to my dad, on his birthday

(Lough Leane, Killarney National Park)

1
It’s Sunday morning. I’ve gone into church early with my dad, and he is typing up some last minute additions to his sermon notes. He is moving quickly and no doubt intends to proofread later, but I am quite concerned about all the typos. I read over his shoulder and announce mistakes. My dad patiently returns to each one and corrects it, graciously allowing me to be his emphatic little third-grade editor.

2
It’s Thanksgiving night, and we’ve had an enormous snowfall. My dad leaves behind adult conversation to make a snowman with my brother and me. We cheer as he rolls the first giant ball of snow. In our obsession, we ask him to keep going, keep going! He huffs and puffs as he rolls and rolls; it gets bigger and bigger. My dad wears himself out so we can have our giant snowball.

3
My dad yells “Goooooooootz!” as I approach the back of the volleyball court. Even though I later ask him to keep it down because serving gives me trouble, I know he’s proud of me. Once I manage a particularly powerful quick ace, and he still talks about it today. My dad is my biggest fan.


(historian, aesthete, teacher)

4
My dad calls me on the phone, and we’re a thousand miles apart. We do this several times a year. He explains in detail the plan he’s devised to get our family all together. He knows exactly how to work the plan most efficiently, and he gets everyone on board. He’s excited about the details, because he’s passionate about his family. My dad loves his people and will do what it takes to be with them.

5
It’s Christmas, and my dad lounges on the couch. A dark-haired, blue-eyed little bundle of a baby sleeps contentedly on his chest. She never sleeps like this with anyone else. My dad is the ultimate Babu.



Happy Birthday, Dad. Thank you for your patience, selflessness, support, generosity, and love. I love you.

i saw it first

A little known fact about me is that I spent the first six years of my life in the countryside outside of Philadelphia. I hope heaven will look a little like our land on Ivy Mills Road. I have so many warm and sparkly memories from that era.

Recently, the masterminds behind Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters started a home and garden shop called Terrain at Styer's. It's been getting a lot of press lately--I first noticed it in Domino. Looks pretty awesome.



I saw this picture and thought, "Hmmm, that looks familiar."



One of my earliest memories took place in this lofted greenhouse. I was walking with my mom, as she picked out potted plants to take home. Oddly, I can still remember that "Constant Cravings" by kd lang was playing (which should ruin the memory, but doesn't).

Styer's has been in Glen Mills for years, right around the corner from our old farmhouse, but it just so happens to be the next big thing in designer gardening.

ghost in the graveyard

(this is a post from my old blog, but i thought i'd post it again. kevin and i drove by my old house yesterday, and i showed him the backyard. there are powerful memories there. i'm wondering where we'll raise our children...)

"richland lane was untrafficked, hushed, planted in great shade trees, and peopled by wonderfully collected children. they were sober, sane, quiet kids, whose older brothers and sisters were away at boarding school or college. every warm night we played organized games--games that were the sweetest part of those sweet years, that long suspended interval between terror and anger.

on the quiet dead-end side street, among the still brick houses under their old ash trees and oaks, we paced out the ritual evenings. i saw us as if from above, even then, even as i stood in place living out my childhood and knowing it, aware of myself as if from above and behind, skinny and exultant on the street. we are silent, waiting or running, spread out on the pale street like chessmen, stilled as priests, relaxed and knowing."

--annie dillard, an american childhood

night games. there was perhaps only one summer when there were enough of us who were the right age, living in the three houses. we lived on a dead-end and our elderly neighbors tolerated us, as we shrieked and counted and occasionally fought till the swooping bats came out for food. it was so good of the sun to stay above the horizon until almost nine o'clock.

these were moments of simple magic--curled up in hiding spots just on the edge of deep woods, caught, running for your life and shaking the moist dirt from your palms; hearing your dad call (reluctantly) that it was time to come in, coming in sweaty and filthy, rapturous; taking a cool shower to cool down, exhausted, falling asleep with cool, wet hair, comfortable and ready. tomorrow you'd ride your bike around your little world, either to stroh's for ice cream or to the tennis club to shake off your shoes and practice flips off the high dive.

"glory be, i thought, during all those weeks, hallelujah, and never told a soul."