Everything has a shelf life

"Everything has a shelf life."

-Our friend Sam during my recent trip to Kentucky, referring to restaurants that have closed, shops that have gone out of business, and people who have died.

Sam (and his lovely bride Thelma) are our family's oldest friends. One of the greatest memories I have as a child was the time Sam put me in his lap and let me steer his car while driving on the Bluegrass Parkway. I felt like such a grownup. My dad, sitting in the front passenger seat, was considerably less than happy with the arrangement but remained a good sport about it until the next stop. I love to tell this story to kids as an illustration of how things we took for granted 40 years ago would now get you locked up, or at least get you showcased on the news as a cautionary tale.

Sam's shelf life comment was, I think, perfect and beautiful in its simplicity, and in its recognition of the inevitability of time's passing. That phrase has stuck in my head for the past couple of weeks, especially now that the leaves are falling, the days are shorter and the air colder. Tempus fugit, y'all. Everything has a shelf life.

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Today was the last day for our local farmer's market. The high winds meant that a lot of the vendors didn't set up their usual tents, and that made it look even more sparse on the last day:

What is it about the quality of sunlight that changes so much this time of year? A sunny morning in June bears so much promise; a sunny morning in October feels like a reproach-a last glimpse of all that warmth and sunshine about to disappear for the next few months. A reminder of all the warmth and sunshine you didn't take advantage of when you had it, and now it's gone, or about to be.



We loaded up on peppers, the last of the real tomatoes we'll see until next summer, some Brussels sprouts and carrots. We said goodbye to the farmers we've been buying from every Sunday for the past four months, and then we left.

This was one of those weeks that just disappeared.

Two years of sprawling ramshackle goodness

2 years and 1007 posts ago I started this blog:

I'm finally going to follow my kids' examples and start a blog. What I hope to do is have a place where I can spout off to a potentially large audience (much larger, anyway, than family campouts, holiday meals and parties) and also to connect folks with widely varying interests and backgrounds. We'll see.

I'm still having fun with it. Best of all has been all the cool stuff I found because you stopped by here. Thank you!

And now, to celebrate my second year of blogging, I'm going to continue a tradition that I started on last year's anniversary. I'm going to link to one of the first pictures I posted-- what is now possibly the most popular gut surgery picture on the internet.

See you next year!

Celebrating one year of sprawling, ramshackle goodness

One year ago today I posted my very first blog entry. I followed up the next day by posting what has become (judging from my Site Meter) one of the most popular gut pictures on the interwebs.

This time last year I was moping around the house, recovering from an emergency abdominal surgery. My daughters, who were both having fun with xanga and myspace, encouraged me to start a blog. Now, here we are: 598 posts, 1,181 profile views and 10,887 visitors later.

My life is significantly different now than it was then. Most notably, I'm healthy. We're no longer homeschooling our girls, and the pace of our family life has accelerated beyond anything I imagined back then. MizBubs reentered the full-time workforce. I've experienced a shift in how I think about work; I'm now focused on retiring in 3-5 years.

Why did I start this? The short answer is because, as my youngest daughter puts it, I am "blabberous." I'm driven to talk.

I probably could've been a writer, but here's the thing. Rather than organize my thoughts and put them in words, and then put those words on paper, I'd rather have a few drinks and sit around and bullshit with you.

We've been lucky to meet three lovely, really cool people in real life after reading their words on a computer screen: Lulu, Tenacious S and Johnny Yen. One of MizBubs' relatives has recently started blogging, and Splotchy is now one of the first blogs I check every day. I get excited every time I see that somebody in China or Saudi Arabia or France or Malaysia has somehow stumbled onto my blog. I like to think that each post is like a message in a bottle, thrown out into the surf for some stranger to find, maybe years from now.

Whew

So, yesterday (Sunday) I had the day off work, which was good--it was the day of the church picnic, but more important it was the farewell to our pastor and his wife (also a minister.) Two lovely, decent people.

