I'm in the midst of taking a blogging course from the ever-inspiring Susannah Conway and much of it involves being more open about our lives through our writing. So, taking one of the writing prompts, I'm going to plunge right into the deep end of the pool and share these 12 confessions with you:
We just traded in our aging minivan for...(are you ready for it?)...another minivan. I feel seriously uncool. (On the flip side, I'm at an age where I don't really care if I'm seriously uncool.) I also feel like a "green fraud." But our kids are still young, and we often shuttle around our friends, relatives, and dog, so it just makes the most sense for us right now. Isn't it greener to carpool anyway? (I know, I know...I'm just trying to make myself feel better about driving another minivan.)
I hate peanut butter. Even the faintest whiff of peanuts makes me feel barfy. (Ditto for cashews.) Conversely, I crave rye toast topped with Nutella and fresh strawberries, so it pains me that I can't buy Nutella anymore.
In school, I took three years of French, two years of Spanish, and two years of Italian. As a result, I can now speak a frightfully basic mish-mash of all of them. (Buenos dias, mademoiselle!)
Guilty pleasure: reading Architectural Digest. I know that the featured homes are often ridiculously wasteful and way over-the-top, and what really puts a bee in my bonnet is when a gigantic home featured is not even the primary residence of the owners--it's just a "weekend getaway." But something about flipping through the pages brings me back to my childhood days of constructing elaborate "dream houses" with my Lego blocks. Architects inspire me.
Deep water makes me nervous. I can swim, but I'm just a few notches above doggy-paddling.
Even though I've had a camera in my hands since I was nine years old, I think one of the big reasons that I'm a bit crazed about taking LOTS of pictures is because I watched my father descend into Alzheimer's for 16 very long years and I'm trying to hang on to my memories. (I've got a post brewing on that topic, but I'm taking my time with it. For obvious reasons.)
I can't stand talking on the phone. (This will not be a newsflash to anybody who knows me personally.) If you need to reach me, send me an email and I'll get right back to you. (Well...maybe not right back to you. But I'll get back to you sooner than I'll return a phonecall.)
If I'm at the movies and a preview comes up featuring a period drama set in the English countryside (you know: ladies in bonnets, men in tophats), I've already mentally bought the ticket.
Despite the previous confession, I probably know every word of the movie Valley Girl by heart. I had a big crush on young, indie-film era Nicolas Cage, before he jumped the shark with Face/Off.
Although we strictly limit our kids' screen time, I had a black-and-white portable TV in my bedroom from fourth grade onward, and I watched A LOT of TV shows. (My favorites: Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, The Hardy Boys, Bewitched, The Brady Bunch, and Gilligan's Island.)
It took me until my mid-40's to figure out what I really wanted to do with my life. I feel like I've finally "arrived", teaching online photography courses, and it's thanks to this blog's readers. (Thank you so much for leading me to this path with your kind comments on my photos. Thanks also to Tammy Strobel for starting me on the journey.)
Funny how life has a way of leading us exactly to where we should be, if we listen very carefully to our heart's confessions.
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Bonus confession: You would totally make my day by doing any (or all!) of the following...
Lately I've been reading so many truly lovely blog posts about family, it's been making me feel all mushy-gushy-lovey-dovey inside! So, I thought I would share the delicious mushiness with you here, in a round-up of posts--some funny, some poignant, but all about family. This is one of my very favorite Joyful Reads editions; I hope you enjoy these posts as much as I did. (As always, if you leave comments for the writers on their posts--and why not?--please tell them I sent you their way!)
From Bringing Up Bella (because dogs are an essential part of the family as far as I'm concerned, and rescue dogs are my very favorite breed): You've come a long way, baby
Friday's the day that I normally post "Joyful Reads for the Weekend", but this week has been far from normal (or joyful, for that matter). My blog--along with thousands of other blogs using the Typepad blogging platform--was hijacked by computer hacks. I don't want to get into all of the sordid details, but the FBI and the Typepad team finally cleared up the mess. In the end, I learned a lot more than I ever wanted to know about our dependence on technology and the fragile, vulnerable world in which we live.
During the week, I had on-and-off access to my blog and found myself craving good-old-fashioned photocopies of my favorite posts, in case the whole blog ended up disappearing permanently. It's not that I think my writing is so earth-shattering, it's that many of my posts are about the people, places, and times that are dear to my heart...
So many memories! These posts are not just simple scribbles for me--many of them are like a photographic diary of my life. And for about five days, somebody stole the key to my diary.
