Not Our Normal October (A post of too many photos)

Happy Halloween!

What a strange month in a strange year. 

Lots of things to catch up on, including a few things Halloween, and way too many pictures of leaves, so if you like photos, this is the post for you.

First off: No costumes. 

I never expected to have to go cold turkey on the making of all the costumes at once. I figured Aden would go off to college, and maybe every other year or so want me to help her make something again, and that would be fun. Mona's been mostly doing costumes on her own, but sometimes still needs help, and I liked shopping with her for fabric. Quinn had a few years left. We had been working our way through a list of different categories of creatures, and I think "amphibian" was next.

But no in-person school and no Trick-or-Treat--and frankly, no sense of time or feeling that one day is different from another--means no desire for costumes. So... no costumes.

However, I feel like I don't want 2020 to get to steal everything, and I know a lot of people pull up my blog at this time of year to see what we've made for Halloween, so I can offer up the pictures of some of the minis.

Every year for Christmas I use scraps from each of the Halloween costumes and make little mini versions for my kids to collect in a box. My thought was that instead of getting sentimental over the full-blown costumes and hanging onto them forever taking up space, my kids could have a little keepsake. Of course they currently hang onto all of it, but it's still a nice idea.

So, here are Quinn's costume minis from 2007 to 2019: Kangaroo (twice), Purple Cat, Blue Jay, 13-Lined Ground Squirrel, Skunk, Wolf, Pigeon, Iguana, Lobster, Lion Fish, Chimera, Hoatzin

(I have links here to all those actual costumes, but for some reason the images on the post about the 13-Lined Ground Squirrel aren't appearing, so I'll put that with the mini images.)

Kangaroo (2007 and 2008)

Purple Cat (2009)

Blue Jay (2010)

13-Lined Ground Squirrel (2011)

Skunk (2012)

Wolf (2013)

Pigeon (2014)

Iguana (2015)

 

Lobster (2016)

Lion Fish (2017)

Chimera (2018)

Hoatzin (2019)

I'm really sad not to have gotten to make any costumes this year. Maybe in 2021?

But instead, this month I put my Halloween energy into the window displays at the violin store. Normally the Bay View Neighborhood Association puts on an event called the Pumpkin Pavilion, and it's a weekend of pumpkins and music and food trucks, etc. Not such a good idea in a pandemic, so they decided to create a map of cool displays. We signed up, and had fun coming up with violin-themed spooky stuff.

I decorated the window on the left. I went with a Cell-O-Lantern, and a violin graveyard. There's even a coffin case with a violin Aden decked out as a vampire. And the white violin "ghost" in the back is an instrument we experimented with 3D printing a while back. (That's its own scary story.) I have lots of dead and destroyed instruments in our storage area, and decided a violin back or top cut in half could make a pretty good pair of headstones

 

Then to explain all the musical jokes in the graveyard, I put up a key on the side window of the store.

The window on the right side was all Aden's work. She wanted to do a sort of mad scientist laboratory using broken instruments.

I think my favorite thing was the scrolls in jars. They are just in water, but over time the water got good and creepy looking. (The scrolls also sank eventually, after they had absorbed enough water.)

For our efforts, today we received a GOLDEN PUMPKIN award, for best Halloween business display! 

Wasn't expecting that, but it made an otherwise lackluster Halloween an awful lot nicer. Next week we'll pack up all the headstones, etc., but I'll leave the Cell-O-Lantern up a little longer, and probably the jars of scrolls (mostly because I'm very curious what will happen to them the longer they sit).

Deviating from Halloween for a moment, the other big thing for me this month was that I got to spend a couple of weeks at our cottage in Michigan. I drove out there with just Aden, and it was absolutely the peak time to see changing leaves. We spent hours on that drive simply saying, "Wow!" over and over, and feeling ridiculous that we couldn't find better words. It was almost too beautiful, to the point that we were a little relieved after a couple of weeks on the drive home that things had softened to a more comprehensible level of beauty.

 

The original goal of the trip was to hand Aden off to my mom where she could isolate for enough time to then visit my brother's family in New York, but it didn't quite work out. She ended up spending time with her grandma in Detroit instead, while I got to see my friends for a weekend, and then Aden helped me shut down the cottage for the winter and we drove home together.

On this trip to the cottage I got to learn how to replace the heating element in the oven. (Plus now I own a nice new hack saw, because after driving an hour away to get the new part and discovering it was too narrow, I had to adjust the connecting plate by widening it to fit. Good times.) But the lovely thing at the cottage, is even though things go wrong and there are unexpected projects to do, it doesn't matter.

After months of being isolated at home, the cottage was a welcome break from that kind of frustration, and a way of embracing seclusion. The cottage is simple. It's easy to keep organized, there's no pressure to get anything done at a certain time. And I got to have some time to be truly alone, and it was wonderful. I kept a fire going in the fireplace in the evenings. I watched whatever DVDs I wanted from the library. I was unplugged from the internet (except for those visits to the library when I checked my email). I wasn't responsible for anyone or anything. I carved scrolls, ate garlic bread, and read books from cover to cover. I loved it.

Plus, I took walks and admired all those leaves and the lake. I don't remember a more beautiful fall.  (And keep in mind that I never use a filter on my photos. If anything, my camera kept toning down everything I was trying to capture.)

 

So, yeah. Very pretty. Not too cold, but not hot enough to make you sweat. Good jacket weather. On the days it rained, it was nice to be inside by the fire and read. When Aden was there with me, we watched movies and ate down whatever was left in the fridge.

