Bookends of school year 2017-18

End of summer 2017

September 4, 2017

I had in mind to end the summer with one last visit to the water. I've been seeking water all summer remembering the sand beach in Acadia National Park and the beaches along Lake Ontario. I found a park on the edge of the Hudson in Irvington, NY, about a 20-minute drive north of here. It was in the general direction of the supermarket, my last task of the day on Labor Day so I headed there first. It was a stretch of park right on the river with a clear view looking north to the new Tappan Zee Bridge and south toward New York City. There was a warm wind blowing over the river and several people on sunfish were zipping across the water at a remarkable speed. Well after 3pm and the sun was still high in the sky, bright and warm and creating a glassy, bright reflection on the water.

A strange thing is happening. I am finding company in being alone. It took me at least a year to go to the places where Gregory and I used to go. I worried that it would feel too sad to be alone in places we always shared. On a holiday or a Sunday afternoon we often took off for neighborhoods downtown to browse bookstores or find new coffee shops or gelato. We might drive north along the Hudson stopping in the small villages always imagining what a life in one of those towns with a Main Street would be. I still have that feeling, wanting to browse and roam, but now I go alone. It is where I find him and feel he is with me and though I am without company I never feel completely alone in those moments.

Picking up where I left off at the end of summer 2017:

June 24, 2018
The start of summer 2018, my last school year summer. Emma and Andrew are coming with Felicity and Henry for Maggie's wedding in Sodus. Andrew will head home afterwards, but Emma will stay until September and that means I will have spent 25% of 2018 with Felicity and Henry! Ruby is coming back to Rochester for camp. I hope she's not disappointed to find that the children may have changed. It's the summer between her changing schools. A time to make new friends. Maggie and Tony get married on July 7th in Sodus. Dad turns 100 on August 31st. I'm giving a workshop at a conference in Virginia organized by a classroom from Global Competence Certificate Program on August 18th. We're preparing for the leadership workshop for the HM administrators with Mariama Richards, July 16-18. Busy weeks ahead.

I paid my first month's rent on the apartment in Rochester and am heading up to help paint and figure out how to furnish it. An exciting, but overwhelming, shift in thinking about home that I have been at tug-of-war with.

Gratefully, my summer started this year with a trip to Hawai'i with the music department's 200 students and 25 chaperones. Waking up to the ocean each morning for a week. Walking in the warm air in the evenings. Eating delicious pineapple. Trying poi. A perfect start.