They Do Indeed Grow Up

Ramona (far right) as Mole in "Wind in the Willows" at the end of June.  

Back in July, Warren and I flew west to spend time with my sons and their families. It was the first time we had been out in Portland and Vancouver (WA, not BC) since 2021 and, with the exception of Ben, who flew back in 2023 when I was hospitalized and again in 2024 with Orlando, I had not seen the Pacific NW contingent for four long years.

And that was when the reality of Ramona, who I last saw as a little girl, hit me: she grew up.

Oh, don't get me wrong. At just 13, Ramona is a teenager, not an adult. But what I mean by "she grew up" is that she was no longer the elementary-age girl who talked and giggled and shared Lego creations and her favorite books (MS level, for the most part) and was, basically, still a little girl back in 2021. And even though I had seen photos over the years, and talked on the phone occasionally with Ramona, it had not sunk in that she was no longer that little girl. 

Nope, nope, nope. Ramona grew up. So much so, in fact, that it took the two of us a few days to figure out how to talk with one another. We finally found a topic that worked for us both: writing, especially writing poetry. She is passionate about the creative writing track at her school, Vancouver School of Arts and Academics, and it was a joy to talk with my new-to-me granddaughter about writing.

Yesterday that same reality that children grow up hit me in the face again. We attended a reception for longtime friend Marilyn, who just turned 91. Marilyn was Ben's preschool teacher for 9 months when we first moved back to Delaware; my connections with her go back even farther (her oldest child was a year behind me in high school). We arrived, signed in, stood looking at the people in attendance, talked with a few, including one whose son had run around with my Sam during their middle school ages ("How did our boys get to be 35, April? How?") and then a young man walked up to me to welcome me and introduce himself. 

"I'm Marilyn's grandson, Beau."

Oh. My. God. Beau. 

"Beau! I'm sorry. I last saw you when you were...maybe three?" I held out my right hand and lowered it from his probable height close to six feet down to nearer my knees, bending my knees to move my hand down. 

Beau smiled and bent his knees down too. Then we both stood back up, laughing a bit.

"Yeah, I know. I grew up."

He and I then had a wonderful short conversation about who he has become, what his life holds, and such. He has a deep commitment to family and taking care of people (a father with health issues, his aging grandmother, a job that involves assisting someone with dementia). I told him that I admired his values and then said, "Let me speak as an elder to you, which I am." We both grinned. "Save some time for yourself."

Beau lit up. "I know! I have learned that when I don't, I get worn down and sad."

We then talked about where Warren and I lived (because I told him that Marilyn and I mail postcards to one another, even though we live about five blocks apart) and he lit up again. "I love your neighborhood," he said, adding that he really loved the diversity of homes in our part of town, then making a disparaging comment about homes in new subdivisions looking all the same.

I cracked up. Telling him that I was a retired lawyer who did a lot of zoning and development law in my day, I explained to him that when developers submit their plans, they spell out in the plan the pattern of facades on the houses, typically either a 3-house or 4-house pattern: a stone veneer facade, a brick veneer facade, a clapboard facade, repeat. 

"Next time you are thinking about it, Beau, drive through one of our local subdivisions and count the facade types. You'll see the pattern really fast." 

He grinned and nodded his head. "I will, I will!"

We finished talking, Warren and I talked with a few others, including the Ancient Birthday Girl (Marilyn's term, not mine), we sampled some of the pies made by a friend (the key lime was superb), and then left. As we walked away, I reflected on meeting and talking with Beau, then thought back to July and Ramona.

Children grow up. Indeed they do.

And that is a thing of wonder.

Indeed It Came

While not a major storm, it did indeed snow last night. Let's just say I am glad we got the garden down. This was the view out our bedroom window this morning:

It is unlikely we"ll be eating outside until, oh, maybe next spring:

Table for one? Or two? Or...none? 

Winter poses its own issues: colder (need more heat inside) and slipperier (need more caution outside) being two of the top ones. It was winter when I took the spectacular fall that left my wrist in pieces, after all. 

But, for me, winter's gifts outweigh its disadvantages. They always have. I savor the quiet outside (snow is a great silencer). I relish the early evenings and the warmth of our living room: literally and figuratively. 

I love winter. 

