I was startled by the starting gun blasting us into summer. Everyone else burst from the starting blocks and I was left in the dust.

Here’s what happened. I was away for ten days until the end of May. During that time, the lilacs bloomed and I missed it. Then I blinked and it was 97 degrees. Minnesotans appeared in their shorts and flip-flops and shoulder sunburns and I am not ready. We had a frost advisory just a few weeks ago and now it’s SUMMER, all caps, hurry up and get to the lake.

I don’t know where my shorts are. I can’t find the nozzle for the hose. I didn’t get the day lilies planted and the ground has turned to rock. The page has turned and I wasn’t quite finished reading that last paragraph.

I suspect real Minnesotans understand that haste is of the essence. They are experts at these transitions. I’m not. Not yet.

But I get it. Summer is fleeting and there’s no time to waste. The growing season is short, after all, and before we know it, the leaves will turn glorious shades and wind gusts will turn them into compostable litter. The snow will swirl and blanket us in frosty drifts. Twilight will arrive in the afternoon and we’ll turn on twinkly lights to cheer ourselves up. The stillness of winter will be upon us.

But nevermind that! Like a squirrel hoarding acorns for the winter, Minnesotans are floating on lakes, speeding on jet skis, gliding by on kayaks and seizing the (extremely long) day. (Do you know that the sun sets after 9 PM here in the north? And it rises by 5:30 AM. The days are long!) Every town seems to have its festival. The corn is growing in the fields between here and there. Entire families bicycle past my house.

Hurry, hurry, hurry, you’re going to miss it if you don’t hurry!

That’s how summer feels to me right now.

So today I bought some plants for my back deck. I swept and then used the hose (without the missing nozzle) to wash off the chairs.

The race has begun! (Where are we going?)

Hurry!

I need a popsicle, stat!

I flew to San Diego on May 14. My daughter picked me up in the black Fiat that I own, the one I bought on Election Day 2016 with her in mind. She thought I should have picked out the light green one, but the black one had lower mileage.

She timidly drove the dreaded I-15 with its six lanes of heavy traffic (going each way) and then I drove with her to have lunch with my son.

He had planned where we would eat, so off we ventured to an Italian place. We ate outside in a patio, enjoying that mild San Diego weather. Afterward, we dropped him off and headed north, again on the I-15.

Before sunset, we went to the beach where it was a little chilly and watched the sun set. She was cold and my feet hurt (poor shoe choice, what’s wrong with me?) and then we headed back to her home. I wish it had been a spectacular sunset but you don’t get to plan these things.

The next day, I met up with former co-workers for breakfast, drove by my old house, stopped by the park with peacocks, went into a couple of stores and them met a friend for lunch before buying travel snacks at Trader Joe’s. I also walked on the beach in Carlsbad. I missed it. I miss the ocean the most.

We started our road-trip the next morning at 6:00 AM, gliding through Los Angeles before the city was even fully awake. My daughter and I traveled in the Fiat and her boyfriend drove his Toyota with his brother as a passenger. (The mother of the boyfriend and her husband drove a camper van with a trailer attached.) We detoured a bit to swing by my son’s boyfriend’s dad’s house where they gave me a tour of their 12 acres which includes a vineyard, an assortment of farm animals and a white barn owl perched at the tippy-top of a hundred-year old barn. Even though it was out of our way, I was glad I got to meet them and see their place.

I do love a road trip. This one with my daughter was no exception. My phone wouldn’t charge, so for hours, we couldn’t stream entertainment and just talked instead. We slept that night in a Redding hotel. (I was just glad it was a good hotel because the rest of the crew made reservations at the same place based on my initial choice.)

I had wanted to detour to Crater Lake on the way to Portland but changed my mind that night. I was so tired and didn’t want to add extra time to our second day’s travels. So, we ended up arriving at the apartment the next day at about 4 PM and the trailer had already been unloaded.

The only problem was that the couch would not fit around the corner and through the front door. I immediately declared they’d have to get rid of it and would have admitted defeat but the stepdad would not be deterred. He and the three teens hoisted that thing up over the railing, pulling it up three stories to get it through the patio sliding glass door.

I cowered in a bedroom, not wanting to even hear that effort . . . but they made it seem easy.

We had dinner that night, all of us.

The next day, my daughter and I went to IKEA to buy the bare essentials, including pots and pans and a coffee table. We hunted down a shelf and some other stuff at a few other random stores. I ended my night at 9:30 PM wandering through Fred Meyer in a quest to find an electric mixer so I could bake them chocolate chip cookies. These are the things moms do.

By then, my feet were killing me. Again, extremely poor footwear choices for this trip, so the next morning when I drove out of Portland in the Fiat, I stopped and bought my annual pair of Birkenstocks.