We belong to a small church, an American Baptist congregation, and Rev. Jack has been the pastor for 16 years. Our eldest daughter went to Montessori kindergarten in a space rented by the church, and one day while I was working Miz Bubs took the kids there, back in 93 or 94. She came back and suggested I might like the place. I did, and we've been members of the church since then.

I've struggled with my faith for years, and my sense of worth as a moral human being. Rev Jack and Rev Lynn helped me more than I've ever told them. They move away later this month, and I'm working on a thank you letter. I decided a while ago that, when I have something good to say about someone, I'm going to damn well try and tell them. I'm still working on that.

It was important to be at church Sunday. But, life doesn't hold still for any one person's special moment: Hannah had a birthday party to attend Saturday night, ending at noon Sunday. I had my work hours changed on short notice and worked until 2am Saturday night. Nora had her boyfriend's high school graduation at noon. Miz Bubs had to work at the library at 1pm. SO...Miz Bubs, Nora, Nora's friend and I went to church at 10:30am. At noon, Nora left just as the service was ending to be picked up by her boyfriend's folks. I went and picked up Hannah. Hannah needed to freshen up (God forbid she go straight from a sleepover to a picnic without changing clothes, and she insisted that we never told her about the picnic, which is nonsense) so I got to drive her home and then back to church. I got to wolf down some food and briefly say hi to Miz Bubs before she left for work. Whew.

As it turns out, I wasn't the only one who got all teary during the service. Miz Bubs used to babysit the minister's daughter, for a few years, since she was just a year older than Hannah. They were like sisters, but then they had a falling out a few years ago and don't speak now. Well, when Miz talked to her after church, she started crying (the girl, not Miz...yet) and both my daughters were too choked up to say "goodbye" to Jack or Lynn. I ran into the girls former piano teacher, who moved back to Wisconsin to care for two parents with terminal cancer. I had at least 5 conversations with other parents who all remarked how much all our children had grown. Rev Lynn always did a children's time during the service, and this was the last one--seeing all those kids up there, and all the changes that they represented, and seeing Jack and Lynn leaving, was too much for all of us.

We had fallen away from regular church attendance a few years ago, and had just been making an effort to attend during the past year. We were in the process of reconnecting with our church, and I've been experiencing some kind of reawakening of my own faith that began with my trip to New Orleans during the aftermath of Katrina. I know something in me has changed, profoundly, but I'm not sure what it is yet or where it will push me. My daughters, who had both fallen away from church attendance, were also coming around. The ministry of Jack and Lynn was a big part of those positive changes, and we all feel...I don't know...so sad, that just as we were coming back, they're leaving. One thing I noticed though, was all the people at the picnic talking, and people reaching out to each other, our ties to one another becoming tangibly stronger even as we stood around clutching our paper plates and cups. I think Jack and Lynn should be very, very proud of their work in building our faith community.

Nora summed up her experience of the day when I picked her up later that afternoon. She said that, between the departure of Jack and Lynn, who've known her for 13 years, and the graduation of her boyfriend, her childhood is over.

Later that afternoon, after we all got home, we went to visit Miz Bubs' niece (they're more like cousins, they're only a few years apart) and husband. When we got their, my bride's oldest brother was there too, which was a wonderful surprise. I talk to my brothers a couple times a week, and to my mom nearly every day, so I take communication for granted. Miz Bubs comes from a family that is, to put it mildly, challenged in the ability to stay in contact with each other. Not that they don't like each other, they love each other deeply, and on a level that needs no words. Which is a good thing, because they don't talk to each other. They can go months without so much as a phone call. But I sense now that even that is changing. It seems like even Miz Bubs' family is reaching out and wanting to make that vital connection to each other.

We finally got home around 9:30, exhausted. We talked about church and life and growing up all the way home in the car.

There is so much coming down the road. I know most of it's good, and even the stuff that's hard will be good in the long run. But it feels really odd, almost to the point of light-headedness, to contemplate all the changes that are in store for us, and all those changes that have already passed.