Yes, I know we are still about six weeks from the official start of winter. Here in central Ohio, after the next few wintry days, we are supposed to have weather back in the 50s, proper fall temperatures. Many trees are still holding onto their leaves, although certainly this snow interlude will hurry that process along. I will deeply appreciate those autumn days when they return, trust me. 

But for now, I am savoring the touch of snow and the hint of what is to come:

It's all good. 

This Year's Gardens: Last Chapter

The garden is down.

The garden is officially down and 2025 outside is done, done, done.

We have had a few "light frost" nights and for those we brought some potted plants in from the deck and covered the larger planters and the vegetables. But Sunday is bringing rain changing to snow and temperatures down in the 20s.

The vegetable garden covered

No amount of covering is going to stave off temperatures in the 20s. In short, the 2025 gardening season is over. 

I tackled taking down the vegetable garden.  We had already taken down the Hej Garden back in August, so at least that was out of the way. Given all of the demands on our schedules this fall, and given my currently working through depression, I thought throwing myself into some basic outdoor work would do me good. And it did. I worked an hour and a half on Thursday and two hours on Friday, with good results both emotionally and garden-wise.

I started on the wild jungle of tomatoes. Originally, I had planted three (3!) larger tomato plants and four (4!) cherry tomato plants. Easy, right? Way less than in recent years, right? What I did not count on was all the "other" factors that impacted the garden: my hospitalization in June, for example. Nor did I expect the cherry tomatoes to go hog wild and grow up and over and around EVERYTHING. The three larger tomatoes, in the front row, became lost in the cherry vines. Even with both careful pruning and wholesale hacking on my part, the cherry tomatoes took over everything they could, going all the way over to the garage wall in their exuberance. So I knew before starting that I had a bit of a chore ahead of me.

"A bit of a chore." There's an understatement.

I also knew before wading into the garden that there were still cherries ripening and coming on, so I took along our dishpan to put them in. It filled up:

I also knew this project would generate a lot of yard waste and I was not mistaken on that front either:

The first of two containers

At the end of the Thursday afternoon session, I figured I was about halfway through the tomatoes with the peppers and basil yet to go. I had been at Justice Bus from 9:00 to 2:00 that day already, so I was pleased I had enough energy to get even that far. I also knew I wanted to finish it off on Friday, and so set my sights on getting an early start.

At 7:45 the next morning, I went outside and surveyed the scene. What if I start on the peppers first? I had planted 14 plants back in May, 13 of which were still intact. (The 14th? I had stepped on it way back in the late spring.)  As I had with the first attack on the tomatoes, I made sure to pick all the remaining peppers from the vines. Let's just say there were a lot. A. LOT.

Peppers! 

Plant by plant, I picked and pulled. The stakes piled up. So did the yard waste.

But I finished the peppers and yanked the basil. That left the remaining tomatoes. Again, I gathered many of them, red and green. (An aside: Why the green ones? Two reasons: (1) some of them will ripen inside, and (2) I may (may) make green tomato relish again this year. Maybe. We'll see.)

There were a lot of tomato vines: 

What made me smile the most was coming across several vines still putting out blossoms, letting me know that hope springs eternal even in a tomato plant:

Blossoms on the tomato vines

By the end of the two hours, I had completely filled both yard waste containers. In fact, there was some plants, mostly the basil (which died earlier, even covered; basil does NOT like cold temperatures) that I will go out later today and bag up. While I out there working, I took down the wind chimes and, of course, brought in the ceramics from Ben and Sam long long ago.

The chimes on the deck waiting to go inside

The ceramics ready to move inside

(In case you are wondering or remembering, the pottery fish that got broken back in June after a storm has been gracing our kitchen table ever since.) 

Next week, after the initial cold blast is over, I will go back out and rake things around. The zinnias and the agastache I will leave until the early spring, but everything else is gone gone gone.

All that is left to bag up

Over the next few days, I will look through my gardening notebook and make some notes following up from my earlier decision to rein in the gardens and just do the kitchen garden in 2026. Things to think about, things to remember, things to swirl around in my mind. I have peppers to cut and freeze. I have to make a decision about the green tomato relish. 

And I will enjoy every last bite of every last ripe tomato, grateful for the very last tomatoes until next summer's garden. 