That day I drove solo to my mom’s place on the Oregon coast. I was there overnight, then my daughter and her boyfriend drove over to join us for a day. We walked on the shore and ate delicious food and strolled through the shops and antique mall. They left at the end of the day and I slept over one more night before heading south down the coast.

I haven’t really been back down Highway 101 in Oregon since I rode my bike as a 14-year old from Seattle to San Francisco. This time, I pulled over at every view point and walked along every beach that caught my fancy. I stayed two nights in Garibaldi (think “The Rosebud Motel”) and spent a second day going even farther, down to Newport. It was glorious to be alone with my thoughts, podcasts and silence.

Then it was time to drive back to Portland to spend a little more time with my daughter before going home to Minnesota. We hiked, ate pizza and cookies, and shopped thrift stores. One more night’s sleep and then I had to wake up at 4:30 AM to catch a 7:20 AM flight. (WHY? WHY?)

I was back home on Tuesday and back to work on Thursday and haven’t found my groove quite yet. I’m exhausted when I wake up and not quite sleepy at bedtime but a couple early mornings may have solved that problem.

So tomorrow, back to work.

(Closing thoughts: I wore basically three outfits. I took three or four more outfits that never even made it out of my suitcase. Next time, pack less and bring only comfortable shoes. Why do I even own shoes that hurt my feet?)

A chilly breeze reminds us that it’s most definitely still spring here in Minnesota even though the skies are blue and the sun is shiny. I planted daffodil bulbs today in planters because I noticed they were sprouting through the plastic in the bag where I’d left them sitting all winter long in my garage. I have no idea if they will grow because they were neglected and not planted at the correct time. (I KNOW! This is tragic!)

Last weekend, I raked up the horse chestnuts in my front yard and whacked at the hardy prickly weeds growing in my spotty lawn and then sprinkled the bare spots generously with clover seed. My limited research tells me that clover is an awesome ground cover, good for your lawn and excellent for pollinators. Also, it’s a lazy way to a green lawn and I’m all about shortcuts when it comes to lawn care.

I did all that because I saw rain was in the forecast and sure enough, it rained hard for a couple of days. April showers better bring May flowers, is all I have to say about that.

My husband was exposed to COVID, so he’s been quarantined all week. He’s gone to get a test today and hopefully will be negative. He has no symptoms and he had COVID last fall, so we are hopeful. I have already had one vaccine (I’m getting vaccinated because I don’t want to encounter any restrictions–even though I feel like there’s not much point since I already had COVID last fall, but who knows? This is so unprecedented . . . and when I went to Costco to pick up prescriptions, they were able to vaccinate me ON THE SPOT, with no appointment).

Anyway, I can’t wait until this pandemic ends. I’m so tired of wearing a mask all day long, though there is a part of my introverted self that doesn’t mind hiding behind a mask. When I see someone in public without a mask now, I find it so surprising to see an actual face. But really, I am sick of it because it makes me hot and I tend to be overheated in the best of circumstances, so put a mask over my face and my blanket of hair around my head and I’m sweating in no time.

I know. That’s a very attractive visual, isn’t it?

At my job, I am the fabric/sewing department head but also, I’ve been given the responsibility to decorate all the furniture areas in the store (of which there are three main areas). This has been so fun for me. I get to be creative and decide themes for each area and then “shop” in the store and arrange everything. I was originally asked to do one area and apparently they liked my work so now it’s all me. It’s fun.

But also yesterday I built a display and put out Christmas wrapping paper so there’s that. Slow down, you move too fast! You got to make the morning last . . .

That’s all for now.

It’s 46 degrees right now and windy. Spring is here though I haven’t seen anything growing yet. My mom posts pictures from the Oregon coast of rhododendrons and hydrangeas but all I can see are bare branches and brown grass. I have some half-hearted plans to plant stuff this year in this new (neglected) yard. I am going to plant clover in my lawn for starters and I bought a push mower which I still have to assemble.

My work schedule has fallen into a routine. One weekend I will have three days off in a row; the next, only Sunday off. It makes for a long stretch between real time off. This Sunday is Easter and although I have a ham, I have made zero additional preparations. I have some cute Easter decorations which are still in a box in the garage.

While I was growing up, that was a family joke: “It’s in a box in the garage.” Somehow my parents were terrible at unpacking entirely and we just had stuff in boxes in the garage forever. I come from a long line of pack-rats, if truth be told. I personally wrestle with this tendency while my husband would be content to live in a rectangle shaped room with a bookcase and bed, all in the color beige. I like stuff. I like vintage pottery and books galore and funny little objects I find in thrift stores. I like old photos (even of people I don’t know) and thrifted Longaberger baskets. I can’t really help it.

I don’t want to really help it, but I do want to keep my stuff in an orderly fashion and most definitely, not in boxes in the garage. I need to sort through and organize my garage again. I’m in the process of going through every closet and cupboard with a more critical eye now that I’ve been here eight months.

