We quiver inside our shocked fur

I've seen a half dozen hummingbirds in the last two weeks, enticed by my prolific red bee balm, one of which hovered in the air like a little AI creation, 18 inches from my face, and I swear looked me in the eye.

Oh the dinosaur blue jays, a crow mama and teenage baby calling for peanuts, dozens of sparrows startled out of the rain-dampened grass when I open the screen door, little goldfinches with their shockingly bright feather jackets, a woodpecker diligently working on the remains of the suet (previously ravaged, loudly, by starlings). 

When I look at the garden I see the holes where we need to plant more flowers (tis the season of yellow and red — I need more blue! more purple and pink! more white!). But if I list everything in bloom I'm stunned by it all. Lucky, lucky, lucky.

Especially this past (long) weekend, when Stella and Ben visited and indulged us on an arduous canoe paddle and a wild and stormy boat ride out to Eastern Egg Rock to get a really good look at the puffins nesting there. We also spotted seals, porpoises, and many seabirds. In return, we indulged them with a perfect Red's Dairy Freeze score (4 for 4 nights). Plus there were lobster rolls, bocce, board games, an Eastern Prom food truck picnic, bubble tea, and used bookstores. And the back garden fauna was satisfying too: a rabbit* (first rabbit we've seen in our yard in 25 years); two skunks, flaunting their white-striped tails at twilight (we all yelled SKUNK!!); lots of squirrels.

Seen, but not captured on film, no matter how hard I tried:

Flashing sign at the corner of State and Congress: SNOW HAULING

Alarming the tourists since 1999:

Mark, to Ben and Stella, in line for the puffin cruise: "Did you hear about that humpback whale that flipped a boat over the other day?"

Up top we saw so many puffins!

Below deck there were bodies on the floor.

*I think it's a New England Cottontail

Road Trip

Mark and Gus and I drove fourteen* hours south of here, and there we found spring! We spent a deluxe long weekend with David, Ellen, Stella, Ben, and their good dog Miles. The day we arrived, it was actually hot, hot enough to wipe Gus The Furry out after short walks, hot enough to make us strip off our jackets and scarves and remember what it feels like to sweat a little bit, hot enough for David to present us with the first iced coffee of the year on their sweet front porch. There is a huge pink cherry tree in their back yard, and as you drive along the highway, there are pink and purple and floaty white blossoms mixed in with the pines.

Our host.

I got to spend a whole day with Ben, taking walks and eating snacks and visiting a coffee shop and a comic book store.

Blue skies, grass, trees, Ben.

Ellen and David treated us to live music, too--Sylvan Esso outdoors under a starry sky on a night that felt like August in Maine, and The Mountain Goats--both hometown bands, and great shows.

We ate amazing food, including food truck crêpes outdoors on Easter, tapas with David and Ellen at Glass Half Full before The Mountain Goats, biscuits with eggplant "bacon" and incredible donuts at Rise, more donuts (also incredible) at Monuts, handmade chocolate at Videri, homemade Indian food at Vimala's, and so much more.

We came home knowing it wouldn't actually feel like spring yet, but still it was surreal to drive northeast watching the landscape get increasingly brown and gray, patches of snow start to show through the trees, to get out of the car at a rest area and remember suddenly what it's like to feel freezing (and this happened in Baltimore, not to mention Massachusetts).

I said it on The Book of Faces, and I'll say it again: this is what April 10th, also known as February 69th, looks like in beautiful Portland, Maine.

Ahh, home. I brought a miserable cold/cough home with me, the cough tubercular-sounding enough that Mark dropped me off at the Urgent Care place as soon as we pulled into town yesterday. They did not cure me of this stupid cough (they prescribed some useless medicine, in fact, I say after a sleepless night of croupy coughing), but I did get to have my very first chest X-ray, which didn't reveal anything fishy. And so I cough.







*my lucky number

Winter Gets Cold in Ways You Always Forget

Yawn. We're bored of slush and snow and gloves and boots and itchy socks and cleaning the pellet stove and scraping the car. Actually, I lie: Gus loves the snow so much, he would be happy in Antarctica, I'm sure of it. We persevere, we venture out in our layers and enjoy the sun when it appears and appreciate our warm waterproof footwear and one of us rolls in the snow and eats the snow and buries his whole head in the snow with joy.

And then we all come inside and take a nap.

My brother David was in Boston for work briefly, and he brought the sweeties with him to hang out with my mom and dad. I drove down there on Saturday to play with them for a day, and it was wonderful.

We had brunch at Clover Food Lab, where Stella and Ben got to work drawing pictures and we all ate delicious popovers and fruit salad and drank perfect coffee. We strolled around Cambridge in the sunshine, played at a funky playground, and got some quality hide-and-seek time in back at Mom and Dad's condo.

 (That's my sweet brother, not standing in front of a dart board or modern torture device.)

Okay, March, let's go. Let's march together in the direction of sun and growing things and finally putting a different pair of shoes on our feet.

Meander

Don't you just want to jump in that cool, clear water?

Or in one of these kayaks?