P.S. After I wrote the above words, I went outside and finished bagging the vines, basil, and miscellaneous stalks, filling a yard waste bag. I then brought in the remaining gardening and summer items on and around our deck: the watering can, two stray pots, the deck chimes (not to be confused with the wind chimes), and such. I carried them down to the basement, making multiple trips. There are four pots of flowers we are wintering over inside, so I made room for those and brought them in; the other four pots (two LARGE deck planters make up half of that) will stay outside and end their season in a few days. The bees are gone; I have not seen one, despite the sunshine or warmth of the day, for over a week. As I type these words, Warren just mowed the backyard one last time. 

Time for winter.

The Moon, The Moon

Photo by Abdullah Ahmad on Unsplash

 

Warren and I went to see Macbeth last night, which the OWU Theater Department was staging. Macbeth is my very favorite work by Shakespeare and I was excited to see it performed live.

Yesterday was a rainy, cold, gray day. Before going to the play, we ran an errand nearby, getting in and out of the car quickly. Clouds were scudding overhead and both of us, looking up into the darkening sky, said, almost simultaneously, "There's the moon." 

And indeed, there was the moon, well on its way to a full moon next week, hazy behind a scrim of clouds. 

As Warren knows well, I am drawn to the moon: not as an astronomical feature, not as an astrological predictor, but just because it is the moon. I have been tracking it in the sky for decades, seeing it in its different phases from various points from the east coast to the west coast, but mostly from my own backyard.

I love the moon.

Shakespeare noted the moon more than once in his works. The one most quoted is when Romeo prepares to swear his love to Juliet by the moon and she admonishes him:

O, swear not by the moon, th'inconstant moon,

That monthly changes in her circled orb,                      

Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

October's full moon was a super moon, rising even larger and brighter than a regular full moon, because the moon was closer to the earth than usual. In writing to my friend Tani, I referenced Juliet's lines and said that if ever there was a teenager's naive statement, it was hers. The moon inconstant? The one thing the moon is, "in her circled orb," is very constant. Yes, the moon changes its phases, but it is always, always constant.

It is not coincidence that both the Jewish and the Muslim calendar are lunar calendars. 

As we exited the play last night, the night was darker and colder. (The theater was cold too, so both of us were chilled even before we opened the exit door.)  We were parked within a half block of the theater, and the walk was cold, wet, and mercifully short. All the same, before we got into the car, we both looked up and once again saw the moon, misty and hazy, but all the same there.

In Act 2, Scene 1 of Macbeth, Fleance says to his father, "The moon is down." 

It wasn't last night. 

It's a Good Life

In the tangle, still some tomatoes! 

"It's a good life," my dad said as he and I parted today, Dad to go up to lunch in the dining room and me to walk home.

I about fell over when he said that, but recovered quickly enough to say, "It is indeed. See you soon." My surprise was that I had never ever heard him say anything even remotely resembling that thought. But he clearly meant it and today I needed to hear that message. 

My morning emotions started out grayer than they have been as of late (and they have not been bright and sunny in recent days). How gray? I got ready to walk out the door to run an early morning errand, then came to a standstill in our living room. I took the car keys out of my pocket and took off my jacket. I plopped down on a chair and called up to Warren, "I'm not going to Kroger." "Are you okay?" "No." Warren came down the stairs with concern. "What's wrong?" "I feel like I'm ready to cry."

No specific reason. I was just ready to cry.

I did not cry. I "pulled myself together" and did some small chores: collecting all the fans we had used during the summer (five total) to ready them for their winter hiatus in our attic; collecting, folding, and putting away the fabric we use on our east and west windows in the summer to cut down on the direct heat from the bright sun (nine pieces total). Then I walked to Dad's apartment and spent time with him until, as I got ready to leave, he surprised me with his comment about this being a good life.

I thought about my dad's words as I walked home. The sun was out, the temperature was cool, fall is definitely setting in.  Just being outside in the sun lifted some of the grayness. I ran into one of my long-ago DI kids, now on the edge of 40 (40? How did these kids get to be 40?) and we hugged one another. "Tell Ben I said hi," she said as we parted.

Warren was getting ready to leave for class when I walked through the door, so talk was brief and most of it would have to wait. I did manage to tell him what Dad said about it being a good life, and Warren smiled. "Sure is."

