LeapNow!
Over the next two weeks, there will be an influx of young men and women into our home. They will be staying for 1 day up to 2+ weeks. They’re all alumni of a program called LeapNow, in which they spend one college semester as a group traveling through foreign countries, then another semester in a solo, independent internship of their choosing, anywhere in the world. Some of the first semester choices include Thailand, Bali, and India. My daughter, Jessica, participated in the program which began in 2006 and ended June 2007. They spent 3 months in Latin America, participating in turtle tagging and eco-farming in Costa Rica, home-stays in Honduras and Guatemala, as well as community work wherever they lived. Jess learned that the best way for her to teach English was through her singing-of American songs! During their travels, they were assigned traditional coursework as well as writing of their experiences and introspective evaluations. At completion, the parents participate in a weekend of powerful ceremony.
This is the first of their annual reunions. I feel lucky, as we live near the college, so all the other students fly into our area-that’s why they stay here before and after the reunion weekend. I saw them between semesters last year, and was able to catch up on their lives and learning. One young woman, Callie, lived here for a month before going off to her internship in Australia. She and Jess worked extremely hard in my bookstore, and truly helped with organizing the shelves. In fact, Callie is the person who introduced me to Mary Oliver’s poetry, for which I am incredibly grateful. I cannot wait to see these young adults, and catch up on what they’ve done with their lives~I saw such profound changes in my daughter and the other students during their breaks and after completion.
I’m looking forward to their energy, enthusiasm and stories. Read more about LeapYear here.
Poppy
I planned to write very little personal content on this blog (focus on the book world). But sometimes the personal takes over, as is the case with Poppy. Some stupid driver…well, you can imagine the rest.
Poppy came to us with her mother and seven siblings. My daughter, Eliza, had decided to foster cats from the Humane Society, and asked me to go through training with her. After the training, we anxiously awaited the call. We were given Ella (I know-you’re not supposed to name your fosters), who was emaciated and talkative, and her ten day old babies. She was such a good mother, constantly feeding and looking out for them. The job proved to be too great for her, and she died after a few weeks, leaving us to raise the babies. We were very concerned about the one small girl, who wasn’t strong enough to make her way through the others to feed herself, and was still crawling when others had begun to jump and run. We fed her a special formula and gave her extra attention, and it began to pay off. She eventually grew to be larger than her brothers (OK, plump), and we found she had the most loving, gentle disposition of them all.
We already had four cats of our own (never more, as there are four of us, and if there were more of them, they’d out-vote us). You can imagine their reaction as these little ones began to waddle, then walk, then run and slide on the wood floors. A bit disdainful at first, the older cats accepted them and joined in the fun. When it was time to return them to the Shelter, as they were now ready to be adopted, we decided to keep three: Max, Kinkers and Poppy. We were able to follow the other five as they made their way to new homes.
Naming Max was easy. Kinkers was named because he looked like a kinkaju as a baby~full name: Kinks T. (for Trouble) Bungalow. Poppy went through several iterations before we found the right name. One night, while watching a movie, she stepped in to a bowl of buttered popcorn and overturned it on herself. She was stuck, and when we lifted the bowl, there was this poor little thing covered in butter and popcorn. She got a bath that night. I think that’s the only time I’ve not seen a smile on her face.
Two outstanding things about Poppy: she was the most affectionate, loving cat we’ve ever had, and she also saw things that no one else could see. She’d go off to “PoppyLand” when she got that look in her eyes, and would run off tweaking and dancing in the air, pouncing on invisibles, tail twitching in circles. And that was her: so alive, so full of warmth and humor.
Losing Poppy reminds us of those we’ve lost recently… far too many.
G built a box for her, we laid flowers on her, and buried her way out in the back, with a poem (me), a prayer (E) and a song (J). G recited names of our lost friends. We put on a good funeral here.
She loved her brothers, pouncing on invisible objects, a good snuggle… but most of all, she loved us. We are lucky to have had her.
Poppy snuggling with her brothers (from top: Kinks, Poppy, Max)
April 26, 2006~April 13, 2008
The Journey
I think of the journey women make when they begin to emerge from the daily duties of motherhood into new ventures. And, as children mature, they begin their own journey away (thereby allowing mothers a bit of space and time to emerge)…that doesn’t mean the transition is not painful. J*
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice-
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do-
determined to save
the only life you could save.