, one of many wonders I saw for the first time with Nancy. Photo: Wikipedia)

For Nancy

I met Nancy on our first day at Hanover College when we were homesick 18-year-olds. We missed our families, we loved to travel, we lived across the hall from each other. So we neglected our bio lab reports and stayed up late to hatch crazy schemes. Maybe we'd take a tramp steamer across the Atlantic or be chambermaids in a Swiss hotel. We didn't quite pull off those adventures, but we did travel through Europe for two months on $5 ($3?) a day, surviving on baguettes and water. We'd gotten so skinny that Nancy's own grandmother didn't recognize her when she picked us up at the airport. 

Nancy and I stayed close through college and early adulthood. When Tom (another Hanoverian) and I moved to northern Virginia, Nancy, who'd lived here since grad school, quickly became an honorary aunt to our three daughters. 

Through the years, Nancy was at most every birthday party, graduation and other special event. She's part of Suzanne's first memory because it was Aunt Nancy who took care of her when Claire was born. Nancy even loved our sweet rascal of a dog, Copper. 

Nancy was a lawyer, historian and indexer extraordinaire. A proud member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, she traced her lineage back to Revolutionary War stock. One of her first and most notable jobs was at Mount Vernon, Washington's home. 

Nancy continued to travel the country and the world, skiing in Colorado, bicycling in the Netherlands, visiting Israel, Jordan, Greece and Eastern Europe. For the last eight years or so, her travel has been up and down I-95 as she spent much time in Massachusetts caring for her parents. A devoted daughter, a loving sister, an exemplary friend. 

Three weeks ago, we learned that Nancy, always caring for others, was seriously ill herself. Friends and family flocked to her side. Her older sister dropped everything and virtually lived at the hospital. We saw Nancy as much as we could, but not nearly enough. It's never enough when you can't imagine the world without the person you're visiting. 

Nancy slipped away over the weekend. I still can't believe it. I wonder if I ever will. 

(Nancy, right, with our pal Peggy, another dear college friend)

Long River

This morning I'm thinking of friendship, especially friendship of long standing. People who go back years and how much they become a part of your life. 

I had time to contemplate this on the drive home yesterday, which was up into the mountains where it barely looked like spring, then down into the alleys where spring is in full flower.

Longtime friendship is like that, too, seasons and altitudes, peaks and valleys. Through them all, a long river of connection. 

Friends on the Trail

Yesterday a long walk took me through Reston's Vernon Walker Nature Center, over a small bridge and up a trail to South Lakes Drive, then along to the cut-through where I caught the Lake Audubon Trail. 

The wind picked up a bit as I strolled around the lake, not enough to stir whitecaps but enough to make me stuff my hands up my sleeves. 

The last leg of yesterday's amble was on the Glade Trail. I was picking up speed, thinking of things yet to do at home, when I ran into a new acquaintance, someone from yoga class. She introduced me to her friends and we all chatted for a few minutes. 

It was small talk, really, but fun to find friends on the trail. It warmed the walk and changed my day.

(Reston's first naturalist, Vernon Walker. More on him and the Nature Center in future posts. Photo: Reston Museum)

In Person

It's been four years since a virus from China began to enter our consciousness, slowly at first (it was so far away!) but eventually spreading around the world and taking over our lives.

Last night I hosted book group at my house, the first in-person meeting here since 2019. It felt good to sit in each other's presence, to laugh and talk and drink tea, to plan for the future. The four years we spent on Zoom were good in their own way, but I'm glad we're back in person. 

Four years have brought other changes. In the past, I would rush home from work to vacuum, dust and bake, barely finishing the prep before the first guest knocked on the door.  Tonight's do was different. I had time to wash out the delicate Belleek sugar bowl and cream pitcher, to arrange squares of dark chocolate on a plate in honor of the book we discussed — Bittersweet.  I even had a chance to look over the notes I'd taken on the book. 

Sometimes I miss the hectic life I used to lead. And sometimes (less often) I miss Zoom. But I didn't miss either of them last night.

(In person in a bookstore — with a friend, of course.)

Out of the Zone

One of the most noteworthy things about this new phase of life is discovering how much I must force myself out of my comfort zone. I've always done this to an extent, but I could always count on paid employment to do the rest, especially my last gig.

Now I must make myself do the hard things. What are these "hard things"? Don't laugh. Driving home on narrow country roads in the dark so that I can be with a bunch of people I work with but almost never see. (See yesterday's post.) Practicing finger exercises and learning new piano pieces s-l-o-w-l-y because otherwise I won't learn them at all. Taking tough classes. Making new friends. Forging new trails. 

The key word here is new. It's not always easy but it's almost always worth it. 

"Run Towards the Danger"

I just finished reading Sarah Polley's memoir Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory. It's not a book I'd heard about before, but a dear friend loaned it to me, put it in my hands, said it was written by the screenwriter of "Women Talking" and I would love it.

At first, I thought it would be a replay of "Women Talking," which I enjoyed but wasn't sure I wanted to relive.  Then, a few pages in, I almost put it down because the opening essay is about Polley's scoliosis, a condition that runs in our family and about which I have a fair amount of guilt. 

