A Perfect Day

 Our Summer Retreat, the annual reunion with our children and grandchildren, just concluded on Saturday. This year was a first: we took a cruise with Royal Caribbean to Key West and the Bahamas. I’d been to St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, many times from 1992 to sometime in the teens. My mom bought a shore-side condo in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, in about 1989, and my parents invited their children and grandchildren to spend time with them in paradise.

I was intrigued with the idea of the Bahamas, especially after I listened to The Republic of Pirates by Colin Woodard. From 1706 to 1718, a loose confederation of privateers turned pirates wrought havoc on international sea trade. Their headquarters were the Bahamas, favored for its many small islands and cays (keys or quays) among shallow waters and dangerous reefs that offered protection from larger navy ships that couldn’t navigate there safely. The pirates practiced a form of democracy: all the crew members voted on their leaders and could oust them at will. Plunder was distributed evenly.

Each year that I visited St. Croix, usually in February, we watched a cruise ship arrive on Wednesday. I concluded that my situation was far superior. I was able to really get to know the island and while the cruise passengers were hurrying back to the ship at 4 p.m. I was going out for my late-afternoon swim. We would often enjoy supper on the veranda, watching for a green flash at sunset. I like to avoid full sun, so having scheduled island time be between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. would have cramped my style.

But here I was, on a cruise. And it was fine. I especially enjoyed visiting new places, conversations with family members, the nightly entertainment, and the delicious food I didn’t have to prepare or clean up after.

After a day in Key West, we cruised to a small cay (a small low-lying island composed of coral rock and reef) owned by the cruise line. Evidently the staff aboard the Grandeur of the Seas are trained to say “Perfect Day at Coco Cay.” I never heard them refer to the destination simply as “Coco Cay.”

For me it was a fine day, but not perfection. The beaches featured row upon row of lounge chairs and beach umbrellas and expensive souvenirs. I borrowed mask and snorkel from Annie and R’el (I forgot to pack my own) and swam for over an hour in the turquoise waters. Then I walked along the whole beach area and around the cay, thus including two of my favorite activities.

The next day was closer to a perfect day. In Bimini, I talked some of our party into walking along the only road in search of a beach less crowded than the one next to the cruise pier. It was a hot walk, and we weren’t certain what we would find. The third person we asked directions of gave a clear description of our route (we had already walked for over a mile): up the hill, past the Catholic Church and Anglican Church, and onto a beach.

And what a beach! White coral sand, the shade of a tree, gentle waves, and no other people. (This was not perfection for my grandson. He spied some people far down the beach and asked, “Can’t we go over to them?” But he was overruled.) Again I swam over an hour and was in paradise. When I came back to shore I discovered that I had worried Jim. He wasn’t concerned about my swimming ability but about what would happen if I had a seizure or some accident.

For me it was an echo of my time in St. Croix. I used to swim the mile to the Fredriksted pier. Before 2001 I would sometimes touch the cruise ship below the water line, just because I could. And then I would head back to my parents’ condo. I always stayed close to shore, but I loved the tranquil loneliness.

Palmyra, the Taghkanic Mountains, and the Berkshires

 Earlier this week Jim and I met Xiomara and their kids in Albany, New York (about 2 ½ hours away), and drove in one car another three hours to the Eire Canal village of Palmyra. In late June we had taken a bus trip with our Cambridge Stake youth group and wanted to share the experience.

The Airbnb was a homey, two-story house with three bedrooms circa 1920. We visited all the Church history sites. Everyone’s favorite was the Grandin Building, where the first 5,000 copies of the Book of Mormon were published. The informative tour described Joseph Smith’s experience and explained the nineteenth-century printing process. We each got a sheet with the first 32 pages which we folded into a quire.

I had lugged two bases and a frisbee to the ward campout two weeks earlier and never used them. In Palmyra I got my chance. In the late afternoon we found a grassy area near the canal and played running bases, taking turns being basemen and throwing the frisbee. It only landed in the bushes a few times.

