You know you’re in trouble when even finding a meaningful quote for One-Liner Wednesday is beyond your brainpower.
This (poor excuse of a) post is brought to you as part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays. Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/03/08/one-liner-wednesday-im-over-it/
Given that we live in the US and our granddaughters live in the UK, we prize any time that we have together.
Our five-year-old granddaughter ABC lived with us and her mom until she was a bit over two years old. Then, E’s spousal visa came through and they joined their spouse-and-dad in London. We made our first trip “across the pond” a couple of months later, hoping to return again in the spring, but that was 2020 and the pandemic struck, so, no.
We missed the birth and whole first year of granddaughter JG’s life. We met her first on a bittersweet trip here so that E could have a last visit with her grandfather Paco. We will always be grateful that Paco was able to meet JG and that ABC, who remembered him from living here when she was a baby/toddler, was able to see him and dance and sing for him. E was Paco’s first grandchild and it was so important that she got to see him one last time. I’m crying now just thinking about it. It was just after that visit that Paco began his last, steep decline and he died a few weeks later.
That visit had been very confusing for JG. As a pandemic baby, she hadn’t been out of her house very much, much less flown across an ocean and plunked down in a new country with new people. She was also at a developmental time of stranger anxiety, so we had to be careful not to intrude on her comfort zone.
Without having to care for Paco, we were able to make a couple of trips to the UK (although they happened to be during omicron surges); still, JG was not too sure about these people who occasionally appeared on her mom’s computer screen suddenly showing up.
Enter 2023. JG is now almost 2 and a half and having a surge in language development and is able to make connections that she had been too young to make previously. She starts calling us by name when we video chat and wanting to say hi and showing us things. When we went to visit earlier this month, she gave us hugs and played with us and let us pick her up and called us by name and stayed with us at our Airbnb while her mom and dad did errands and snuggled and fell asleep cuddled on the couch.
For the first time, she knew we were her grandparents, her mom’s mom and dad. Correction: her mum‘s parents, as mom is the more common American expression and she is, of course, adopting the more British mum.
What a prize! I had been afraid that JG wouldn’t really remember us because we are so far away and that occasional visits wouldn’t be enough to establish a real relationship with her as we have enjoyed with her sister ABC.
Transatlantic grandparenting will still be challenging. I don’t have personal experience with such a long distance between grandparents and grandchild, but I think we’ll figure it out.
We are hopeful that E and her family will be here in April for Easter, JG’s first trip back since she came to meet Paco just after she turned one. I don’t think she will remember having been here, although ABC will probably still remember every nook and cranny of our house and yard, as she did when they came back to see Paco a year and a half ago.
It was a week ago that we said our good-byes to fly back to the States. Anticipating a visit from them in just a few weeks made it easier to leave them. Although JG won’t remember the house, she will remember us.
What a comfort!
What a prize!
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “prize,” which I sneakily used to write the post I needed to write this weekend. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/02/24/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-feb-25-2023/.
When we were visiting in London last Christmas, daughter E gave us a calendar featuring photos of granddaughters ABC and JG. Most often, the photos were taken in that month the prior year, so turning the page for August brought a four generation photo with Paco from their visit last year.
The timing of that visit was a blessing, existing in the tiny window of their being able to get travel permission from the US and UK and before Paco’s final steep decline that led to his death in September.
I’ve been struggling this summer with the memories from last year, many of which have been difficult.
It’s good to have this photo with smiles that I can feel in my heart, even if my eyes fill with tears.
As I wrote about here, we are visiting the London branch of our family for the holidays.
The last time we were here was a bit over two years ago, shortly after E’s spousal visa came through and she and then-two-year-old ABC were able to locate from our home in the US to rejoin spouse L in London. During that visit, we were happy to learn that E was newly pregnant and started planning for spring and summer visits.
Then, the pandemic arrived.