If you're an artist of any type--a writer, painter, musician, designer, whatever--I urge you to protect your work. Back it up in as many ways as possible, including low-tech ways. Don't just back it up on your computer. Give copies to your mother and your Aunt Lucy and your cousin Sid so that more than one household houses your work. Take pictures of it. Lock it in a fire-proof safe. License your work for free with Creative Commons. Nothing is 100% safe or lasts forever, but by all means, do whatever you can to protect the things you love. You never know when somebody is going to steal the key to your diary.
The older I get, the more I think about the connections I've made through the years--personally, professionally, with nature, with photography, with the people who are still in my life, and with the people I knew for too short a time. The following posts are all about making meaningful connections. I loved them and I hope you do, too! (If you stop by to comment on these posts, please tell the writers I sent you their way.)
From Tales from a Happy House (because storytime is my current favorite time of day--or rather, night--and these photos capture the moment perfectly): Night Light.
From Life with the Crew (oh my goodness, that baby and that bunny--how sweet are they?): Reconnecting With Nature.
And lastly, it might seem odd to include one of my own posts, but I couldn't have an edition about connections and not include my very first post on this blog, the true story of my deep connection to the woods of my childhood, and more importantly, to my father, who shaped the person I am today: Beyond the Back Yard. I hope you like it.
I feel like I've known the following poem for as long as I can remember, and yet I never tire of it. Robert Frost was one of my father's favorite poets, and this poem always brings back memories of the woods behind my childhood home in Connecticut. If we ventured out far enough into the woods, we would come to a long-forgotten carriage path. I love how a poem has the power to transport us back in time to a place we hold dear and the people who brought us there.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.
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If you've had a relatively happy childhood, I think that in adulthood, you're always trying to recreate or recapture the happy moments, and revisit the special places of your youth--if you can. For my husband, who grew up sailing with his family just north of New York City, he's still at his happiest when he's out on the water, and if he can't be out on the water, he's reading sailing magazines to relax after a long day at work. My own childhood, although also happy, gave me a very different view of peacefulness and personal bliss. Instead of the water, it was the woods.
I grew up in a small town in Connecticut, on a quiet cul-de-sac called Willow Lane--even though there wasn't a single willow tree in sight. Our neighborhood had no shortage of other trees, though, as all of the houses on the north side of the street had the woods to border their back yards, a sprawling range of trees that ran for miles and miles.
My bedroom window faced the forest. Each night, before climbing into my canopy bed, I would stand on my ladybug stool and peer out into the woods. In summer, my nose pressed up against the screen, I could see the little flashes of fireflies, traveling in drunken, weaving patterns around and about the trees. I'd fall asleep to the sound of peepfrogs and wake up to the first bird songs of morning.
About a hundred feet into the woods, just off the well-worn path, was a boulder the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, with the words MAGIC ROCK painted in white capital letters on its side. No one knew who had painted the words, but everyone knew the wishing procedure: Stand atop the boulder, slowly turn around three times, and make a wish--only one wish per forest visit, and no wishing on the way back out!
My sister, eight years my senior, introduced me to the forest. Each December, she would drive me in a wheelbarrow deep into the snowy woods, where we would select the perfect miniature Christmas tree for her bedroom. Carefully, she would dig around its roots, and we would plop the whole package, soil and all, into the wheelbarrow. Later that night, the little tree would sit in a bucket on her desk, bedecked in our homemade garlands of popcorn and cranberries, with a simple strand of white lights. After the holidays, my sister would transplant the tree to our back yard, at the very border of the woods. By the time she went off to college, there were five fir trees on the border of our yard.
In spring, when my sister returned from college, she took me into the forest again. The ground was soft underfoot, and the trees were in full bloom. Kneeling on the bank of a stream, we scooped out frog eggs, pasty-white jelly masses with black dots for centers. We carried them home in beach pails to study, and in a short time, the eggs separated and sprouted long, wiggly tails. Then it was back to the stream again, to send the tadpoles on their way.
In my sister's absence, my father became my guide to the woods. Although he tended three gardens in our own yard (two for flowers, one for herbs), he took it upon himself to be a caretaker of the forest. I accompanied him on his missions: clearing piles of leaves from the dirt paths, weeding out fallen trees, and with our bare hands, scooping out cold mud and twigs from a blocked brook until the water ran freely again.
On weekends, bright and early, my father and I would head out into the forest, followed at a great distance by our cat, Snoopy, whom I suppose was trying to maintain an air of feline independence. Snoopy never got within fifty feet of us, but then again, he never ventured off on his own path, either. We'd stop every now and then to make sure he was following, and he'd stop and pretend that he wasn't.
On our journeys through the woods, my father would point out different plants and trees, insects and animals. Over the fallen tree--an impromptu bridge across the first pond on our journey--past birch ("white bark) and mountain laurel ("white blossoms"), we'd make our way past thickets and tangles. Skirting poison ivy ("leaves of three, let them be") and the hawthorn bush ("needles sharp enough for sewing"), we'd at last come to the meadow.