The only sad part was knowing this should have been my annual writing retreat there if not for the pandemic. The past two years I've gotten so much writing done with my friend Fernanda, where we read each other's work and push each other to finish our projects. Although, to be fair, I'm not sure what project I would have worked on. Last year I proofread "Just Friends, Just War" which I published in the spring, and I added to "1001 Weddings" which is currently being considered by an agent (fingers crossed--I feel like this is my most marketable book to date). So I suppose if there were a year I didn't get my writing retreat, this would have been a good choice for it anyway. Still.

On the upside, I did get a kick out of seeing my first two books at the local library.

Okay, back to Halloween. The kids did what they could with it today. They made cookies. They made pie from actual pumpkins (which I've never done). Mona made some horns, so I guess we can say some costume work happened this year.

(They don't believe me that their cookies are cool, because they think it's just "Mom Compliments," but they are wrong. These cookies are cool.)

And now we're off to admire other decoration displays around the neighborhood. Tomorrow we may do a scavenger hunt for discounted candy. I still can't believe that our neighborhood's trick-or-treat finally fell on actual Halloween, and a full moon, and nice weather, and we didn't get to go. Yet another moment of 2020 where we had to make do and call it good.

I hope whatever your Halloween looked like this year that you enjoyed it! Happy October. On to the next month. (Leaving you with my demon dog! Spooky.)

Any questions, comments, or compliments?

My kids all attended a public Montessori school. Overall, I would say that experience has been positive. My son is in his last year there, and then he'll move on to high school, and after fifteen years, all of my kids will be out of Montessori.

I remember when my oldest child started kindergarten that there was a lot of discussion among the teachers about how much they should or should not be embracing certain technology. There was debate about how screens as an educational tool fit into the Montessori philosophy. So watching my son do eighth grade entirely on screens has been odd in yet one more way.

There are lots of quirks to the Montessori method, some of which I find really inspired, and others feel somewhat odd because they are so different from how I experienced elementary and junior high schools. But one of the things the kids are taught to do that never ceases to amuse me, is that when they give a presentation at one of the many fairs that parents can attend (science, cultural, etc.), when they finish explaining or demonstrating at their display or table, they ask, "Do you have any questions, comments, or compliments?"

I find that so sweet and funny and weird. I get asking for questions, and maybe even comments, but the first time I heard one of my kids asking for compliments, too, made me laugh.

But why not? So in that spirit, I present to you my latest project: A new book entitled "My Violin Needs Help! A Repair Diagnostics Guide for Players and Teachers."

 

Isn't the cover pretty? My brother Barrett made it. He also helped me nitpick a bunch of things from the images to the formatting, etc. He's the one who suggested I include a references page, and because he's an entomologist, I wound up with two entries in there about bow bugs.

I think it's a nice little book. It could have been much longer, but I really wanted to keep it simple. It fills a need, because most of the books out there about violins can be overwhelmingly technical, and those of us who work with violins all the time forget that many people who use them lack really basic information. I try to educate people all the time at my shop, and this attempts to be that same sort of friendly discussion in book form.

So check it out if you can! I tried to make it a fun read, even if you're not heavily involved in the violin world. It's available to order from anywhere you buy books. (Plus at my violin shop. If you want a signed copy just ask, and I can send you one.)

And when you're done, let me know if you have any questions, comments, or compliments! (Or even better, if you liked it, leave me an Amazon or Barnes & Noble review.)

Time Capsule

 

In this summer of quarantine, I did manage to get away with the kids for a few days to our cottage in Michigan. Ian stayed behind to care for the pets and manage the store, but for the rest of us, it was nice to leave the house and be, well, in a different house.

The funny thing is the kind of aimlessness and lounging around at the cottage is remarkably similar to the lack of schedule we've had at home for much of this year, but there it is relaxing. At home the pandemic has made the lack of options and activities rather stressful. Being isolated in the woods at the cottage feels welcome. We played board games (including the ridiculous "Bonkers" that we had no directions for), read books, caught frogs, played badminton, and paddled in kayaks. I wish we could have stayed there the whole summer.

We even got to test out our "coconut light" that was sent to us mysteriously a few months ago. We received a limp glowing ball in the mail that we were concerned at first we may have been accidentally charged for. But we weren't. It was an anonymous gift, and over the course of the next several days one that each of my brothers also received. So, thanks? If you sent this to us, it does float, and it does change color. This is what it looks like in the lake:

Being at the cottage also means having to fix something. This year it was the water heater. I was really proud of Aden and myself for figuring out how to replace the heating element on our own. I also had to take apart all the plumbing under the kitchen sink when the garbage disposal got clogged. So that was fun. (It actually kind of was. Because again, there's no real pressure at the cottage. It's all fine. And Aden and I laughed our heads off at the messy way we went at the water heater, but hey, we fixed it!)

We got to meet my mom up at the cottage, because we figured even if we didn't have time to quarantine, we could find a way to visit together safely. We set up a bed for her on the screened porch, and sat spread apart at dinner, and wore masks when we were together inside. Far from ideal, but better than no time with her at all. All part of our strange new reality.

One of the many things that did not go the way we imagined in this unexpected version of 2020, was the opening of our family time capsule.

Back during Y2K, we decided to celebrate the new year at the cottage, rather than at my parents' home in Detroit. We weren't worried about technology running amok, but we didn't see any reason to risk being around too many people if the world decided to get weird. Plus my grandma's cottage was fun, and we seldom saw it in the winter. New Year's Eve was always our big family fun event with my Uncle Joe and his family when I was growing up, and our ushering in of the new millennium at the cottage turned out (for a variety of reasons) to be our last big celebration of that type.

