I know I owe you some blogs and there will be more...this is from 7/22/13
7/22/13 20:36 home
Yesterday, before church Bella asked if we can
go down to the woods and pick raspberries.
So, after service and soon after singing and clapping our hands, Go Tell
it on the Mountain… over the hills…coming out of church I thought of Garrison
Keillor and knew I would write about the service and of course spending the
time with Bella. Behind the white steeple Congregational Church on North Country Rd in Mount Sinai, is an old cemetery as well as a county nature preserve. We walked in the
woods as we picked wild raspberries from clusters in the bushes. They were
sweet and sour and the seeds popped between our teeth. It was hot yesterday, but not the staggering
heat of the week before. We went back to
Stony Brook University in the afternoon with a colander to pick more
raspberries since this is peak pick season for the wild berries. I brought Joe with us who barely picked but
listened to his music with large black ear phones. Our twelve year-old -son is too cool to pick
berries or to say,” Father dearest, who I love so much. Then don’t eat any.” Later, after dinner I had vanilla ice cream
with the rinsed berries sprinkled over the sweet mound and sat outside letting the pleasure consummate
in my mouth. It’s dark. The windows are open since the air
conditioning has to be shut off for the night. The pan for the runoff water is
over flowing in the attic. Ron will come
tomorrow on his break and fix it. Can we
spend the night without the air conditioning?
Sure. Ali texts Ron and he calls
her. It’s a wonderful relationship they
have and I can sit back and let my wife take charge of these things. I could see the stagnant water in the orange
translucent pipe in the attic. I can do
nothing. I’m getting away from the wild raspberries, and especially from when
Bella said, “Jesus,” and I tried to tell her, Geez is a better term. I explained taking the Lord’s name in vain,
but the concept was too abstract for her.
She responded, "Well, what do you mean? Will God be angry with me?" No.
And the other day she told Ali that she has brown bags under eyes and
what can she do about them? She is
ten. Tea-bags. What does she do when we get home? Is cold water OK for the tea bags? That’s fine.
I am working from home which reminds me of another comment Ben made when
I was in Boston, well you wrote on the train when commuting, how are you going
find time to write? I need to make time
to write. This is my time and I am thinking of Bella in
the back seat earlier today sitting between Joe and Emma since I have few
minutes to get the girls to the train station.
Want to know how much I know about REM?
Well, the name stands for Rapid Eye Movement and one of them got sick
and said he wanted to leave the band to become a farmer. By George, she’s an REM fan. I can listen to her for hours. Tonight, she is sleeping over Joe and Diana’s
house. After dropping the girls off at
the train station I brought her over there and told Diana I have to run and she said OK and heard Bella say BYE…I should have hugged her, there was no I
love you. She was beaming since she was spending the night with her
grandparents. She is the special one on this summer night. Time to take out the trash; then a beer, and
tea and maybe an early sleep under a full moon that shines into our open window
as the crickets chirp and the fire flies cause us to think they are shooting
stars slowly fading away.
Thank you for reading this