After Warren drove off, I could feel the grayness starting to gather again. So after a quick lunch, I focused on concrete tasks, some inside and some outside. After starting a load of towels, I retreated to the kitchen garden and spent time in bee therapy. There were not a lot of bees in the basil today, but the ones that were there were hard at work. As for me, after sitting on the bee stool for a bit, I turned to my own outside tasks. Okay, I was not collecting pollen, but I did trim and clear out overgrown tomato vines, as well as repair the bee stool (it had come into our life broken). Will the duct tape hold it until the bees are gone for the season? Probably.

Somewhere between cutting and cleaning out many of the overgrown tomato vines (and finding more tomatoes within) and folding the now dry laundry, the grayness lifted a little more.

It is late in the evening as I type these words. Other obligations and events filled the rest of the afternoon and early evening. I have stayed steady. The big event was a community gathering to discuss food, food security, food insecurity. It was an emotional discussion for those of us in the room (some representing local non-profits, others there because of their own passion and commitment to help others). It is a topic close to my heart. In many ways, it was the absolute best way for me to spend an hour, talking with others (we broke into groups) about how this community (our city, Delaware) both sees and does not see the hurdles and issues for making sure all have access to food and, in a larger sense, all are welcome at the table. Warren was there beside me, adding his observations about the greater community and its needs. I saw familiar faces, I saw new faces, and it was a welcome and needed affirmation that giving my time and heart to this community is what sustains and feeds me.

Afterwards, we ran that Kroger errand I had set aside this morning. It was cold, it was rainy, we were both chilled and exhausted. "Turn into KFC," I said. "We need something warm and ready to eat." [Note: Yes, KFC is a guilty pleasure that we very occasionally indulge in.] Once home, we hurried into the house, turned on the furnace for the first time this fall, and ate our supper quietly, grateful for the heat, the warm food, and, most important, one another.

It IS a good life. 

Bee Therapy

My basil patch in full flower

I have been writing a lot (A. Lot.) lately about focusing on small things to center myself. There is a lot of noise and overload on many fronts, and some large family matters (my side of the family) that have really hit hard and, in my case, triggered my PTSD. Warren has been giving me support and comfort; we earlier this month passed our 17th wedding anniversary and I am daily aware of how much light and joy and love and strength he gives me. 

Even without a wedding anniversary, I am so grateful for what he has given me; he lifts me up. All the same, and this is one of those times, I sometimes stumble and fall back into those outside matters. So I think I caught him a little off guard yesterday when I said that I had thought of maybe going back to therapy.

After saying that out loud (as things sound different when spoken outside of our head), I thought back to the things I had learned 22+ years ago with my brilliant therapist. Can I do this, "this" being work through where I am, using those lessons? 

Later that afternoon, as I turned over the therapy question in my mind, I said to Warren, "I have an idea of how to move forward." 

Warren looked at me. "And...?"

"Bee therapy."

Bee therapy? Yes, bee therapy. 

I always let the basil patch go to flower in the fall and this year is no exception. As we move deeper into the fall, the bees take over the basil flowers.

So after announcing that, I grabbed a garden stool (thank you, Amanda!) and set it in the garden in the recently cleared lettuce patch, which is right next to the basil patch. I then sat down and waited.

But not for long. 

A Sunday bee

At this time of year, in the basil patch, bees fly in, bees fly out. Bees burrow their heads deep in the basil flowers then pull out, go sideways or up or down to another. Repeat.

I repeated therapy again today, albeit early afternoon when the sun was on the patch and it was considerably warmer. Yesterday in the cooling air there were perhaps a half-dozen bees. Today, in the full sun, I counted over two dozen. 

A bee today

Bee therapy.

As I watch them and their singular focus, my mind slows down. My body relaxes. Bit by bit, I find myself letting go of the emotional bundle I am holding.

I hope we are in for a very long autumn. As I mentioned in my last post, we just had our first frost. It was a light one, but frost is frost. I know at some point the bees will disappear for the year. Some of them are already showing their lifespan is growing short.  I even petted a bee yesterday. It had landed on a stem before I got out there and was clearly too tired and worn to lift off. I touched it very gently and it wiggled, slowly, one antenna, but did not move.  

Bee therapy. Who knew? 

"I'm ready for my closeup..."

Taking Stock

The zinnias are still in bloom; this was earlier this summer

Last October 1st, I wrote about inventorying the food in our freezer, thinking, smugly, "well, of course I know what we have in our freezer. Sheesh." And, as I confessed in that post, I clearly had no idea of what was in our freezer.