Like many families back then, we decided to create a time capsule. Ours we fashioned out of a small metal coffee pot, which we filled, sealed, and stored at the back of the utility closet. We put the "to open" date on it at 2020, which seemed very far away, but not too far that we couldn't all gather again and enjoy the contents at the reopening.

 

I remember that New Year's event rather well. My brother Arno had just been married the week before and was there with his new bride whom we were all still getting to know. (She's from India, and we were all introduced to her pretty much at the wedding.) I was still in violin making school. Ian and I were talking about having kids. My dad was still well and wrote lyrics for me to put music to. We did some crazy sledding with my cousins in the dark from the top of the hill where the cottage is, down and around the bend and onto the frozen lake. (There is one flat stretch in the middle where my brothers took turns assisting people past that slow spot and to a place where gravity could take over again.) My mom made amazing food. There was a lot of laughter and love.

We all stood around on that New Year's Day to share the items we were putting in the time capsule. People read poems and stories and predictions. My cousin Tony put in his resume, which was hilarious both then and now, but a remarkably good summary of who he was at the time and where his ambitions lay. People who couldn't be there in person (like my grandma) sent things along to add. There was a commotion before that little coffee pot was sealed about some little messed up toy guy being included or not. (I couldn't recall how that came out, but it turns out it was not.)

We all imagined a big celebration in 2020, where we could meet at the cottage again and see together what had changed over two decades. Instead, we had a small, quiet moment, where I opened the time capsule out on the porch with my three children and my mom (socially distanced at the other end of the table) and all of us in masks.

It was bittersweet.

The sense of loss was almost palpable. My grandma is gone. My dad is gone. There are members of the family I used to hold dear who are now somewhat estranged and it breaks my heart. There are people I love that we have to stay at a distance from for everyone's safety. We couldn't even hug my mom who was right there.

It was strange to see my dad's writing, and read my grandma's carefully typed words. I missed everyone. I missed some things the way they used to be.

And yet.... There are so many new people in the family now.

I wrote out a family tree as it was twenty years ago, and added to it in red all the people who are in it now. With the added spouses and children, many of us have new titles like "aunt" and "uncle" and "grandparent." Showing all the items in the time capsule to my three children, none of whom existed when the thing was organized, was surreal. My mom and I set about explaining whom the various relatives were who had made contributions, but that my children only know from stories.

Along with some moving photos related to cottage history, there were some truly silly things in that time capsule, including Dr Zaius (because "the future"), an Arnold Klein Gallery pocket-knife key-chain (a truly weird promotional item for an art gallery), and whoever this musician is whose works include "Fee Fi Fo Funk."

We're putting together a new time capsule, this one to be opened in 2040. I hope I'm around to see that. (I would be a year older than my grandfather was when he died.)

My children aren't sure what to add. I told them anything about who they are and what they are doing, however dull it seems today, will be fascinating to whoever gets to open it in the future. Their lives are going to change dramatically between now and then, and the possibility is good that at least one of them will have their own children with them should they be there to open the next time capsule. Their kids will be intrigued that Aden didn't get a high school graduation because of a pandemic, and that Quinn and Mona did school virtually.

I'm thinking we should put in a mask as a sign of our times. And one of my business cards to show we did succeed in opening a violin store. But the note I'm leaving is much longer than the one I put in the Y2K version. That one was a dashed off list of hopes. This one feels more like a letter to a different generation of family that I may or may not get to meet.

Who knows if the cottage will even be in the family by 2040? I hope so. If nothing else, I can at least say in this very strange year where nothing as gone the way any of us could have fully predicted, my grandma would have been pleased that at least her beloved cottage is still being enjoyed by people she cared about. That would have made her happy. And therefore it makes me happy.

Cribbage, Anyone?

I love games, and my most reliable partner for games in our house is my son, Quinn. He's 13, which means he's most often inclined to be off in some corner of the house doing his own thing, but almost anytime I ask when I'm home from work, he'll agree to a game.

If we can convince anyone else to join us, we'll usually play Settlers of Catan, Sorry, Uno, Spite and Malice, or Code Names. If it's just the two of us? It cycles among Backgammon, Rummy, Abalone, Boggle, and Cribbage. During isolation, it's been pretty much all just Boggle or Cribbage.

But our Cribbage board was annoying. It's the type where you have to move your pegs around your track twice to finish, and on evenings when we're fading a little, we can honestly forget which round we're on and suddenly have no idea who is actually winning. We decided it would be better to have a board with one, long winding track from start to finish.

So why not make our own board? Looked easy enough, and I can make things.

Of course it didn't go quite as planned, but I like the final result anyway. Behold our new Cribbage board!

Pretty, huh?

Now let me explain what a goofy adventure this turned out to be.

At least as a violin maker I knew I could find a nice piece of wood lying around to work with. I happen to have a small pile of odds and ends that were given to me by a nice wood supplier in Washington state when I was out West for a VSA convention many years ago. Wood that was too thin or didn't have its book-matched partner, etc. I dug around in that pile and found a piece of maple that was never going to be a violin, and made it into a shape and thickness I could use.

For pegs in the board we went to American Science and Surplus and found matching rods of brass, and "music wire" (whatever that might be--didn't come up in music school), and I sawed them into little pieces and polished the ends smooth. (Quinn has barely been out of the house since the pandemic shut everything down back in March. It was strange to wander around one of our favorite stores while wearing masks, but it was also nice to get out and do something purely fun for a change.)