Monday we had ice cream outside the Chill and Grill and the next evening I enjoyed Maine blueberry ice cream at a Byrne Dairy convenience store. There was plenty of butterfat and the rich taste of Maine.

Our family book club selection this month is the Netflix’ series, Wednesday. I cancelled my Netflix account in protest many years ago, when the company suddenly split their DVD and streaming services, doubling the charge for subscribing to both. That controversial business decision was made in 2011, but I’ve never forgiven them.

However, my Oma heart can’t resist Victoria; Wednesday is her selection. So I subscribed for a month and Jim and I watched the first four episodes at home. I found the character disturbingly dark, but she lightened up a bit as the series progressed. I could pass on the gore and physical suspense, but at least the scary music warned me to get ready to close my eyes. In Palmyra we watched the final four episodes together. Andrew and Victoria had already seen the whole thing and Andrew had a hard time not delivering spoilers to me. I warned him quite sternly but lightheartedly.

After we left the Bronx crowd on Wednesday, I drove Interstate 90 from Albany to our home. The late-afternoon sunlight suffused the Taconic Mountains and the Berkshires with a golden-green glow. The forests are dark green, soon to enter their autumnal phase. I even saw one tree with a tinge of fall color. I composed this post as the Mass Pike wended its way through the wooded rolling hills of western and central Massachusetts.

To quote my favorite Massachusetts troubadour, I drove "the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston."

What a difference a year makes

 A year ago Jim and I joined our children and grandchildren in Roatan, a Caribbean island belonging to Honduras. Then we flew to the mainland to visit Xiomara’s home town and her relatives.

I got the usual traveller’s complaint and made it through two more family reunions (in the excitement of the lessening of the pandemic, three branches of our family planned travel reunions.).

I didn’t recover with my usual speed. Actually, I don’t usually get sick, so I didn’t realize that 104 degree temperature is dangerously high. I went on our annual Church campout because I didn’t want to disappoint our four grandkids: we’d planned for it all year.

At the campground, I fell three times on the gently rolling lawn. In a state of total denial, I blamed my old sneakers, with worn-slick soles. Turned out it was a kidney infection.

Anticipating the campout this year, with our two grandkids from the Bronx, I felt an inexplicable dread. I finally realized the anxiety was caused by a fear of a repetition of last year.

But I hadn’t been to Honduras this year and I didn’t fall once at the campground. Instead of sitting, exhausted, in my camp chair by the pond, I swam some laps and paddled with my granddaughter. We're all looking forward to next year.

In the Weeds

 Saturday morning I spent two hours in the weeds.

About six weeks ago I noticed some leaves of three (let it be) with a tinge of red growing alongside our driveway. You may remember my brush with poison ivy five years ago. After a terrible bout of rash while in Charleston, SC, and a dose of steroids I came home, bought a full-body Tyvek suit, and was successful in eradicating the menace from my north yard.

This time I warned my teenaged assistant gardeners to stay out of the patch and bought another suit. I then spent six weeks vacillating between pulling the plants and spraying herbicide. Every few days it would rain, which postponed the project. In between there was a trip to Church history sites in Palmyra, NY,, with our Church youth group, a week of Girls’ Camp, and Joe Cannon’s funeral in Chicago.

Jim had suggested mowing the patch. I resisted. Mowing wouldn’t remove the roots and the stems close to the ground. The mower blades might send particles of poison into the air. I wanted to eradicate the plants, not just cut them back. (Jim later suggested my approach was irrational. I have to agree.)

The Thursday before, Jim had mowed our backyard again. Afterwards he told me he was tempted to mow the patch and pointed out that it was just getting worse as I delayed.

So, the next morning I donned the Tyvek and a pair of industrial-strength blue PVC gloves and marched out to face the task.

I saw to my horror that the ivy had spread and other woody weeds had overtaken the area. But undaunted I started at the far end, just east of a large maple tree, clipped the woody plants to the ground and pulled the ivy where I could, cutting it when necessary.