As September wore down and I started looking ahead to the coming winter, I thought maybe I should take a look in our downstairs freezer and see where we stood. It was only by pure serendipity that I came so close in time to the 2024 inventory (which was, admittedly, spurred in no small part as a result of emptying out my father's house when he moved in Assisted Living  and I came to see just how much STUFF he had in the house). So I blithely went down to the basement freezer and started moving, reorganizing, and counting up what it held. And, no surprise, I was just as stunned this year as I was last year. 

I dictated into my Notes on my phone and even a few weeks later, my discoveries crack me up:

Freezer notes

Other than 6 quart bags of historic apples, no apples.

7 quart bags of sliced onions.

Two bags of frozen turkey for justice bus.

Eight bags of hamburger buns for justice bus.

10 quarts of corn kernels; two additional bags of what looks to be corn kernels, frozen and smaller quantity probably for corn bacon quiche.

22 quart bags of zucchini and squash. Wow!! Far more than I hoped for!

6 quart bags of chopped sweet peppers, plus a gallon bag holding five individual small baggies of chopped sweet peppers.

11 Packages of chicken thighs, two each. Three packages of sliced turkey for sandwiches.

3 quart containers of already made navy bean soup. 

In frozen quartz containers: black bean soup, turkey/vegetable stock with note great for dumplings, lentil/onion soup, chicken stew (that would be from Boysel’s) chicken stew (small container, same source) 2 quart containers of meat stock/broth: maybe chicken?. Plus another quart of turkey broth in a quart container.

One pack of boneless chops.

Stopped inventorying all the ham slices packages, because arm started bleeding and I need to stop! [Note: I have fragile skin. A prior skin tear opened up while I was moving packages and containers around. All is well.]

But certainly far more than I did hope and feeling much more optimistic about getting through the winter for, truly, pretty cheaply while eating well. And we are still looking at local harvest: I have a lot of peppers in the garden, apples are coming into season. With luck, I can buy a lot of markdowns those at Kroger so the pies I make for Jaime and everyone else won't break us. [End of notes]

And since that inventory, we indeed have added apples (marked down, of course), 10 pounds of butter (a stunning sale that came out to $2.85/pound after applying a coupon to the sale price), homemade chicken broth, and more chicken thighs. We have FAR more zucchini stashed away than I had dreamed, which pleases me to no end. So I am not worried about what the fall and winter hold for us. Taking (some) stock of our food was productive and gives us both an idea of where we are. (And following up on the freezer, I did a partial inventorying of our pantry of foods: dried beans, rices, cereal, and so on. All is pretty solid there too.)

Taking stock of our freezer made me think about myself and about taking stock of where I am. As I have noted, the last several months have been overloaded, not always in bad ways, mind you, but overly full. At times, I feel as if Warren (who is also very busy given his business, his playing, and his new teaching duties) and I see each other in quick passings, and both of us are making an effort to find time each day to shut out everything else and just connect. 

As to the issues and demands personal to my time, I am still sifting through them. I even made a very, very rough "diagram" with categories such as "HAVE TO," "Do B/C Important," "SHOULD/NEED," and "Important/WANT TO." There are some items I cannot change, primarily that I am the sole adult child responsible for my father (HAVE TO). He is thriving in Assisted Living, which is great and a huge relief for all of us. But I am the one running the errands, handling his needs, and while I do not resent any of it, it can be exhausting. I am still recovering from the unexpected June hospitalization, doing well, but watching my health issues (SHOULD/NEED) and having to accept that the likelihood of my ever regaining my pre-hospitalization strength and energy is slim to none. (Probably none.) I am walking regularly, albeit not at my pre-hospitalization speeds (again, gone) and that is a plus. You get the idea.

I even noted I wanted to write more, bake more, do more photography, spend more time with Warren (Important/WANT TO). I even wrote "Travel??????????" 

In my last post, written as Yom Kippur came to an end, I wrote about how to move into the New Year with my putting more focus on repairing the broken threads of the world: "world" being this community and pieces of my life that I could do better at threading together. And maybe that's where I am in taking stock. 

We had our first light frost of the season last night. Warren and I covered the tomatoes, the peppers, and the deck planters with sheets. I am glad we did; there are still vegetables to ripen. There are still flowers to sit outside and marvel at. There is still time to watch the bees mine the flowers, the butterflies dance, and the small birds fly in and our of the garden. 

Small moments, little bits. All precious.