Once I knew the thickness of the pegs we'd be playing with, we decided how we wanted the layout of the track to go. We penciled in spots for drilling, and I hit my drill press. This is where my general lack of patience decided to teach me a lesson. There are 120 holes per player on the board. (Plus a few extra for a tally of how many games each person has won.) The smart thing would have been to poke a hole to mark each spot before trying to drill them, but ugh, that seemed like a lot to do. I thought, eh, how hard could drilling holes in straight lines be?

Ha! After the second hole I just started laughing. The flame in the wood was guiding my drill bit into odd places, and it was beyond my control. After about half a dozen holes I realized I was either going to have to start completely over, or just deal with the bizarre mess I was creating. I decided to plunge ahead with my Cribbage board that with each new hole was looking more and more like the drill press version of a failed test for drunks at a traffic checkpoint. I showed it to Ian and Aden when I came up from the basement, and they both asked what happened. I told them at least no one would ever ask where we bought our new Cribbage board from.

So I pondered the wonky holes for a day and decided that an artistic solution was the way to go. I got out a nice pen and went to work between projects on my bench one day. I created the vine design, and now it looks maybe like it's all on purpose. Quinn looked pleased anyway, when I showed him the finished board. That's all that really matters to me.

I used an old box from a rosin I bought at a violin convention in 2004 (from which the rosin has long ago been used up) to store the scoring pegs. Maybe someday I'll make a case to keep the whole thing together along with the necessary deck of cards, but not now.

Not exactly the kind of project I was hoping to complete during all of our unexpected free time, but still fun. It always feels good to make something. Strangely, of late, I feel busier than ever. Which I don't understand since so many activities were wiped from our calendar. But somehow I'm having even more trouble making time for the things I most want to do.

In any case, one day when we look back on our pandemic days, we'll have a pretty cribbage board made from violin maple to show for it. I love game time with Quinn. That will be part of this whole mess I will be able to remember with nothing but fondness.

Dear Dad, 2020

Hey Dad.

I can't believe it's been almost five years since I've heard your voice or made you laugh. The words "I miss you" are inadequate to how I feel. But they are all I have, so... I miss you.

This year has felt like a decade. I'm not even sure where to begin to catch you up, and I'm not sure what articles you would even clip, because everything is insane. The news moves so fast, and it's all either ridiculous or dire (or both), and there's no way you could have even hoped to keep up. (Although I'd have bought you fresh scissors for Christmas so you could try.)

Last summer we didn't do any big trips. We did a couple of really nice family events at the cottage, and Arno and Barrett got us kayaks we can use there. (I wonder if we could have ever talked you into a kayak? I doubt it, but it's hard to know. You did tell us about your traveling in Europe on a Vespa, and I can't picture that either. Your moments of unpredictability remain some of the best family lore.) I'm wishing we had done some real travel, because all of our hopes for that this summer were dashed. Quinn was supposed to do a class trip to NYC and Boston, but when we talked about it early in the school year, he admitted it would be more fun with his family, so I told him we'd use that money instead toward all of us doing a big East Coast trip together. We had plans to hit lots of small states, and go as far north as Maine to visit Ian's sister Ursula and her husband. But no.

Because a pandemic hit this year, and the world ground to a halt right around my birthday. (Which is in March, so I'm a Pisces. Every time I see a horoscope, I think about you reading mom hers from the paper, and when I'd request mine you'd ask, "When were you born?" every time!)

Mom's doing okay. She's got a ton of interesting art projects, and she's been in the garden a lot, but I know she's tired of feeling isolated. I wish she had you at this time. I think you'd have been perfectly happy to ride out Covid-19 at home, clipping articles in the library and not having to share Mom with guests.

For the rest of us, though, it's been strange. Everything got canceled, Dad! My concerts, my varnish workshop, my book signing at Boswell's (wouldn't that have been fun?), Ian's Army retirement ceremony, Aden's high school graduation.... Just, everything.

And being trapped in the house with a lot of unexpected free time was not as useful as it might sound. All of us felt a creative drain. I think because even though on the surface it may have looked like a vacation, it was really a crisis. Being in survival mode makes it hard to focus during waking hours, and even though we were sleeping more it wasn't very sound. But I think we've leveled out. Aden is drawing and painting again, and making small things out of clay lately. Mona is drawing on the computer and started constructing something today out of feathers and wire. I've been finally getting into my home shop, and today I worked on a cribbage board with Quinn of our own design. We're starting to feel like ourselves again.

So the pandemic is weird, wearing masks is weird, social distancing in Target is weird, not letting people inside my store while still trying to run my business is weird.... It's all weird. And sad.

And the Black Lives Matter movement has exploded into a worldwide phenomenon after even more deeply upsetting instances of police violence caught people's attention. I'm hoping this time around will lead to real change. I've been thinking about it a lot, and compared to the first time I saw video of the police beating a black man in my lifetime (which would be Rodney King), today we can instantly follow up with research. White people are actively learning things we didn't know. We're seeing things in new ways, and a lot of people I know are willing to accept hard truths and history that is new to us. Today I read about the MOVE bombing in Philadelphia. Last week I read up on the Tulsa Massacre. I wonder if those events are in your files somewhere? I may look next time I'm back home.

I wish I could ask you about any of this. Because the other day someone posted a piece about Detroit and the "'67 Rebellion" and it stopped me in my tracks. Growing up, it was always the "'67 Race Riots." I remember you and Mom talking about watching things burn and how scary it was. But I realize now we never really talked about why it happened. Those desolate stretches of Detroit that never got restored after the fires were just a fact of life. Never occurred to me to think of it as part of a rebellion. My new homework will include rethinking my hometown.