We couldn’t travel to the UK for spring birthdays or the arrival of granddaughter JG in August. Our plan to come for the month of November 2020 was cancelled at the last minute when the UK went into full lockdown. Quarantine and travel restrictions made it impossible for us to go to the UK, but E, L, ABC, and JG were able to visit us in the US in August. We were all thrilled to meet JG in person and blessed that they were able to visit Paco just before the last, steep period of illness before his death.
I titled this post “making up for lost time” which is an impossibility, but I do feel as though a few things that I had missed with our granddaughters are being re-captured. JG was an early walker, so I hadn’t really had babe-in-arms cuddle time with her. When they visited us in the States, she was too much on the move and too unsettled by the new surroundings to want to cuddle with the grandparents she had just met. Here, in her familiar home, she has become comfortable enough to sleep nestled in my arms – at least when her mother is unavailable.
We’ve played games with ABC. It’s been endearing watching her play hide-and-seek with Auntie T with requisite giggling and improvised singing, a skill that both ABC and T share. We’ve also been able to read to ABC with the added pleasure of having her read to us. She is learning a lot of phonics in Reception this year (for US folks, think the UK equivalent of kindergarten but with predominantly four- instead of five-year-olds) and is already able to read primer books.
Last night, ABC slept over at our Airbnb. This morning, B made us all pancakes, one of ABC’s favorite foods. She also helped her grandpa bake some gingerbread cookies.
2021 has certainly been a challenging year, but I’m grateful that it is ending on a high note.
What a topsy-turvy week it has been with my dad!
I can’t bear to go through the details but I will say that things appear to be on an upswing at the moment with some hope for stability on the horizon.
There will be a rare event to end the week, though, as B and I will be attending the wedding of two of my poet-friends this afternoon.
Best wishes to the happy couple!
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “wee”. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2021/08/06/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-aug-7-2021/
Congratulations to granddaughter ABC who is turning four years old! She is a few weeks away from completing nursery school and will be entering Reception, the UK equivalent of US kindergarten, in September. She is reveling in the return to full-time in-person school, loves the parks and the garden, is learning to read, has a vivid imagination, inherited her parents’ musicality, and loves being a big sister, at least most of the time.
Congratulations also to granddaughter JG, who at not quite ten months old, is walking on her own. Watching the videos of her toddling reminds me of her mother, my firstborn E, who also stuck her tongue out when she was first walking on her own. I’m not sure if it is a sign of concentration or if it somehow helps with balance, but it certainly seems to be an inherited inclination. Also, adorable.
When we visited London in December 2019, we had planned to return in the spring, perhaps for Easter, and then for ABC’s third birthday, and in late summer for the birth of the new baby. E and her family planned to come visit us in the US for Christmas.
Due to the pandemic, none of that happened.
So, here we are, all fully vaccinated in upstate New York, but still not cleared for travel to the UK, missing another birthday. We’ve missed the entirety of JG’s babe-in-arms phase as she is now officially a toddler. And we still don’t know when we will be able to travel to the UK. They have been planning another easing of restrictions in mid-June, but now the even more virulent strain from India is spreading in the UK, so…
We don’t know about travel in person.
We do know that our love reaches them, even if our arms cannot.
Facebook often presents users with the opportunity to repost something from prior years. Today, it suggested this photo from two years ago:
This was our last Thanksgiving with my mom, known here as Nana. She passed away from congestive heart failure the following May. Daughter E and granddaughter ABC moved to London, UK, that October when E’s spousal visa finally came through. ABC is now in nursery school and big sister to JG, whom we planned to meet this month until England went into a new pandemic lockdown phase.
It’s a lot in two years.
And it seems like it’s been longer than two years.
Three days ago, one of my poet-friends posted a photo from the Tupelo Press/Studios at MASS MoCA residency from which the Boiler House Poets Collective sprang five years ago. In the comment thread that followed, someone asked if anyone had written about it, which prompted me to re-read my blog posts from the residency. This post links to most of them. It was interesting to read my real-time take on what was happening, although I did temper the amount of anxiety I expressed somewhat. It was nice to see that I accomplished more than I remembered and good to be reminded of our various sessions with our poet-teachers and the bonding among our original nine poets-in-residence.