Crouching amidst the tall grass and wildflowers ("Shh...not a sound"), we would almost always be witnesses to something extraordinary: a jackrabbit bounding about, as if on springs; a garter snake basking on a rock ("he won't hurt you"); a pheasant strutting cockily, looking for its lunch; a stately stag--despite its size, so shy and soft; a Native American arrowhead to take home in my pocket; the Big Old Oak, with its trunk so fat, it would take five children to encircle it with their arms.
As I got older (about ten or so), I got bolder, braving the forest on my own. A latchkey kid, I'd make secret trips into the woods when no one was at home. Once, startled by the sound of people a short distance away, I broke into a run and caught my leg on a jagged branch. Blood pulsed from the deep gash, but there was no time to stop. At home, I put on thick bandages and told my mom it was a gym class injury. I still have the scar, a slight, dotted line up my left shin.
On another secret solo visit, undaunted by the leg injury, I brought along my father's binoculars and hiked out to the farthest pond. Panning the scene at the opposite bank, I spied nothing new with my enlarged vision. Then I saw it--my heart jumped. It was my own first name, carved large and deep on a thick tree trunk. Preoccupied with conjuring up neighborhood suspects, I lost my footing on a mossy rock, catching myself just before taking an unexpected dip in the pond. That's when I heard it--a single, horrible "plop." The binoculars had broken free from the shoulder strap and had sunk to the bottom of the pond.
That night after dinner, my mother went to her studio to paint, while my father went to the living room to immerse himself in a book. I tiptoed in, trying not to shiver.
"Dad?" I whispered. He looked up over his eyeglasses. "Remember how you always say that I can tell you anything?"
"Yes?" He shut his book and looked immediately serious. "What's the matter?"
"And remember how you said you'd always love me, no matter what I did?"
"Yes, yes! Joy, please, what is it?"
I confessed the whole sordid tale, then braced myself to hear my punishment. But my dad didn't yell--he sighed in relief! The binoculars weren't that important, he told me; it was my safety that concerned him. He told me firmly not to go into the woods alone again.
Together, the next day, we retraced my journey, and I brought him to the sound of The Plop. With a long tree branch, he poked and prodded around the bottom of the pond. Then he tapped at something. With one long, careful lift, he raised the branch. The renegade binoculars emerged from the water, dripping with mud and covered with leaves.
After the binoculars were professionally cleaned, my father gave them to me to keep, for future forest trips--together.
The winter I turned eleven, I still didn't know how to ice skate. All of my friends were twirling and leaping on the town lake, but I was too embarrassed to learn to skate in public. One early Saturday morning, with my sister's old skates tied together and slung over my shoulder, I followed my dad to the Binocular Pond. He threw a large rock at its center. It thumped and skidded to a stop. "Safe to skate." After we laced up our clunky, impossible skates, he held both of my hands and glided backwards, and I clumsily trudged forwards and sideways on the blades. Around and around we went. He'd free me and I'd falter. Finally, exhausted from all the legwork, I rested on a rock while my father etched smooth, grand figure eights on the ice, not one sound except for his skates, clicking and wooshing across its surface. Snow had carpeted the forest with white velvet and the trees wore a hundred million twinkling diamonds, glittering from every branch. When morning melted into afternoon, we headed home for lunch. I didn't master skating that January, but I will never forget that day's perfection.
Although in our hearts, the forest was "ours," it didn't really belong to us at all. By the time I was in college, the woods in its entirety was sold to developers. The summer after my senior year of college, when I went home to my parents' house, I looked out the window of my childhood bedroom, only to see the single line of trees, a mere screen between our yard and the new yard behind ours. On the very edge of our property, where the woods once began, I could see the little ring of rocks that marked the burial site of Snoopy the cat. The grave was shaded by my sister's five "miniature" Christmas trees, by then so tall, they dwarfed our house.
But the forest is gone now; all of it, gone. Magic Rock, the tadpole stream, the wildflower meadow, Binocular Pond. In their places are new landmarks. Swing-sets and swimming pools, circular driveways, three-car garages, front yards and back yards, houses and more houses. For miles and miles.
It was many years ago that we sold our house. My parents have long since passed away. My sister and I live on opposite ends of the United States. Much time has passed; many things have changed. But when I close my eyes at the end of a long day, it's the old woods at Willow Lane that I'm picturing. I'm at the very edge of it, and I'm starting down the dirt path, following my dad, just as I drift off to sleep.
Dedicated to my father, Charles Johnson (1924-2002), who lived a green life long before it was the popular thing to do, and perfected the art of kindness.