You taught us so much about the destructiveness of discrimination in connection with your family's Jewish history, it would be fascinating to get your perspective on the struggle of minorities now. You'd have been proud of Aden for going to a march.

You'd be proud of Aden in general. She's registering for her freshman college courses tomorrow! She has to do all of it online, and we've never gotten to visit the campus in person (pandemic and all), but it's still exciting watching her prepare for college. She's nervous. She isn't sure how much of a grown up she's expected to be, or how much of a grown up she already is. But Dad, she's so lovely. She's grown into a remarkable artist and person. When she talks to you about something that excites her (video game design, anime, certain YouTubers who cook creatively...) she just lights up in a way that you can't help but be drawn in. She's sweet and kind and has such a tender heart.

Aden didn't mind too much not having a high school graduation. (She understands that was more for me.) But she was sad not to have been able to say goodbye to people in her school. They didn't know when they left for the day in March that they weren't going back. There were people she would have liked contact information for, and teachers she would have liked to have thanked. Not to mention she finally got her schedule just the way she wanted, with an interesting English class on African-American Lit and a ton of art classes. When she went back a couple of weeks ago to pick up her things, a piece she'd been making was still sitting on the pottery wheel where she'd had to abandon it. Lots of projects she was excited about were left unfinished. Everything about her senior year was left unfinished.

I wonder how odd her first year of college will be with these added complications? But she's not alone. I reminded her that everyone will be in the same boat, and the class of 2020 can bond over not having had graduations, and trying to make new friends from behind masks and at least six feet apart.

I was sad I didn't get the experience of touring colleges with her. I remember your taking me to look at Oberlin. That was a nice trip. And I'm still glad I backed out of staying in that weird dorm and just sharing your hotel room since it had an extra bed. (You told me the place missed out on calling itself the "Oberlinn.")

I'm going to try to write real letters to Aden at school. Getting mail helped me a lot my freshman year at OSU. Mom wrote letters, and you sent post-its, and I still have them all. I know if you were still around you would send Aden packets of articles and she would love them.

So Aden's doing okay. I'm feeling like I haven't prepared her well enough to go out into the world, but she can cook, and do laundry, and can write a good essay when she has to. If she can just be a little brave and find some friends I think she will do well. I hope. Was it hard when I went off to college? What advice would you have for me now as the parent, I wonder.

Mona is doing okay. I think. I can never be sure. She still gets anxious, and is already a little panicky about the idea of school starting up in the fall again. I'm not sure how to help, however she's at least willing to talk to me. I'm so proud of her, Dad. She works so hard. She's been doing online gym for summer school so she can take that out of her schedule for her junior year. Can you believe she's a junior? And she's driving. Or, at least, she supposedly knows how. She needs practice. You were always so calm with me in the car when I was learning. Ian is like that. I am not. I never expected to be as freaked out as I am trying to help my kids learn to drive, but yikes. It's really nerve-wracking.

She finished her two years of French, and did well, but I have never heard her speak it. All she would tell me is the numbers are weird.

She's working on the cover art for my new violin repair diagnostics book. She's excited by the idea, but struggling a bit to get something together for me to look at. I hope that works out, because I think that would be a cool thing to have in her portfolio when she's ready to apply to art school.

Mona's still in pain. It's been two years of this now, and I hate it. We've been to our regular doctor, two different ENTs, the pain clinic at Children's, she's had an MRI, dental x-rays, tests by vestibular rehab, and a recent trip to a neurologist. Nobody can tell us what it is. Although for the migraines that accompany the ear pain, the last doctor did recommend she go cold turkey off any pain medicine to sort of reset her system (since, ironically, at some point migraine meds start to cause migraines). We have prescriptions for more things she could try, but she said she'd rather not. I don't blame her. Thankfully, her ears in the past couple of weeks feel plugged up and there's a lot of pressure, but less pain. The orthodontist said there's a chance she'll just grow out of whatever it is. He said he sees a lot of teens with odd pains and issues that simply go away once their bodies get past this stage of rapid change and growth. I hope he's right. Mona shouldn't have to deal with chronic pain. Life is already hard enough without that.

Quinn continues to take things in stride. Dad, he's getting so tall. When he's not slouching I think he's my height. Possibly taller. And his hair is down to the middle of his back and all wavy and doesn't tangle and it makes his sisters really jealous. His voice is changing, too, but we are careful not to comment. He's very sweet, but at thirteen is easily embarrassed. He's super fast at games like Tetris. Still doing in fine in school. He's stopped playing violin but still takes piano. It got to a point where both were suffering and he needed to narrow his focus. In March, before the pandemic, he went on a school ski trip and broke his left wrist, so I got to be one of his hands for his online lessons. I miss that time with him.

And I asked him recently, since our Latin lessons got canceled in this new era of not going anywhere, if he wanted to continue that when possible, or just be done. I fully expected him to say we should let it go, since this was the perfect opportunity to do so. But he surprised me by saying when we could go back to the university and have Latin again, he wants to. On the one hand, the ablative case hurts my head, but on the other, I really liked that time with Quinn once a week. We always had a nice time on the drive, and sometimes stopped at the lake to look for beach glass on the way home. I wonder how much of wanting Latin lessons again is really that? Or is that just motherly wishful thinking?

