Dispatches from the Vacation Front – A Still Life

There's a lot to be said for changing the scenery, but there's nothing wrong with seeing the sights while putting your feet up.
Some summers we're all about new cities, museums and mountain ranges. Most summers, though, we park ourselves for a family reunion along the shores of Lake Michigan.
We know the scenery pretty well, but without the demands of work, I manage to see something new every day.
This summer, I have a standing morning meeting with seven-year-old Thing2 over a Monopoly board. Afternoons are dedicated to swimming and dinner prep with the family. When the last dish is scrubbed and the youngest child is kissed goodnight, however, my butt has a standing appointment with our couch.
I spend a good amount of that time writing, but I've also dedicated a bit of time to getting better at drawing – at learning to see. We've all begun to relax in earnestt, and the doodling has begun spilling over into the day – so has the learning to see.

 

Dispatches From the Vacation Front – Fruitcake

 

On our walks along Lake Michigan the last couple days we noticed our watery neighbor had regifted a few items.

Over the last two days she's returned a tire, a dead mylar balloon, used sanitary products, a fully-loaded rolled up diaper, and lots of styrofoam.

It seemed a little rude for the lake to be tossing these things up on the beach, but, in all fairness, the stuff did get dumped on her first like so much fruitcake.

It's a big lake, so it's I'm guessing it's taken a lot of practice throwing stuff away to get this much garbage regifted onto the shores. I've been coming to this spot along Lake Michigan since I was a fetus, and I can't remember a time when the lake wasn't part swimming pool, part watery trash can and even part oil barrel.

Most of the time we're so focused on the sunsets and sounds of the waves that a pleasant version of Stockholm Syndrome kicks in before we're aware of the creepy sensation that we're actually swimming in garbage – even when it washes up at our feet.

This week, however, the cellophane candy wrappers and dirty diapers give me the heebee-jeebees.

Our train stopped in Toledo, Ohio a few days before we got here. A few hours earlier, Lake Erie had shut down the water supply for the entire city. Fertilizer runoff had spawned a crisis that had 400 passengers waiting to use a bathroom where washing your hands could result in nerve damage or other life changes – none of which included something sexy like flying or super strength.

It occurred to me as I looked at the warning signs in front of the sink that one of these days Lake Michigan could decide to regift us with something super, and it's be super scary.

We throw a lot of fruitcake into that water – heat from the local nuclear power plants, spilled oil from passing tankers, and litter and other trash from cities and towns around the lake along with all the other things we think we throw away. I'm starting to think, however, there may not actually be an away – just other beaches.

As I skirted a pile of tattered gift ribbon and a mangled prophylactic, it became obvious that solution was to start throwing stuff away in the direction of people we don't like so the fruitcake ends up on their doorstep. Things like that always backfire on you, though, so then I realized we just need to get better, as a society, at throwing stuff away. If we work hard at it, I know we can figure out a way to throw unwanted stuff away for good.

I'm betting we can make it happen before we accidenntally throw away the stuff we meant to hang on to.

 

Dispatches from the Vacation Front – Whoppers and Winners

 

Somehow Thing2 has got the idea that the television at the vacation house only gets the news. Thing1 was at the beach when someone (okay, it was me) floated this whopper, and none of the adults in earshot contradicted me.

That's how two boys who have spent most of the summer torturing and tattling on each other ended up on the couch playing checkers and reading and inadvertently proving that life goes on after the cable is cut.

Score one for the parents.

 

Dispatches from the Rails

 

Thing2 is getting a little girl-shy these days, and, since, unlike last year's rail journey, most of the other kids are of the feminine variety, we haven't learned the life history of all of our traveling companions. Thankfully human un-nature has lent a hand and reminded me of why, despite some inconveniences, we love traveling by train.

It's nine AM and we're supposed to be in Indiana, but we're still crawling across Ohio. Amtrak trains ride the rails at the pleasure of the freight companies who own the tracks, and heavy freight traffic coupled with a water emergency in Toledo have torpedoed the schedule.

