I am sick. Good sick. But sick.

I am so full of the fun I have had in the last month, in the past 3 months. I am as full as a hungry dog after raiding the groceries left on the floor of the kitchen. I am not sure what all I ate, but damn, it was good.
Now I have to lick my chops to sort it all out.
I had Spruce Lake with my sisters, IWWG at Yale with my writing clan, Moon Circle at Kripalu with Merwomen, visits from special friends throughout the summer, evenings at Tanglewood, ups and downs of teenagers and life in the kitchen, sorting my Mom’s belongings with my sisters on a hot Escanaba Saturday afternoon. Then, of course, the wondrous 3 ½ weeks I just spent with our German family. Peppered throughout the days of summer are surprising conversations with my kids, my 5th School of the Womanly Arts graduation with the Mastery class of 2011, and my wedding anniversary. Each are spicy and deceptively exceptional events in my life. There are the many river dips, peaches, tomatoes, basil and blackberries. The revelations about my Mom’s inner life, revealed as we went through boxes of her personal papers which none of us had seen, ever.

Here is the hospital band from my birth.
53 years ago tomorrow.

Do you feel my well of gratitude sinking deeper?

There was loss and sadness this summer. My dearest theatre professor, my director, my teacher, my employer and my life long hero, Dr. James L. Rapport died almost 2 weeks ago. Eloquence flowers on his Face book page. Here in my heart, on my desk, in the moments when I hear his voice with my name in it, I am wrecked with the knowledge of the good fortune I had knowing him and sadness over not seeing him these last few times I have been in his neck of the woods. I was too taken up with my own Mom’s dying. My hours in the UP felt so numbered and I just let myself not see DB, even though that had become our family ritual for 14 years or so with the kids. Bagels with Karlyn and DB in Marquette, far from metropolitan delis’ lox-y cream cheese lunches, there on the windy shores of Lake Superior, we would eat that good food together, lick our fingers and smile at each other.

Tomorrow is my birthday.

Life is running at warp speed here. Major moments are happening with my kids and they blow through us before we have time, make time, stop time to talk it all over.
Today, in an unexpected free afternoon caused by flood waters rising around her school, Catherine and I had time to eat Klondike bars and discuss topics we had skirted until just now, like ‘penetration’ and ‘consent’. She, who claims to know so much, really needs me more than ever to explain and, by stating my thoughts, stand as a dam against the floodwaters of contemporary life that threaten to wash out the foundation of her quiet life.

The bustle of teen-agers under this roof, once a haven of media free life, is now full of Pandora herself, full of other kids, other languages and loud voices. Occasionally it is my voice at a fever pitch, clad only in my jammies, making my point.

I am not, nor will I ever be, a perfect parent.
I make heaping piles of mistakes.
But I do take a Stand.
I have, in concert with my husband, made a stand for how we raise our kids.
Some may disagree.
Some may not believe we could live without a television for so long.
Some can’t believe l let Catherine email.
Some can’t believe I don’t let her on Face book yet. I have ordered her to walk on a crutch for 2 days then tell me how hampered she is by not being able to ‘Friend’ Taylor Lautner.

I thought, before I started writing here, that this post was about enthusiasm.
It still is, but not in the way of extolling the virtues of this most admirable of traits.
I am the first to reward enthusiasm.
I am also the first to notice when that powerful force is running over the banks of decorum or integrity.

It is so hard to stand in this chaos with my 17-year-old stud muffin son who is currently so full of his own noise he can hardly listen to my dissent. He wants me to laugh when I want to stand in my Statue of Liberty pose and allow only what I deem acceptable, honorable and decent behavior to emit from my offspring, the citizens of our home here.

But, in the words of my dear Richard Rogers of Naples, Florida, Ben is already baked and on the cooling rack of his life here in our house. Can I really make a difference by yelling full voice about the state of his bedroom and what he does in there?

You bet the hell I can. And I will until I am ready to stop.

My Mom used to say, “My house, My rules” and boy I hated her for that. I got kicked out only once, but it meant so much to me in that moment to leave her for the freedom of sleeping at my best friend’s house. It also meant so much to me when I was allowed back home.

I get it now, why she did that. My younger sisters were not of the world I had entered. She was, in her fierce complicated way, protecting them while tossing me out of the nest.

Today, with floodwaters rushing though my town, basements filling up with brown water, I will tell you that this year, this year of enthusiasm has carried me to a new level of freedom.

Every one of these people, each event from burlesque class with Kitty Cavalier to Bread and Puppet Circus with Peter Schumann, has cluttered my days with joy, with art, with discussion, argument and peace. The high water mark keeps getting higher, but I pledge to you, my Laundry Line readers to share this bounty with you this month.

I cannot stem the rising waters of my children’s growing.
I cannot still the rushing Green River as it takes over the soccer field at school.
I cannot stop my wondering why my Mom kept from us some of her great love for my Dad.
I cannot stop the days from urging me to awe while still digesting the grand meal of my recent idyll.

Daddy Bear loved enthusiasm. He cast odd people in roles because he could see something others could not yet identify. He saw enthusiasm as an immense possibility to learn and expand. His students soared. He loved teaching “Intro to Theatre” because it was in that gathering of football guys and science nerds that he could see a light flicker on, once those students heard what he had to share about life and art.

Years ago, in a parent evening at my children’s school, in the library which today overlooks a flooded plain, I heard Margaretha Eichenholz say

“Enthusiasm is the light wings that carry us”.

Today I notice those light wings. I hear them beating loudly about my life. I hear them pounding up and down the stairs of this wooden house. I hear them flapping about my art space, around my whole life. The people who have stuck with me all these years, all these 52 years, are people who, like me, value enthusiasm.

And, they have carried me here.
So grateful am I for this mysterious gift.
Happy last day of being 52.

See you tomorrow.
Love, S

Carl von Linne (Linnaeus)

It was a morning like many summer mornings, everyone eating blueberries and toast around the kitchen table. Ben rolled out of bed in time to walk to Driver’s Ed. He asked me to join him.

The morning became instantly unusual. No one saw us holding hands, but we were. He, a wearer of pink and DJ of Euro/Techno/Rap is not one to shy away from public expressions of affection.

For this, I am eternally smitten.

But then, there was the linden.

Down the driveway a scent billowed toward us.
We walked into it.

Because it was early and not many cars on our avenue, we heard the murmur. Answering the predictions of Linne, we paused in the shade of our neighbor’s towering column.

Maybe a million? Maybe 500,000?
An over 3 story tall linden dangling orbs of tiny golden lanterns into which flew bees, many multiples of bees.

And it was their song that stopped us in our hot tracks.
My morning remained unusual. I stepped back up the hill to stand under the tree while Ben was tutored in the ways of road kill and stop signs. I invited anyone I could to take in the scent and the sound.

This day, like no other, yet ordinary as toast.

Looking up to the Linden tree.
Love, S

1. Waking up with a quiet house to write and sketch.

Rumi and the River in my sketchbook.

6. White peaches from Loveapple are in now.
7. Picking red currants with CBB.
8. Rain.
9. Dinner with KAS and our families.
10. This new addition to the Toast Archive:

Bonus Daily Happiness for Kathy Drue from your Playmate:

I just read this as I was waiting for my scanner to work. It is from a yoga magazine from which I tore this quote to use in a collage that is here on my desk:

Reflections of Inner Joy
If you make a habit of this practice, you’ll probably notice how it begins to refine your perceptions, so that over time you find yourself experiencing the life around you with much greater pleasure.

How perfect is that?
Daily Happinesses day two.
How about you?

With affection and red currants, S