oh, how the days are tumbling into one another!

This weekend we went to a gathering of the clans.

There were beautiful tartans everywhere...

and handmade things from a proud heritage...

and sheepdog trials that had us under the spell of

BORDER COLLIES 

for hours under the blazing August sun.

(We may have been to the Border Collie rescue site once or twice since then).

Manicured gardens, highway medians and open fields are

filled with this sweetest of wildflowers,

the humble black-eyed-Susan.

The gardens are rushing at the end of the season, 

ripening and showing off and 

keeping us busy with the harvest basket.

Our four grown children all work at jobs that 

are anchored by the academic calendar.

I do not miss the epic back to school shopping we

used to undertake, each child with their long and lanky limbs

that would challenge us in the fitting rooms. 

I do not miss packing four lunches every morning.

I do not miss the scramble to find misplaced sheet music, 

an umbrella or occasional project related empty shoebox.

I do miss the tumble in the back door at the end of the day,

filled with news from the playground, the newly discovered

author or groans about homework.

And the perennial question, "What's for a snack?"

So I will listen for the rumble of the school bus

 here on our dirt road in Vermont and send out 

some hope and good cheer to the neighbor kids...

...and to our own four,

Stewart, teaching high school sophomores in the Pacific Northwest.

Lindsey, in Boston, mentoring

 "young people short on opportunity and long on potential".

Hannah, taking on an Upper School deanship, 

teaching and coaching in CT. 

Gretta, teaching science and helping in a school office in Brooklyn...

I send all of you strength and courage to shape the future.

xo

And to you, dear readers, I am deeply grateful for the love and support you gifted me with on my last post. As Ram Dass has said, "We're all just walking each other home." I am so glad to be in your good company.