We have gone back to North Adams for a reunion residency every autumn, until being derailed this year by COVID. We have a reservation for both 2021 and 2022, though, which is tempering the sadness at missing this year a bit.
And, yes, those five years feel longer than they are, too.
Since I first started using email over twenty years ago, I have had the same email address. It was initially set up through Roadrunner, affiliated then with Time Warner although it has since moved to Spectrum.
I’ve used this email address for everything from personal correspondence to charity donations to newsletters to subscriptions to poetry submissions to online shopping. It has been registered in hundreds of places over the years. The address has occasionally been unreliable but, given how widespread it was, I was loath to change it.
Now, however, it has lost or delayed so many things that my hand is forced. I got the October newsletter from the Biden campaign and an email about planning my vote after election day. I sent a poem to my local poet circle for workshop twice without anyone receiving it. An email from the resolution center working on refunds for our cancelled trip to London went astray and almost resulted in the case being closed prematurely.
So, I have embarked on the the painstaking process of migrating from my one-stop email destination to a constellation of gmail addresses for different purposes. There is one for poetry related things, one for shopping and business contacts for B and me, and one for all the rest of my personal and organizational contacts.
The sorting is proving to be a long and complicated process. I realize I am still in the early stages of it, but it is beginning to take shape. Daughter E taught me how to keep tabs for the three different gmail inboxes open simultaneously in my browser and I have a fourth with my original inbox, all of which I am getting into the habit of monitoring several times a day. [Note that none of these is my long-neglected blog email topofjcsmind@gmail.com. The recommendation still holds that if you want to contact me by email that you leave a comment telling me you have done so, as I will see the comment and know to check the inbox. Some year or other, I’ll get to making it usable.]
What is taking a ton of time is changing the address on email lists. Some organizations have a straightforward process with a link for updating at the end of their email. Click the link. Edit your address. Save changes and you’re done. Sometimes, they email you a confirmation link for security reasons. Other times, the setup is that they email you an edit link first. Both guard against unauthorized changes.
Some sites don’t offer a way to make changes. I’ve had to subscribe with a new email address and then unsubscribe the old address.
Others allow you to update your online profile at their site, but I’ve run into lots of problems doing this. Sometimes, the site will let you change your address but then won’t update for the emails it sends you. Other times, it seems they won’t save your preferences for how often you want to hear from them. And some seem to just stop sending emails altogether.
This endeavor is also making me consider each email sender and whether or not I want to keep hearing from them. As I have posted about previously, I have been trying to tame my inbox for some time. I’m hoping the time that I’m investing in this organizational effort will eventually make it easier to deal with my email and give me more time for other things.
I wish I could figure out when I will arrive at that “eventual” point.
So far, I’ve done very little about changing my email for personal contacts. Personal messages seem to get through to my original email inbox pretty reliably, although occasionally one gets delayed for days or lands in my spam folder. Perhaps, I’ll draft a bcc email blast at some point, although I’ll probably have my poet-friends use my poetry address rather than my general one and friends of both B and me our joint address.
Something else to think about.
Who knew email could be so tiring?
WordPress has helpfully reminded me that today is my seventh blogiversary!
Sending out a big THANK YOU to all my readers, including my 1,400 followers!
Okay, it’s time to calm down and not end every sentence with an exclamation point.
Over these past seven years, I have published 1,383 posts and had over 24,000 visitors from 119 countries. It boggles my mind. I hadn’t really thought about stats seven years ago when I started. Truth to tell, I don’t think about stats that often now, either, but I do appreciate sharing my thoughts with so many people around the world.
I also appreciate that I have been able to keep my blog eclectic. I knew starting out that the recommendation was to target a blog to a specific topic with a regular posting schedule and a plan to build followers, but I chose to take a path that fit my personality better. I have wide-ranging interests and like to be able to bring them up as they become “top of mind.” Circumstances have arisen that have had me writing more about my personal life than I had originally expected, but having an intentionally eclectic blog accommodated that.