We drive around and explore this state, although we gravitate toward the coast always. The way the air feels, the way it tosses your hair around when you roll down the car windows, and in Maine there's this cold thread in the breeze almost always. I imagine it as Canadian, or Arctic, and while I'm not so in love with it in February, in July it's my favorite thing.

This girl. Look how her bindi stays attached to her forehead, despite the fact that where she is, it's like 110 degrees (no hyperbole). Can someone explain the physics of that to me, please? She is so happy, so in love with India and Jaipur and Hindi. There are hiccups here and there, of course, but the balance of


me missing her
____________

her happiness


...it just works. I can't help but mention, however, that she comes home in less than a month. For nearly a week.

And this boy, pictured here with his adoring cousin Stella. He went to North Carolina for a week of design camp and cousin-wrangling, and now we've got him back.

We've had cool/warm days and sun and rain at night, books and salads and cold drinks and movies and plays. I am a little obsessed with Instagram after months of resistance (even more so now that both of my bruddies and my mom and dad are using it--not to mention Mark and Max). You can see my Instagram photos all in one fell swoop right here, and I am mulling over Printstagram too.

Pride Rock

I dreamed that I was worried about Isaac, who had gone off in the cold with Stella and a very small dog. I couldn't find him, Mark, or Ellen in my cell phone contacts, and I couldn't remember their numbers. Meanwhile, the floors of my house were sagging so that you had to walk only where there were supporting beams underneath. I found that there was solid floor in a little hallway, and also a blast of warm air from a radiator (I was freezing in my dream), so I sat there to check my phone again and found I had an email from Zoë. She reported that she had taken a little side trip to somewhere in Africa for a few weeks, staying "at the very top of Pride Rock!" She said that she kind of wished she were at the bottom, though, where "the daffodils are always blooming." She also said, "If Africa were a monkey, I'd only know as much as the very tip of its tail." Isaac's friend Anthony came to the door with an ax, asking if we had any firewood. I told him we didn't, but to "chop up anything you want."

give it to someone special

although this dog-of-the-day* will be vacationing at a north carolina dog spa over the holiday, i will get to see his buddy stella the day after tomorrow!



*miles, redux. as i mentioned, i am running out of dogs!

so much depends upon*

home! after a wonderful week in north carolina with the sweeties. here's one sweetie, david and ellen's long-suffering oldest child, miles. i like this picture because he looks so happy and silly. and look at his racoon-ish paws.

the newest sweetie, little ben. i want to call him "small baby," or "this baby," the way zoë's hindi teacher, rita, referred to her own baby. as in, "here, you take this baby."

my stella, who only paused briefly in front of the butterfly house sign before running to the dinosaur exhibit when we visited the fabulous museum of life and science. check out her jazz hands!

i always love to go to caffe driade when i'm in chapel hill -- they have such good coffee (they know exactly how to make an iced americano, for example, with perfect espresso shots), and this time we got to interact with the scary CHAI GUY, who yells at you if you order chai, to make sure you know that they don't serve the kind that comes from a box, and that if that's the kind you want, you're stupid. i identified him because of this interaction:

david: i'd like a latte, please, but not in a bowl.
chai guy: oh, you don't want it in a bowl. well, what do you want it in, then?
david: oh, whatever -- a glass, or a to-go cup.
chai guy: well, i'm not very good at making decisions. so...
david: a glass, i guess.
chai guy: okay. you want a latte. in a glass.

so then, after you've recovered from something like that, you get to sit outside on their beautiful woodsy patio, surrounded by twittering birds, by which i mean actual birds, making bird sounds. all the birds in north carolina are loud and bright.

one night, david and ellen's friend joyce had a party at her house in durham. she has a vast backyard full of perennials and vegetables and chickens. below, joyce and baby oliver. below that, gratuitous photos of various chickens.

you know what i like about where david and ellen live? there are so many places to sit outside while you eat or drink coffee. we did that many times last week, including parker and otis in durham. here are ellen and ben sitting on the porch.

many more photos here. and here's my advice, re: train travel. if you have the extra time, DO IT. just bring good snacks and your dad's ipad. sometimes i had a seat mate, but at other times i had the whole thing to myself. talk about leg room.

so, back to wearing sweaters for a while, but i apparently missed an entire week of rain, so things are green and kind of glowing here, through the fog. and on friday, my baby boy turns fifteen.

*red wheelbarrow, white chickens, et al.

carolina

i'm in north carolina visiting my sweetie stella kate and her new baby brother ben.* rumor has it that i'm missing some cold, gray, damp weather back home in maine, which is nice, but the nicest thing is waking up every morning to this smiling face, hearing her sweet voice say, "IZZIE!" she's a sunshiney girl, for sure. and her baby brother's pretty cute too - below, ben with his superhero mom.

i'm here to "help," although there have been plenty of moments i've drawn a complete blank on all things baby-and-child. what DO you do when both kids are screaming simultaneously (that only happened once)? etc. it was a long time ago that i slung isaac over my shoulder while sitting on the floor playing with zoe and her lion king guys. anyway, i'm doing my best to be helpful, but mostly it's just fun to hang out with these two and their amazing parents.