What had been little patches of ivy over a month ago had become a jungle of vines, five and ten and even fifteen feet long, partially hidden by the woody plants.

Eventually I considered giving up. I went inside: two hours had transpired. My project would take at least four more hours if I had the strength. I called Jim and asked him to come survey the scene. I was careful not to touch anything with the contaminated Tyvek suit and gloves. He served me a much needed glass of water with a straw. I was dripping sweat inside the suit and the tips of my gloves had pools in them.

Jim assessed the situation and said the woody plants were thin enough to mow. I asked him to do it: I was worn out. (Back in 1981, just before we moved to Columbus, Indiana, for Jim’s first big job, I called a man on Saturday about some arrangements. He answered the phone a bit breathless and said, “I’ve been working in the strawberries. Excuse the language, but I’m pooped.” I thought it was charming and chivalrous. It wasn’t until years later that I realized he considered ‘pooped’ improper because it implied excrement. What impeccable manners.)

Jim put white plastic garbage bags over his shoes and made three passes with the mower, creating a swath of mowed grass and weeds six feet wide. We watched for a rash, but none developed. He’ll probably finish the job today, before we leave for Utah.

As I worked on my poison ivy project I started writing a sermon in my head, all about facing a nasty job early on when it is manageable. I imagine the original project would have taken an hour. (Actually I imagined it would have taken a half an hour but I am very bad at estimating projects.) The sermon seemed very wise and nuanced, but now that I’m writing this, I’ve lost most of the thread. It’s really pretty simple. I had a nasty but doable task. I put it off. I put it off some more. The ivy wasn’t waiting for me. I didn’t even realize how much volume had grown over the six weeks, since it was hidden among the weeds. Many of the vines were under the grass and weren’t visible until I started pulling one end.

Poison ivy is pernicious. It manifests in many ways. It can be a single plant, a bush, a vine among the grass, or a vine up a tree trunk. It does always have three leaves, but they can be any shade of green from light to dark. The leaves can be shiny or dull and have smooth edges or a few coarse notches.

I did develop a small rash, under my unprotected chin. I went to urgent care, remembering the painful incident five years ago where a single bump became extensive rashes on both arms, severe enough that I couldn’t bend my elbows for days until I went to urgent care in Charleston and got a steroid shot and oral medication.

Jim, of course, did some web reading and found that best practices is to use herbicide to kill the ivy. Pulling it stimulated growth of the roots. Unfortunately, a herbicide would kill the grass too and leave a large area bare. For now, Jim will keep mowing and warn visitors to stay away.

Explosion of Green

 I flew back from California May 24 and drove with Jim to my 45th college reunion two days later. Never has the Mass Pike seemed so verdant, so lushly green. Mile after mile the hills were packed with tall deciduous trees in every direction. In Main Line Philadelphia stately maples and ancient copper beeches graced the countryside.

California was lovely. I’ve never visited in May and didn’t expect so many roses in gardens and wild flowers along the highways. Northern California, Oregon, and Washington presented majestic evergreens. But for sheer volume of delicious, deciduous green in rolling hills, nothing matches the East Coast.

I returned home just in time to enjoy a glorious season of rhododendrons. I’ve made a study of them over the years. They always bloom in the same color order. Right now, the earliest color, a light purple, can be seen all over our town.

What did we expect?

 Maggie and I are on a two-week Sisters' West Coast Road Trip. I flew into LAX and the next day, after a tour of John’s amazing Orange-County garden, we headed north. We planned to drive the Pacific Coast Highway, California Route 1, north through Big Sur to Monterey, but it is impassable due to mudslides. So we toured the Hearst Castle instead. Driving the southern portion of the PCH that is open, we walked along a boardwalk and watched female elephant seals lie on the beach. They looked quite lazy, but out in the deep ocean they dive 2000 feet in search of food.

Yesterday as we drove from Berkeley to Crater Lake, I continued my love affair with Mt. Shasta. I first saw it with our kids, in 1995, when Maggie helped me drive from southern California to Seattle. We camped near Mt. Shasta and I was smitten. Why had I never heard of it?