Dad, he's so sweet. He's always willing to come out of his room if I call up the stairs and invite him to play a game. And the fun thing about playing with a smart kid is I never have to go easy on him. He hasn't beaten me at Boggle yet, but he always finds some really good word that I missed. You would have loved playing with him.

And he's funny. He has this amazing deadpan sort of delivery that is hilarious. He took some sort of aptitude test at school that recommends different professions, and his list was wacky. It included artist (which I thought was odd, since there was no way to assess talent in that area on a test like that), and cartographer (because he's still freakishly good at maps), and BARTENDER. Bartender? What kind of exam suggests that to a seventh grader? I laughed so hard! But maybe it's right, who knows. When I was talking about that with Mona, she said, "You know what I think Quinn should be? A Comedian." And at the one parent-teacher conference I got to go to for him this year, his teacher remarked that he was really funny. She said it took a while to recognize his dry humor, but that he's always making people laugh. So it was a surprising idea at first, but I can imagine it. You'd have to be really smart, and methodical, and good with language, and he already has the delivery and timing. But you also have to be comfortable in front of crowds, and right now, that's hard to picture.

Anyway, I think Quinn is coping best of all of us with the shift to a pandemic schedule. He finished the school year on Zoom, and now he's got video game goals. He seems content.

I think Ian's content, too, as much as he can be with all of his concerns about keeping us financially solvent in these strange times. I don't think he misses the Army. Probably parts of it, but not the hassle. I like having him around more. I couldn't ask for a more supportive husband. Our anniversary is tomorrow! 23 years. I should break out the poem you wrote for us as our wedding reading and share it with the kids.

I'm doing okay. That last novel of mine that you got to read the draft of years ago? Just Friends, Just War? I finally polished it up and got it out into the world. Sort of. My launch got canceled, but everyone who has read it seems to have liked it. I wish you could have read the final version. Barrett made a really nice cover for it. If Mona gets too stuck on the cover for the repair guide, I may use that instrument drawing you made for me that I have framed at the violin store. I don't think you'd have minded. (Heck, I feel like if you were still around you'd have cranked out fifty versions for me to choose from in a day!)

My health is better, so that's good to report. The mastitis thing seems to finally be gone. I hope. If it returns again I am not going to the doctor. They just exacerbate all of that mess. I stopped taking all pain medication last year after my colonoscopy showed poor side effects from them, but I don't get headaches the way I used to. Only problems are some high blood pressure that my doctor put me on pills for (so that seems under control), and my back is goofy. Eh.

Since the pool closed and I can't swim now, I broke out my old dojo notes and have started up our old stretching and blocks and strikes warm up. We do that as a family almost every evening. The kids are getting more flexible and better coordinated, so that's working out well. Plus, it's about an hour every night where we listen to music and catch up. I really like it. (It makes the dog nervous, and the bird is fascinated.)

That's been the most reassuring thing lately: enjoying being together. Because when we block out the news for a little while, and forget that the world looks like it's coming apart at the seams, our own little space with each other really couldn't be better. (Well, it could be less cluttered, but that's how we know it's real life and not a movie.) I love my little family. Despite everything, we know we are really lucky.

Arno and Barrett and their families are also doing fine. Your other two grandchildren are amazing and you'd be so proud, Dad. I do feel better about the future looking at all your beautiful grandkids and knowing they are next in line to help run the world. They'll do it with intelligence and compassion, which is sorely needed.

Well, this note ran past midnight. I should sleep. I love you. And I really really miss you.

Kory

Black Lives Matter

A week ago today, my daughter and I attended a protest march. I needed a few days to process the experience, and then I was too busy to write about it, but I'm making the time today. I want a record for myself of what it was like. Beyond that, I want to share for others who have not been to a Black Lives Matter event how it was from my perspective. I see too many people characterizing these marches as violent, and referring to protesters as thugs. I am not a thug. I didn't meet anyone I would describe as a thug last Sunday.

Black lives matter. Regardless of how anyone wants to view people or organizations associated with those three words, that phrase should not be controversial. Because it is true that black lives matter. Even when people choose to combat that concept by muddying the issue with phrases such as "All lives matter" and "Blue lives matter, " I will agree. All lives (and "blue" lives) do matter. That does not negate the fact that black lives matter. We should all be able to acknowledge that. (And not follow it with anything beginning with "But...")

I am humbled and dismayed by how much I do not know about the black experience in America and the world. Only in recent years with video recordings making certain actions clear and undeniable am I starting to comprehend how different my America has been from the one other people in my community know. I am angry about the history I was taught in school that excluded important details of slavery, events such as the Tulsa Race Massacre, not to mention anything truly instructive on Native Americans, or how the Chinese were exploited in the development of the West, more than a line or two about Japanese Interment Camps, among other things. My children are being taught better, but still not enough. We're doing our homework together.

I believe most people are decent at heart. We can be easily misguided by our own narrow experience. I think what we are witnessing at this moment is a collective realization of how much unfairness exists all around us that we unconsciously contribute to every day, and that we need to change. The marches are one way to demonstrate that we care.

I also believe the marches would be bigger if it weren't for the pandemic. I know my own reluctance to join the BLM crowds has been tied directly to the health risk involved at this time. My family is looking for other avenues to lend support, such as making signs or donating food.

But risks have to be weighed, and some things are too important to ignore.

When a friend who needs a wheelchair for going long distances asked for a volunteer to push her at a handicapped accessible march last week, I jumped at the chance. Since there would be vulnerable people visible in the march, I figured mask usage and social distancing concerns would be better adhered to than on average. My oldest daughter wanted to come, too.