For millions around the world, 2020 has been hard to navigate in terms of time. People’s schedules have been disrupted to such an extent that a week can simultaneously feel like forever and a flash. For me, most of the past seven years have been like that, as I’ve lived in a web of intergenerational health problems, moves, on-site and long-distance caretaking, and lots of unpredictability. I didn’t know seven years ago how important writing poetry would become in my life. I didn’t know that we would lose both my mother and mother-in-law. I didn’t know I’d now have two precious and faraway granddaughters.
Sometimes, in writing a post, I need to look back into my post archive to refresh my memory on when something occurred. In reading older posts, I am gratified to find that, in most cases, the writing has held up pretty well. You all have an open invitation to stroll through the posts from prior months and years. You might stumble across something that interests you.
I have never kept a diary or journal going for any length of time, so I am glad to have Top of JC’s Mind as a keepsake of these past seven years.
Which reminds me, I really need to figure out how to do a proper back-up…
This is my last full day in the North Adams area. MASS MoCA is closed today, so I planned to go back to Monroe Bridge, Paco (my dad) and my hometown, and Hoosac Tunnel, Nana’s (my mom) hometown. I thought it would take a couple of hours this morning and I’d be back to the hotel by noon.
I got carried away.
I wound up stopping at a lot of old-but-changed haunts and taking tons of photos. (Don’t worry. I’ll only share a few.) Many of the ones I won’t show are unlikely to be meaningful to anyone without long-standing personal history in the area, as there is a lot of “what used to be here” in play. Warning: There will also be a lot of dams and reservoirs and hydroelectric plants. Paco was superintendent of the Upper Deerfield River (southern Vermont/western Massachusetts) for what was then New England Power Company and my sisters and I grew up traipsing around powerplants and such.
The building in the photo below was built by the WPA in the 1930’s. My father and some of his siblings attended school there when it was new. It also housed the town office and library. They are still there, but most of the building is now offices for the current successor of New England Power Company. The array of mailboxes is a poor substitute for the post office, which was the center of town life for many years. Olga, the postmistress was a good friend of my mom’s; they saw each other nearly every day and stayed in touch after retirement and moves put them at a distance.
I went down to the river and crossed the bridge; our town’s name was Monroe, but the mailing address became Monroe Bridge because they would leave the mail at the Monroe bridge. This iteration of the bridge was built in 2015. The dam is quite a lot older. Part of the old paper mill was torn down and replaced with a little park. The rest is still there, although the worse for wear.
I continued downriver. I visited the Dunbar Brook picnic area, which was deserted except for a toad that I startled as I walked across the grass. I got to take a ride on a swing, which was refreshing and nostalgic. When I went back to my car, I was surprised to see that the old road along the river leading toward the Bear Swamp lower reservoir was open. I drove all the way down to the gate just before the Number 5 Station.
When I went back up to the main road, I stopped to pay my respects at the Legate family cemetery. When Nana and Paco were first married, they lived in the old Legate House, which was then owned by New England Power. The house was torn down decades ago, but the little cemetery is still tended to.
I wish I could show you a decent photo of the lower reservoir for Bear Swamp. I wish even more that I could tour the underground powerhouse that we visited with Paco so many times as it was being built and after it was completed, but it is all fenced in for safety and security reasons. I will close, though, with a photo of the Hoosac Tunnel. Nana grew up in Hoosac Tunnel, a part of the town of Florida, Massachusetts, because her father headed a maintenance crew for the Boston and Maine Railroad. At the time it was built, the Hoosac Tunnel was an engineering marvel. This is the less-fancy eastern portal. The North Adams side was more decorative, befitting a growing city in the late 1800s.
I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to revisit my roots. I hope that the sense of connection and the energy and the comfort of familiarity will stay with me so that I can make progress on my poetry collection after I am home.
If not, I may have to come back.
Or, maybe, I’ll come back regardless.
Top of JC's Mind 