Prior to the announcement that there would be limited bathrooms and no water on our train past Toledo, we'd exchanged smiles and pleasantries with our fellow passengers to the front of and behind us. Like last year, it was an interesting and diverse group – well-heeled travelers smiled on their way to the sleeping cars at Vermonters and an immigrant family and an Amish man – but nothing makes companions out of a cross section of humanity like misery – or even the promise of it.

Mindful of the amount of water I drank last night, I got off at Toledo to use the facilities. The boys in our family were sure they could hold on until Elkhart, Indiana. I ended up between two Amish ladies, and we all remarked on the remarkable event of a major American city bereft of a basic necessity for human survival.

We separated at the head of the line, and no one looked at each other as we headed back for the train without washing our hands (knowing my seven-year-old's research into superpower acquisition it suddenly occurred to me that maybe separating him from glowing green contaminated water with a metal wall was good for a few reasons).

As I made my way forward to my seat there were a few grumbles, but most of the concern was for the water situation in the city we're leaving behind. For the most part travelers understand the conductors on the train had no control over the misery, and people are satisfied with trading an exasperated smile or joke and even an unexpected kindness. I'm watching a family in front of us offer a single mom a sandwich for her toddler, and the six year old girl behind us with a heavy Indian accent has made friends with another girl talking with a familar midwest twang. They're giggling, and I'm hoping Thing2 overcomes his shyness before we hit South Bend. Deep down, though, I think he's learned , as we have over the last couple years of train journeys, that we're really all in it together.

 

 

The Season for Reasons

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I usually ignore the magazines at the front of the check out. The magazine with celebrity photo on the front never interested me to begin with – I only know name of people I’ve seen in movies, and their personal lives are usually uninteresting to me (ruins seeing them in movies if I know too much about them).

I will admit, however, to having been distracted more times than I can tell by the ” What’s Wrong with Your Body and How We Can Fix it” magazine. For some reason, I let myself be fooled by headlines promising an insane amount of weight loss and the first week, written by sadists who know I don’t have patience to ride out a diet for the entire month. 

Then last year one of my doctor suggested the South Beach diet. I figured it had to be halfway decent since the recommendation came from the doctor. I described the bullet points to my dad, also a doctor, and got approval from the family nutrition expert. I did. And guess what, the first few weeks I lost 14 pounds. 

Not bad as far I was concerned.  It was time to reward myself with a donut. 

Aside from a few small chocolate-covered detours, I actually stayed on the straight and narrow for most of the summer, moving to a more plant-based approach that was easier to grow myself.   Over the course of four or five months, I lost about 50 pounds. 

I got away from looking for a miracle and focused on long-term health. 

And then winter came.  In Vermont, you’re kind of a prisoner in your own home and of the layers and layers of sweaters and coats you put on the minute you get up. The upside is the camouflaging of the poundage you put on to keep warm (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it). 

I teetered around Thanksgiving and got completely off balance after Christmas. I’m back on a modified fitness plan but somehow have not been able to pull my fat butt back on that diet wagon (at least not for more than a couple days time). 

So that, ladies and gentleman of the jury, is why I just had to look at that magazine with hot pink cover blaring the unheard-of promise of 24 pounds to lose in the first week. Just the thought of it made me consider taking a monokini instead of a muumuu to the beach.

Sadly, I know success comes down to the tried-and-true Eat-Your-Vegetables-Control-Your-Portion nonsense that has worked since the beginning of dieting.  But the thought of my muumuu, reminded me of the my impending annual two-week swimsuit season, during which time (purely coincidentally) sightings of a great white whale beached on the shores of Lake Michigan are reported.  

The inevitability of a season more certain and terrifying than tax time was the only reason I needed to find that last two dollars in my wallet – even though I know how that article will end.   