We drove to the other side of town to pick up my friend, and managed to find a spot for my minivan not too far from the gathering in Veterans Park by the lake. There were two marches scheduled at that end of town: The accessible march, and a BLM/Pride march closer to the festival grounds. A third march led by athletes was meeting downtown, and the plan was at some point for all three to join together.

The event began just beyond the parking area near the kite store. We settled in on the ground facing a pickup truck where sign language interpreters were standing. There were several interpreters at the march, identified with bright vests and yellow pool noodles they could wave above people's heads to be found in a crowd. They, and the deaf marchers in attendance, wore masks with a clear section in front so their lips were visible.

Around 2:00, when enough people were assembled to begin, we were led in nine minutes of meditation. We were asked to either close our eyes or cast them to the ground, and then told to concentrate on our breathing. Then on our emotions. Then on our thoughts. Then back to the breath coming in and out of our bodies. I've participated in many acts of meditation. This was by far the most profound.

I appreciated all of the speakers, and according to my friend, this was the best opportunity she'd had at a recent march to actually hear people clearly. There was a man named Harvey who had been put in his wheelchair by gun violence. He was glad to be able to attend a march on a route designed to accommodate his needs. There was a single mom who choked up as she described the challenges she's faced raising two black sons in Milwaukee, one of whom has disabilities which compounds those challenges. There was Nuno Davis, a deaf woman who had come from Maryland just for this accessible march. She gave her impassioned speech in ASL while standing in the back of the pickup, and someone translated for us through a bullhorn. We all learned how to sign "Black Lives Matter" in ASL. Khalil Coleman and Rafael (Pancho) Mercado energized the crowd and explained hand signals for keeping us organized as a group. We were asked to remember to drink water, and to check on the people around us as we went.

Even as each of these speakers expressed frustrations with trying to function in this country as people of color, they were overwhelmingly positive. They celebrated the diversity of the crowd. They asked people to refrain from cursing. (There was about twenty seconds of "Fuck the police" about five hours in, which didn't catch on, but that was the only such chant I heard all day.) The general atmosphere was of support for one another, and a desire to be heard and make our city better by holding the police accountable.

The march was set up with the people in wheelchairs at the front so they could set the pace. There were about eight or so wheelchairs in a group of a few hundred people, so my friend and I were in a position to lead the march in a manner we weren't expecting. For my part, this was fine, because although I was in a good mask, I was not eager to be pressed in too close to so many people. It suited me fine to be spaced far apart and in front of the large crowd. Plus it was helpful in guiding my friend's chair to have a clear path and not be concerned about bumping into anyone. I did my best to keep my friend positioned in the second or third row when possible, because she really didn't want undue attention.

Marching for a cause is a bit of a conundrum for introverts. We're not particularly inclined to be seen or heard. But that's the whole of our contribution when involved in a protest this way. In my friend's case, there is the added element of the wheelchair, which draws a peculiar kind of attention. I was of mixed mind about how she was being included in this march. On the one hand, there was a practical reason for her to be up front. The march was designed specifically around her sort of needs. But it was hard to get away from the idea of her being used as a prop. I know that made her uncomfortable. At the same time, she was there with a sign which she wanted people to see. (It read: "When George called for his Mama, all moms were summoned.") So why not be seen? If the wheelchair in this instance amplified her message, all the better? And the focus on the disabled caught the needed attention of the press. I don't know. It was awkward, but maybe for the best, and I haven't worked that bit out in my head yet. There is a fine line between tokenism and awareness sometimes. I think my friend handles it with grace. I don't know if I would do it as well.

We walked out of the park and south along Lincoln Memorial Drive. We took over one side of the boulevard, and cars lined up on the opposite side honked in support. The basic chants were mostly call and response: "I can't breathe, can you breathe?--I can't breathe." "Whose city?--Our city. Whose state?--Our state." "Don't arrest me!--Arrest the police." Along with repeated chants of "Black Lives Matter" or the sing-song "Ain't no power like the power of the people 'cause the power of the people don't stop."

We got as far as the intersection by the art museum before we stopped for a while. Apparently marching involves a lot more stopping and standing than I knew. We waited for the Pride march to join up with us, then the march from downtown.

That's when the food appeared. I had my own water, but volunteers all along the route were omnipresent with water bottles offered out of the trunks of cars and in wagons. There were boxes full of snacks, and whole bagged lunches. I took a bag marked PB&J, and shared my sandwich with my daughter. In the bag was also an apple, a granola bar, and fruit gummies. My friend said her son had been marching every day since the protests began (this was day ten) and that he'd been living off the snacks donated by volunteers.

The weather was perfect: Sunny, just cool enough to not be sticky. It was sort of fascinating to get to eat lunch in the sunshine near the entrance to a freeway in a place I normally only drive. Everyone was pleasant and generous.

We gathered in a circle at the intersection where someone set up speakers and a microphone. The interpreters were always in sight. The people in wheelchairs (at this, and every stop) were escorted to the front to make sure they had an unobstructed view. Organizers spoke, and kept the themes positive. To be honest, their words didn't stick with me as well as the presence of a four-year-old girl who got to lead the crowd in repeating "Black lives matter" over and over. It was done with the glee you'd expect of a child who doesn't tire of reruns. It was hard not to think about the world she's growing up in. I can't imagine anyone not wanting the best for her. I thought about how many of my own children's opportunities I tend to take for granted.