But it is not about "Women Talking" and I pressed on through the scoliosis parts, and less than two weeks later I finished the book, wanting more. 

Honesty is endearing, and Sarah Polley is not only scrupulously honest, but honestly funny, even when she's describing sexual abuse, placenta previa and a concussion. The book's title and theme, "run towards the danger," come from her neurologist, who not only heals her brain but gives her a motto to live by — don't shy away from what frightens you, embrace it instead. Not a bad message for this (or perhaps any) stage of life. So here's to books loaned by friends — and friends who loan books. Sometimes they know what you need better than you do. 

(It's telling I had to hunt for a photo to illustrate this post. Are the "Exorcist Stairs" as close as I come to danger?) 

Instead of a Card

We met when we were just out of college working at our first "grownup" jobs in Chicago. We'd joined our church choir, which was planning a concert of Handel's Messiah later that year, and Cathy and I bonded over long rehearsals in the ornate sanctuary of St. Clement's. 

It was the springtime of our lives, and the possibilities seemed limitless. Would we stay in Chicago?  Would we marry and have children? Would we stay in touch?  No, yes and absolutely. We never missed Christmas or a birthday. Until this year. 

When May 31 arrived and there was no card from Cathy, I was worried. I learned a few weeks later that she passed away in April from the breast cancer she'd been fighting for several years. 

Cathy was loving and cheerful to the end: a devoted wife, mother, daughter, colleague and friend who is missed and mourned by all who knew her. Today, August 31, is Cathy's birthday. I can't send her a card — but I can write her this post. Happy Birthday, Cathy! I will never forget you!

The Big Picture

As the sky slowly lightens on this Valentine's Day, I think of all the ones who are dear to me.

The little ones and the big ones, the old ones and the young ones (including a great niece born on Saturday!), the human ones and the furred and feathered ones, the ones who are no longer with us, too.

Happy is the day set aside for love and chocolate, so today I resolve to keep the big picture in mind. 

And that is, and always will be, love.

New Normal

Over the weekend, a taste of normalcy: dinner out — in a restaurant — with friends who are also vaccinated.  The restaurant was empty save for one table of three seated 20 feet away. The server was properly masked. In that sense, it was not business as usual. 

But what a thrill to see actual human faces, not squares on a screen; to enjoy full human expressions, not the crinkle of eyes above an oblong of cloth. There were appetizers and stir-fries and shrimp with vermicelli. There was much catching up. And afterward, there was a stroll through the narrow streets of a small, quaint downtown.

It was not the kind of dining experience I might have sought 14 months ago, folks crammed together talking and laughing, the clink of glasses, the buzz of alcohol and laughter. It was the new normal. And it was absolutely wonderful. 

Celebrating Neighbors

Research has proven that our moods may be lifted higher by a random conversation than by all the cajoling of a close loved one. If this is true — and I have anecdotal evidence that it is — neighbors are likely some of its greatest practitioners.

Neighbors are the ones we bump into while picking up the newspaper at the mailbox (regrettably, while wearing a bathrobe some mornings). The ones we grumble with during the fall raking season. And they are the ones whose banter may unwittingly set our day on a upward course. 

We were lucky enough to fall into a group of neighbors all relatively new to the neighborhood when we moved in. Most had young children, many had chosen this neighborhood for the big backyards and nearby woods. In a region I always thought would be transient, this neighborhood has been remarkably stable. It's a place where people notice, where people care.

Last night we said farewell to some of our oldest, dearest neighbors. Though I'm sad to lose them, the send-off was such a celebration of neighborliness that I'm left not with sadness, but with joy.

(A Virginia neighborhood from the air.)

The News

For most of the year I grab the Washington Post from the driveway and read it on the way to work. Now I'm reading a different kind of news.

Friends from Groton, Massachusetts, have downsized to Bonita Beach, Florida. Family from South Carolina has met family from Sweden. There have been travels to Italy and Kenya and North Carolina. Children have grown, dogs have been photographed in Santa hats and people I love have lived another year.

Time is always passing, but this is when and how we mark it. Not with rue or agitation. But with joy and gratitude.

Continuity and Change

It was a weekend of reconnecting, revisiting and reminding myself why I do what I do.

There was the "World Room" with its stained glass window, the stairs that were always quicker than the tiny elevator, especially if you were racing to turn in a story by a 5 p.m. deadline.

There was Broadway, with its jumble of stores and restaurants and Cafe Milano where Mama Joys' used to be. There was the campus quad, with libraries on either end and a new coffee shop in the journalism building. In other words, there was both continuity and change, as there should be.

Way Back When

The message went out last night after 9, and by early this morning the replies were pouring in. Would we, the members of Henry Clay High School, class of 19__ (that's the only part of my graduating class year I'm revealing), like to meet at a classmate's farm some late September Saturday?

It's a five-year rather than a 10-year mark for us. But we've lost a couple of people since last time and, as the organizer said, "We're not getting any younger, folks. And there's something important about being with people we knew way back when."