 

Town Meeting

peaceful mountain

I had the picnic basket packed with pasta salad, cheese and crackers, and watermelon by 7PM.  We had an hour to go.  It was a only a five minute drive to the church yard, but we’d need to get there early to find a good spot.

When we arrived, the unofficial meeting was just coming together.  There were dozens of young faces – some just a few months into this world.  There children born on the other side of the globe lolling on picnic blankets with kids whose grandparents and great-great-great-grand’s built this town.  But, while the faces are different, the feelings of the attendees – unlike on official Town Meeting day – were very much in sync.

Everyone, regardless of how they felt about the latest stop sign or school budget line item, greeted their neighbors happily.  Some had brought dinner. Others brought dessert.  In front of the congregation was what looked like a laundry line, draped with colorful sheets.  It looked like the make shift stage Thing1 and Thing2 had created under our swing-set a few years ago.  

By the time the sun dipped behind the mountain at the edge of the field, the meeting was ready to begin. A wiry man with a snowy white beard walked to the center of the lawn making introductions and as he left the grassy stage, players bearing elaborate marionettes glided into view. 

For the next two hours, we watched field in front of the mountain darken, with the only light coming from lamps clamped to teepees at each side of the stage.  The players and puppeteers told tales of foolishness, mercy, greed, and, finally of one of those rare but wonderful instances of man’s humanity to man.  

The last story of a lifetime of generosity and love ultimately benefiting the generous concluded with the illuminating of paper lanterns constructed to look like houses. The puppeteers dimmed the stage lights and soon, the only sight was the tiny houses against the mountain and the only sound was the rushing river nearby.  And the only thing we knew for that moment was the peace that we were unconsciously sharing with everyone in that field.

That moment was a gift from the players.  It was also a gift from the Arab and Jewish storytellers who gave these stories to their children and to the world. As our moment of peace came to a quiet end, I thought of their descendants a half a world away, locked in endless conflict and, gazing at the stars, I wished peace for both sides – for their sakes and everyone else’s.  I wished for us to remember that, we all have an inheritance like this – one that could unite us more than we allow it to us divide us if only we’d claim it.  

It’s only a wish,and, as John Lennon said, I may just be a dreamer.  But I didn’t imagine these stories or that moment.

Two Good Things

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Anybody who knows me knows I hate cleaning with a vengeance. In fact the only way I manage to clean is with a vengeance.

Case in point, as we get ready for our annual caravan to Lake Michigan, I am wreaking my wrath on the the descendants of the fleas that invaded our house last year while we were on the vacation. For the last four hours I have sweat, I have cried, and Heaven help me, I have cleaned. I have cleaned so much I have lost 2 pounds of pure sweat all to ensure that we come home to a flea free house in a few weeks.

I think that fleas are perverts because they do not respond to poisons or flea collars or any of that nonsense. The only thing they want is to watch me clean before they die. So I have made the ultimate sacrifice this weekend.

But it’s not all bad.

As I cleared my dresser of countless unused bobby pins, headbands for people with hair much longer than mine, and straggling clothing tags bearing sizes that would only fit in my wildest fantasy, I managed to do a little rearranging.

My day of cleaning has culminated in a careful rearrangement on my dresser of some of the many clay sculptures made by my boys when they were in kindergarten. It’s the only safe place in the house where these irreplaceable treasures are guaranteed not to break-mainly because I don’t clean it very often.

I also found and decided to display two pictures. One picture was of thirteen year old Thing1 when he was just a few days old. he’ll be 14 in just a couple weeks, but the soft faded photo of a time not too long ago when he still needed us for everything pulls my heartstrings harder than if it had been taken yesterday. Next to it I put a framed photo of his seven-year-old brother, Thing2.

The top of my recently cleaned and cleared dresser is now a gallery, decorated with a couple of very good things, and that makes all the sweat tears and cleaning kinda worth it.

Now on to my closet. I’m hoping I can
find the same sort of redemption there. I kinda doubt it.