Eventually everyone reassembled into a procession again, wheelchairs at the front, followed by people with banners and everyone else. All along the route were people to cheer us on, offering water and handing out extra signs for anybody who wanted one. At that point the group was very large. I saw an estimate later on the news of thousands, but really don't know. Again, I was grateful for the excuse to be essentially out front and able to keep some distance between our trio and others.

We headed past City Hall and over to Red Arrow Park--a small skating rink where Dontre Hamilton was shot and killed by police in 2014. He was a man with mental illness who had been sleeping in the park. People ever since have placed small memorials to him there that are repeatedly swept away. I often play in the performing arts center across the street. There is never a time I see that park that I don't think of Dontre needlessly losing his life there.

There were speeches at the park, followed by another break for food. Some generous donor had provided a car with 60 pizzas, and children followed by women were invited to partake. That was maybe the only other thing in the day that didn't sit with me well, in addition to people in wheelchairs being made to feel a bit like props. There were a few times one of the organizers described men as the protectors of women, and sort of lumped women and children together as a weaker category. I know it was well-intentioned, and no harm was meant by it, but I think for a march that included a sizable LGBTQ+ section of the community, it was not particularly sensitive. I wondered how it would be possible to broach the topic with the speaker somehow, because I'm sure he wouldn't have wanted to alienate anyone present. But if I, as a cis-gendered hetero white woman found the "protectors of women and children" thing uncomfortable, I can only imagine how that sat with any queer or non-binary people in attendance.

But you know what? Compared to the way BLM marches seem to be portrayed on social media and in the news, these are exceedingly small quibbles. People always get points in my mind for their good intentions if they are doing the best with what they know. I only bring them up in order to highlight how overwhelmingly positive and inspiring everything was. If the only thing spoken that made me cringe was someone saying men have a duty to protect women and children, well, then I wish all the problems of the world could be so insignificant.

My daughter and I ate our pizza standing well apart from others so we could remove our masks with less worry. It felt good to sit in the park for a bit and rest our feet. I also had the opportunity to talk with a couple of women with signs listing black people tragically killed by police. We'd been chanting the name "George Floyd" of course, and sometimes "Breonna Taylor" (and then the call and response would turn to "Say their name--Which one?"), and I recognized several of the names on one woman's sign (Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown....). But I was shocked at how many names I did not know of local victims on the other woman's sign.

We reassembled after the break in the park to march over a bridge and toward the police station. That area was blocked off by dumpsters so we could not walk in front of that building. We stopped again so people could speak, then wound our way back toward the lake where we started. As we passed through the tunnel under the convention center, everyone was struck with the same urge as every little kid in that space to make a lot of noise and hear it echo. It was one of the only moments I took any video because I wanted to remember it. It was impressive. (I am not sharing it here, or any photos that protesters could be identified from, since I do not have their permission.)

During the downtown portion of our march we were joined by a few men carrying rifles. I am not comfortable around guns. However, in the wake of lock down protests where white men felt entitled to openly carry with impunity, I don't think there should be a double standard when it comes to black citizens. Anytime I see a Walmart I think of John Crawford who was killed in one in Ohio for carrying a BB gun that was for sale inside that store. These black men with their rifles were making a statement, and did not make me nervous. If anything, I was nervous for them.

As the sun was setting, we walked back along the road in front of the museum, and back into the park. I drove my friend home, and then on our way back to our side of town, my daughter and I were stuck in traffic in the dark watching the same march continue up by the university. It was amazing to watch the group we'd walked in front of for seven hours from the outside. I hadn't realized just how many cars had joined the procession at the rear. It was noisy and energetic.

The whole thing was a great experience. I am beyond glad I went. And it was a joy to see the kind of light the day brought to my daughter's eyes. She's been stuck at home so long, deprived of her end-of-high-school experience, apart from friends, and feeling helpless about these important issues we are all grappling with lately. She said it felt good to get up and do something, even if it wasn't much. We both agreed we felt better about our city having spent the day with so many people in our community who want things to change. It gave us hope.

So here is a big takeaway from this event for me: The positive is seldom reported. Not a big surprise, but in the context of our current state, it leaves the wrong impression of BLM protests. I talked to one woman at our march who said the one she was in the day before, they walked peacefully in a northern suburb for ten hours, and the only part that made the news was the lawyer who came out to spit on a young black man in the march. That moment was despicable, and deserved press, but I have a feeling if that hadn't happened, those hundreds of people out there to make a statement against racism would have been overlooked entirely. Our march got press because it had a couple of gimmicks: the wheelchairs, and the professional athletes. I wonder if it hadn't been for those things if it would have merited a mention at all.

There were no police in sight anywhere on our march, with the exception of a couple of cars at a distance helping redirect traffic. I don't believe unless there is a specific reason for police to be involved, they should be anywhere near these protests. The few marches in our area where there was trouble, protesters have reported that the police overreacted to situations they misinterpreted, and escalated the conflict. I believe them. I can't speak to the devastation to property in places like Minnesota, but I can say that any time we care more about property than we do about human lives and dignity and justice, we are putting our empathy in the wrong place. I love the store I run. It's an extension of myself, and I think I do good work for our community. If something were to happen to it, I would be understandably upset. But I don't think it is worth more than a human life.

I hope these marches are the beginning of a larger trend of learning and change. I hope at some point when they die down and fade away, that the momentum continues in other quiet but meaningful ways. In the meantime, our family will look for more contributions we can make to the Black Lives Matter message. This weekend both of my daughters joined an event where they participated in a protest using chalk on a sidewalk in a park near our home. We plan this week to make signs for others to carry. Someday soon we hope to be among the people handing out snacks that keep others marching.

Because black lives matter. Obviously.