There is. Surprisingly so.

What I mostly felt in high school was how much I wanted to get out of it. But the memories now are clearer than most: The way the light came in through the tall windows of Baldy Gelb's math classroom. (He was Coach Gelb — which may have accounted for the prime real estate.) Or the day Mrs. Ahrens' student teacher suggested we start keeping a journal. (I've never stopped.)

In other words, these were years that mattered. And people who matter still.

A New Chapter

My book group met night before last, only four of us this time out of a dwindling number of eight. It was our annual book picking — but we decided to add new members, too.

We did not come to this decision lightly. We've taken in no new members for eight years. But what's eight years when you've been together 25?

The children we were birthing when the group formed are now marrying and settling down. It won't be long before there's a grandchild or two. But what time and busyness couldn't derail, major life changes have. Two of us left and came back years later. But the recent departures will be permanent. People are retiring and moving away. We want to keep a quorum of sorts. We want to keep gathering on the first Wednesday of the month (more or less) to chat about Lila, The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace and anything else that crosses our minds.

So in January we add a new chapter. We become a slightly altered group — but this time altered by addition rather than subtraction. 

The Art of Eating Crabs

Yesterday there was a graduation in Maryland, so after the congratulations and the photographs and the appetizers it was time for the main culinary attraction — that would be the Maryland blue crabs.

They start off blue but by the time you eat them they are red from the steaming and the seasoning. And eating them is an art. First you pull off the legs, then you find a little tab on the underside of the shell that opens up the critter — almost like a can with a pop top. Then you scrape off the gills and eat the meat inside. You save the claws for last, cracking them with a nutcracker or pounding them with a mallet. The meat is delicious!

Yesterday I sat next to some accomplished crab pickers who made the difficult look easy and left a pile of picked-clean shells. "Eating crabs is not just about eating," said one of the experts. "It's about sitting around and talking, the whole experience."

And this was true. Because it takes so long to eat a crab — and because you have to eat so many of them to fill up — the meal is long and the stories fly. We talked about history and the Bible and Willie Nelson and the singer Meat Loaf, the stories unspooling, the crab shells flying and the perfect May day winding down into dusk.

Collegiality

A hard day yesterday, one of several. There was too much work and not enough time. There were the typical absurdities. But there were also revelations, shared laughter, plans for drinks after work. There was gallows humor.  In short, there was collegiality.

Every group of people creates its own force field. As we interview candidates for openings in the department I think a lot about the ineffable qualities that make for a trusted colleague. It's a similar approach, a complementary attitude, a sense of humor. Sometimes you get it right; sometimes you don't.

People who write have a tendency to get caught in webs of their own thinking. It was in part to avoid this trap that I entered the office world again. I can't say I haven't second-guessed my decision hundreds of times. But I didn't yesterday.

Collegiality is often a haphazard affair, a byproduct, the luck of the draw. But once you've known the joy and purpose of working together toward a common goal it's difficult to go back.

Friendship Priming

The newspaper clipping, neatly labeled "International Herald Tribune," came from Kay in France. She had tucked the essay in with a note that said "this has 'Anne' written all over it." 

The topic: structural priming, the unconscious influences on writing, how what we read settles into our brain and sets up shop there and, before we know it, we're penning lines better suited to reports than poems. It's a habit we can break by cleansing our "linguistic palate" — reading widely and "against type."

The author, Michael Erard, has written short stories, essays, reviews and nonfiction books — but his day job is a think tank researcher. In other words, he says, "I'm a dancer who walks for a living."  And he dances better, he says, if he shuts off the Web and dips into a page of Virginia Tufte's Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style before beginning his creative work.


Reading this essay was like turning a kaleidoscope and bringing a new palette into place. It's something I've thought about for years, but couldn't have articulated.

And it's worth noting that although I might have stumbled across the article online, it came to me because someone I love thought I would like it. Which makes it an example not of structural priming but of friendship priming, the uncanny and unconscious connections that exist, that flourish, between friends.

Grasping the Moment

There was a last-minute offer to grill, a request for chicken, zucchini and tomatoes, all of which I gladly supplied. And then there was transporting the grill, the real thing, the Weber, with its bag of charcoal.

The real grill takes time to heat up so there were games of catch with Copper, plenty of ins and outs through the backdoor. People appeared on the deck, talked on their phones and then vanished back inside. Earlier we had sifted through an album, found a black and white photo of Tom from his long-hair days. This was passed around and admired. We opened some hard cider, marveling at its tang and effervescence.

Two more friends appeared, and now it was an impromptu party. I bounced on the trampoline, listening to songs I'd just bought: "Teach Your Children Well," "September," "Your Song," "Morning has Broken."

My troubles left me alone for this blissful, golden evening. The late light glancing the trunks of the oaks, the hydrangea blooming, voices from inside, laughing. People, young people, talking about music and jokes and places we don't know and never care to find out. Someone could have pulled out a guitar, strummed a few chords, and I wouldn't have been surprised. Maybe next time. It was life renewing itself. And I was pulled along by it, glad for the ride.