Fogelberg and fireflies

I awoke this morning with a refrain from a Dan Fogelberg song zinging around in my brain. First of all, I don't love Dan Fogelberg. At all. Yuck. Second of all, I was with two serious Dan fans last night, and they had to break out the iTunes and we had to hear snippets of all of those songs. They did teach me that this music was better appreciated when in an altered state, but if I ever wake to that high pitched, bleating voice singing, "love when you can, cry when you have to, be who you are, it's a part of the plan ..." again, I will have to hit something. But, it was a beautiful summer night last night, and I really wanted to talk a bit about this spectacular summer.

Truly , I can't remember a better summer. The weather was sunny, warm, and dry. The tomatoes took over the garden for the very first time, and i just harvested the motherload of all tomatoes:



I even made baba ganouj with our eggplants and dipped our beautiful red and green peppers into the yummy dip. Anyway, both kids were home,employed, and fun to be with.....WOW. And we took a week vacation together in Massachusetts, rediscovering my parents' old place in Duxbury, and it was a perfect week of weather, friends, beach, boats, fish, walks, etc, etc ,etc for all of us.



Finally, we said goodbye to our baby as she stepped over that threshold and became a college freshman at Lehigh University. As you can imagine, I've been thinking a lot about KT (our daughter, Katie). Ok, KT here goes. Readers, please bear with me for a few sentences. KT has some personality traits that have been present since the womb--humor, intelligence, stubbornness, etc. The one I want to talk about is her sense of humor.

She emerged into this world a huge, 10 pound + baby with a shock of black hair standing straight up--we laughed. You looked nothing like the baby that preceded you for awhile. We lived in a tiny house in Chapel Hill, NC for the first 4 years of your life, and you slept on the couch, as our older son slept in the crib still. I remember propping you up into the corner of the couch before you could sit well, and as I went about the morning, you would slowly tip over. Instead of crying, you would begin to laugh, as if the world looked even more entertaining from this new vantage point. This scene replayed itself over and over. It was, as my mother would say, killing. I laughed until I cried and had to change my pants. You laughed more when you saw me laughing.


You sat in my mother's lap and laughed. you sat on the visiting dog and laughed, you pulled your brother's hair and laughed.


We put the two of you in the bathtub, and your incredibly sweet, loving brother who never once was jealous of your hair, would hold you and splash you and the two of you would dissolve into fits of giggles. you always laughed at Will's batman outfit--or just at him, I'm still not sure. We did too:



This easy laughter developed into a sharp wit that got you out of many scrapes and head-butting-teenager behavior with your mother. And it made you such a pleasure to be with. Watching you get ready to leave us and get to your first meeting with your hall advisor (Griffon), was something I'll never forget. You had been so open with all your feelings with us--fear, excitement, sadness, all of it--yet you were funny and brave (with thanks to that big brother again). You embraced us, we shed a few tears, and you turned away with wet eyes that so clearly said, "I'm ready, I love you, I am secure, I can do this, I can't wait to do this, I'm so excited, here I go!" How to be sad about that?

FROM:




TO:




Make 'em laugh, KT, and wow them with all your remarkable gifts.

How about some poetry? I think I'll leave it at just this one. I think it is gorgeous.

Interval (By Jeffrey Harrison)

Sometimes, out of nowhere, it comes back,
that night when, driving home from the city,
having left the nearest streetlight miles behind us,

we lost our way on the back country roads
and found, when we slowed down to read a road sign,
a field alive with the blinking of fireflies,

and we got out and stood there in the darkness,
amazed at their numbers, their scattered sparks
igniting silently in a randomness

that somehow added up to a marvel
both earthly and celestial, the sky
brought down to earth, and brought to life,

a sublunar starscape whose shifting constellations
were a small gift of unexpected astonishment,
luminous signalings leading us away

from thoughts of where we were going
or coming from, the cares that often drive us
relentlessly onward and blind us

to such flickering intervals when moments
are released from their rigid sequence
and burn like airborne embers, floating free.

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