Disconcerting Transitions

Last night was my first 4th of July in nearly two decades with no children with whom to watch the fireworks.  Most years, all three have been with us, either at home or on vacation.  Some years, we've lost one or two to summer camp, but there's always been at least someone in the general vicinity.  (The last two years were kind of humorous -- one son resisted our pleas that he attend the fireworks with us, insisting that all the high schoolers wanted to go together.  We told him he could meet his friends there -- which he did, and then discovered that every one of them had also come with their parents!  It seems that we aren't alone in our reluctance to abandon family traditions to teenage peer pressure.)

Last night, though, they were all gone.  I'm thrilled for them; I love that two are working and one is studying -- all exactly where they want to be and beginning to move forward in their lives.  But it was still a bit painful.  My husband was still out of town, so I went with a friend whom I've known since our boys were babies.  I told her that we had somehow moved in what seemed like a brief flash of time from pushing strollers and carting juice bottles to the fireworks to settling our creaky bodies down to watch in the absence of our almost-adult children.  I guess we are waiting for grandchildren now (not for awhile, though!).

I should have mentioned yesterday that the Anniversary Torch came to me via Walk with me..., an incredible journal that inspires me every day and this week has earned a well-deserved spot on AOL's Editor's Weekly Picks.. 

Walked: 4.5 miles

en France

http://www.odonto.univ-rennes1.fr/france.gif

Thanks to the small spirit of GWB, it's not fashionable to laud France in the U.S. these days.  But the fact is, the French have been our good friends since the days of our own Revolution, one aspect of which we celebrate today.  And our family's experience with the French has been one of hospitality, warmth, and friendship.  So I thought I'd add a map showing where one of my sons spent a year of high school (Rennes) and where the other is spedning this summer (Lyon) -- and wave a 4th of July "Hello!" across the Atlantic.

Journal Anniversary

Just passing on the cyber-torch to celebrate the first anniversary of AOL Journals!

I'm out here in Ohio and, while I'm at it, I'll send it on to my kids in western North Carolina and Lyon, France. 

Exhausted

Cemetery Monument to a President

I just walked down to the little lake at the bottom of the cemetery.

As I was sitting there, watching the swallows zip across the water and a kingfisher move, surprisingly, without a sound, from tree to tree on the other side, a huge goldfish, maybe 15", swam back and forth in the still waters at my feet.  I noted with satisfaction that it had outgrown the predatory dangers of the great blue herons, and then saw, a little further into the water, what looked like another, truly enormous, goldfish just under the surface. I concluded that there must be two or three of them swimming close together -- surely no fish in this little pond could have grown to such a size!

I stood and leaned out over the water to get a better look at the shimmering and undulating orange glimmering under the greenish water.  It was then that I realized that I was looking at a school of small goldfish -- maybe five dozen of them!  (Yes, I tried to count them -- a futile effort.)  I could see another school in motion out toward the center of the lake.  Lovely and alive -- but also, I'm afraid, mostly dinner for herons.

Everyone in my family is in a good place.  My son in North Carolina has made, according to the doctor, "a complete turnaround" and is back at work.  His brother is safely ensconced in France.  Their sister's emails from camp simply sparkle.  My husband has gone off to visit his family for the holiday week-end.  I am home, so tired I can hardly move, the cat and dog are sprawled on the bed, and all is quiet and well with my little world.

Walked: 3 miles:

Yesterday: Walked: 3.5 miles.

Walked in the past week: 30 miles.

Friday, July 2: Walked: 5.5 miles.

Washed Up

When I found these on the beach one morning, I knew they were just "washed up," but I still thought they were beautiful.  I love the delicacy with which a crustacean is constructed.

Anyway, "washed up" is exactly how I feel today.  No news, a drive to southern Ohio ahead of me with no way of knowing whether I have to push on to North Carolina in two days, and my bursitis is back with a vengeance.  It never occurred to me before that it might be stress-induced, but it hasn't bothered me a bit in three months, and yet this morning there I was, hobbling along so pathetically that one of my neighbors stopped her car to see if I needed a ride.

Long sigh......................

Walked: 3 miles.

Breathe

What a tense day.  It seems like decades, rather than less than a week, since I was walking on the beach every morning and evening.

I spent most of the day running errands, working in the garden, and hanging out online, trying to distract myself while I worried about my child with mono, 600 miles away.  He finally called tonight and he sounds terrible; when the doctor called later, she said he's actually a bit better.  But she admitted that she has seldom seen a kid this sick, and that she is feeling discouraged about him staying on and going back to work in a week or so. 

His throat is so sore that he's barely able to eat which, of course, makes him feel even more run down.  He did at least sleep last night -- the pain meds must be doing some good, regardless of his insistence that they aren't.

I feel so badly for him.  He really needed this summer away from the stresses of college, and it looks like he will spend much of it at home, jobless and bored.

If only I could walk back down the beach tomorrow morning.

Going Backward

Millwheel at Camp

So I thought I had two kids settled in North Carolina and one to get ready to leave for France at the end of the week.  It has only taken about seven months to co-ordinate all the comings and goings of this summer. 

Why did I bother?????

A call from the camp doctor last night: it seems that the son down there probably has mono.  We had left him with a sore throat and orders to go to the health center, thinking that he might have picked up strep when he was there the week before.  Now it seems that strep would have been an easy way out.  His first test was negative, but the more sensitive one comes back today.

Luckily, he is not in charge of a cabin full of little boys this week.  He was supposed to be working on the farm, helping kids milk cows and play with goats and harvest corn -- all things he can do if he perks up in the next couple of days.  Or not.  The camp staff is amazingly able to take things in stride, and they are willing to let him lie around for awhile and then start working, or come home to sleep it off and then go back to work.  So after I drop his brother at the Cincinnati airport on Friday, I may be heading south again.  Or not.

Pause while I take call from pediatrician here... .

OK, so he says NC son is likely to feel much better in a week and should stay where he is, and France son is unlikely to have mono but if he does there's not a thing we can do about it and it won't show up for 6 weeks anyway so he should get on the plane. 

The level of stress in my life was already sort of, shall we say, high.  Let's watch it skyrocket.

I need a walk.

Walked: 3 miles.

Walked in June: 99.5 miles!

Walked since beginning journal: 275.7 miles