*i traveled here on a train, which was awesome. dad loaned me his ipad, i packed exactly the right snacks, my seat was incredibly comfortable, the view was lovely, and the hours flew by.

the whole dream of these things

my brand new sweetie was born yesterday -- my nephew benjamin ewan woodbury!

david and ellen make cute babies, don't they? i can't wait to meet ben, and i can't wait to see stella in the role of big sister. in a few weeks, i'm heading down to chapel hill to squeeze this baby and his sister (and his parents)!

stella's day out

isaac and i took the bus to boston yesterday to spend a day playing with stella, who was visiting with her mom and dad and their friend caroline. doesn't she get cuter by the second? it was such a treat to spend a day with her!

stella

she came to visit us this weekend with her mom and dad. we spent a lot of time drawing with markers, reading books, and playing with the small collection of playmobil 1-2-3 toys we wisely saved for just such an occasion.






















it rained on and off all weekend, but we took advantage of a few dry hours and ventured over to deering oaks and the (relatively) new playground. stella approved of the slides and various bouncy things.






















especially the bouncy lobster. or anything involving isaac.






















i MISS her. and her mom and dad, too.

stella stella stella

my sweetie, stella, came to visit this weekend!

it was pretty much all stella, all the time, because...just look at that face. she is such a cutie pie. below, stella in handcuffs (courtesy of her father. don't worry, she's a baby houdini).

saturday turned out to be a gorgeous, if chilly, day. we walked around the old port, and my bruddy got to try the coffee at both arabica and bard. he also bought us a huge box of standard baking treats, perhaps his favorite portland edibles.

my theory: one day, every american will come with his or her own iphone. kind of like a social security number.

saturday night we had a big pizza party at eva and nathan's house. emily and family were there, and their sister abby was in town with her husband joel. i can't adequately describe the connection between our families, but it goes back years and years, and i find it pretty magical that eva and emily and i all ended up in maine. abby and david were best friends in elementary school. now there are a bunch of offspring, too.

so, much of the evening consisted of a blur of babies (below, stella is still and esme runs by in the background).

then the clothes came off and the babies got really crazy. i tried in vain to capture it on film. doesn't it look like esme is doing some strange tribal dance?

babies, and their admirers.

i miss that girl and her parents already - only two months til christmas!

stella!

she's home!

we did it. we got our mädchen! we were an hour and a half early at the hotel in virginia, we were so excited. we killed some time and then went inside, where we waited with many other anxious parents in the lobby. finally, she emerged, looking like the most wonderful sight we'd ever seen. here, m and boo wait and wait:
























me, finally getting to put my hands on that girl. i can't even tell you how many times i hugged her in the first hour (and three days later, i'm still touching her every chance i get. she's very indulgent).
























m, ditto:
























she said many goodbyes to the other cbyx kids, and then they let us take her away with us! we drove into washington d.c. and went to this vegan bakery, sticky fingers:
























bean and i had wanted to go there forever, and it was fabulous. she had a vegan chili dog, and we all shared some cupcakey delights and iced coffee. this whole time she was telling us about her adventure and the details of her trip home, describing saying goodbye to her family, showing us photos, giving us gifts, laughing, and crying:



















we spent a couple of days in baltimore, where we walked around fell's point:



















and celebrated stella's first birthday:



















with ellen's parents (who graciously hosted us the whole time we were in baltimore) and a select few of stella's grownup friends:
























bean gave me many presents, including this adorable cake cookbook, which has a gnome theme:



















our last stop before arriving home was cambridge. bean and minnow were reunited, and she hugged a couple of happy grandparents. we ate indian food and toscanini's ice cream. bean had a moxie float, which made her very happy:
























bean and my mom:
























i neglected to photograph many other poignant reunions (with artemis, flora, miss gliss, the dancer lady, the sports fan, animal lover, and enoch), as well as a massive banner that was taped to the side of our house when we pulled up in the driveway (made by artemis and flora). she spent the whole day yesterday with friends, walking to arabica, watching movies, eating dinner, playing games. last night was the first she spent in her own bed in nearly a year. oh, did i mention that the girl is fluent in german? our favorite thing is when she talks and talks and talks in german and we just listen, amazed and delighted. one of her highest priorities right now is to find ways to continue to speak, in addition to the german class she'll be taking in the fall at usm. boo and i have made a renewed pledge to work our way through the rosetta stone german program, too.


one moment i can't believe she's really here, and the next it's like she never left.

and finally, here is an appropriate poem my dad sent me, by pat schneider:



Don't go. Don't stay.
Daughter. Morning after afternoon
the last year slips away.

Singing all the old songs, you will go
(ambivalence of moon, certainty of sun)
we know

only half of what we are.
The earth is earth to us, star
perhaps

if apprehended far enough away.
Daughter – don't go.
Don't stay.





"To A High School Senior" by Pat Schneider, from Long Way Home. © Amherst Writers & Artists Press, 1993