This time around we stopped in Weed, California (prominent citizen Abner Weed settled the area around 1900). We took a few pictures and then headed north on US 97. As Maggie drove I watched my beloved mountain, and we stopped a few times for a picture from yet another angle. At the Mount Shasta Scenic Viewpoint we saw the mountain in its full glory. A informational sign included John Muir’s initial reaction to Mt. Shasta in 1874:

When I first caught sight of it over the braided folds of the Sacramento Valley, I was fifty miles away and afoot, alone and weary. Yet all my blood turned to wine and I have not been weary since.

In the evening we made our way west on Route 62 and entered Crater Lake National Park. Neither of us were able to use our new Golden Eagle passes: the entrance booth was unmanned. Many small piles of brush were smoldering along the roadside: a prescribed burn. The buildings of Rim Village were barely visible among the 20-foot snowbanks. The lodge was the end of the plowed road. Rim Drive, which encircles the lake, was completely snowbound.

What did we expect? A pleasant and scenic drive around the caldera. A few hikes in the woods.

What did we get?  A lot of snow on the ground. Hikes on the asphalt between the lodge and Rim Village. What did we not expect? An afternoon of snowshoeing and time sitting on the veranda watching the lake mirror the surrounding caldera. A friendly grey bird.

Spring is approaching

Last week I  found myself watching the Connecticut coast roll by from the window of an Amtrak train on my way to visit my oldest brother in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C.

When I was nine, we moved from a little town nestled on the banks of the Susquehanna in central Pennsylvania to New Jersey. (Watch it! I’m very proud of my New Jersey roots.) In high school I often took the Northeast Regional train from Newark’s Penn Station to D.C.’s Union Station to visit said brother. I love trains.

This trip brought back fond memories from high school and later trips to Philly’s 30th Street station during college over 45 years ago.

Seven years ago, I took a night train out of Salt Lake City over the Sierra Nevada to Sacramento, California, and then a northbound train up the Oregon Coast to Seattle. After riding all night I spent each day soaking up the natural beauty through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the observation car.

In my brother’s house I stumbled into another memory. Nine years ago, from March until May, I lived in their guestroom and spent all my days at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. (One of my sons created an acronym: WRENMIMIC) Our Army medic son, David, had AML (leukemia) and flew from Korea, where he was stationed, to Bethesda. After two months at WRENMIMIC he was transferred to MGH and lived with us during his treatments. Fifteen months later he died peacefully in our home.

Jim and I drove down to meet David at Dulles Airport on March 26, 2014. Spring had definitely begun and the daffodils and greening lawns were a bright spot in a dark time. Every day those green patches of grass expanded and shrubs blossomed.

One afternoon when David didn't need me, I took the Metro subway to the National Mall. I walked to the Washington Monument, then to the Jefferson Memorial, and around the Tidal Basin. A cherry blossom canopy floated above me. I was walking among pink clouds and it was glorious.

When our kids were young, we spent many an April vacation driving to Bethesda. The contrast, especially from Manchester, New Hampshire, where we lived for seven years, was striking. In April New Hampshire had barely emerged from winter. All the tree branches and limbs were still bare. In Connecticut the yellow of forsythias dotted the landscape.

Flowering shrubs and trees appeared in New Jersey. Bethesda was in full bloom.

A week later we backtracked, and Spring reversed herself until we were back in the land of bare limbs. But Spring was coming: we’d seen it approaching from the South.

My trip back to Boston last Saturday started out slowly, literally. Through my own fault (I forgottten my brand-new cherry-blossom umbrella behind and couldn’t bear to leave it behind) I arrived at the Amtrak gate one minute past closing. Happily a Northeast Regional was due to leave only 25 minutes later. Even though I had missed my train through my own fault, Amtrak graciously exchanged my ticket.

I’m back to bare limbs from cherry blossoms floating above the lawns. But Spring is coming. I’ve seen her approach.