I do have to say that I miss the outdoors. I miss long dusty hikes in San Diego and sticky windy hikes by the beach. I miss the flowers bursting with color everywhere you look in Southern California. I miss the mourning doves that tucked haphazard nests in the eaves above our front door. I am looking forward to getting outside for some long walks in nature. I am more myself when I’ve been outside.

It’s such a strange experience to pack up one’s life in one landscape and unpack it in another. I don’t know that many people have this experience–so many people stay close to home their whole lives. My family, though, has been wanderers, both my family of origin (twenty-five moves by the time I was five years old) and my family of creation. It’s like my former homes are dreams or ghosts or both. Dreamy ghosts.

I think of our house in Washington where we lived for twelve years (1998-2010). The moss that grew on the back patio, the freewheeling laurel hedges that I was constantly pruning, the determined English ivy that threatened to cover our entire yard with its green tendrils. Only a few miles away, the Puget Sound, often gray. The Douglas firs that I worried would fall on my roof during those fierce winter rainstorms. The rain, the fog, the rain.

Then our house in San Diego with its red tile roof and always green grass and swaying palm trees. The sunshine almost every single day. The light in that house–I don’t think I appreciated it enough–but the lack of a real laundry room, so I had a Laundry Hallway that ended in my office on the main floor. I know for a fact that I did not appreciate the gigantic bathtub in that house, nor my enormous closet. I miss them both, desperately.

But I am getting used to taking tiny baths and reducing my wardrobe bit by bit.

I am happy not to be hot all the time and not to worry about termites.

Still. I miss the dusty paths. I miss the ocean waves.

I do not miss traffic nor the crowds at Costco.

Sure, it could snow again but it feels like spring has sprung here in central Minnesota. The snow is melting, leaving a soggy mess behind on my lawn–which is still littered with horse chestnuts.

I have only Sunday off this week which makes the week feel super long . . . but next weekend I’ll have three days off, so that’s something to look forward to.

I meant to post something in January when I had a birthday . . . noting that I am now closer to sixty than to fifty. A high school girl at work was asking me how old my children were and I could feel her brain shuffling me into a different category when I said my oldest kids are nearly 28. I went from co-worker to old fogey, I think. It kind of made me laugh inside.

At least my husband–and some friends–pave the way so I’m not the oldest person in the room all the time.

Well, that’s it for now. I have to go to work.

*This is my life motto. That and “Stay Calm and Carry On.” And “This, too, shall pass.” Apparently I have a lot of life mottos.

Not long ago, I heard songs that reminded me of college. I was back in a practice room, music surrounding me like a fog. I had half-forgotten the power of music but in an instant, I remembered. Music and the people I knew then are intertwined. Dan Fogelberg will always remind me of my friend, Lisa. Chicago (the band) takes me right back to the roller skating rink in Springfield.

A few days later, I tried to combat a sleepless night with lullabies (J.J. Heller, if you must know) . . . but the songs that had comforted me back in San Diego flooded me with the restless loneliness, the stress of our impending move, the uncertainties that soaked me to the bone. I turned it off because I did not need to be back in that headspace.

Some of my favorite songs are those that played on the radio in the seventies. I remember my dad singing along in the car while I sat in the backseat, looking out the windows. Killing Me Softly and Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head bring my dad to me, if only for a few minutes at a time. (Funny thing, though, is that I didn’t really grow up listening to much music. I preferred playing the piano and eventually starting singing along with my barely passable piano playing. I even wrote some songs in college–mostly cringe-worthy–and then recorded them on a cassette and tucked that part of myself away when I got married.)

But music takes me on journeys and I take music on my journeys, too. (Last summer, I listened to the new Taylor Swift album while driving across the southwest . . . I had saved it just for that purpose.)

-*-*-*-

I woke up to surprise snow today. Yesterday, I noticed that the melting snow had revealed portions of our lawn. The white covered hills had turned a drab brown, but today everything was bright white again with a brilliant blue sky. Somewhere around 4-5 inches fell, so instead of running errands today, I stayed put and tried to sew. I mean, I did sew, but my forty-five year old sewing machine gave me a lot of trouble (with its tension) and the new-to-me machine that I bought in San Diego from Facebook Marketplace didn’t work at ALL, so I started with the forty-five year old machine, switched to the newer machine, then switched back. I cobbled together a bag for my daughter (a car trash bag) and it looks cute from a distance, but I have to get a new machine before I move forward.

And that took up a large part of my day.

My husband went to Texas on a trip delayed by 10 days . . . he was originally scheduled to go on the day that the cold weather blustered into Texas, so his original flight was canceled. Anyway, while he’s gone I’m trying to get to a bunch of stuff that gets neglected around here (plus I have three days off in a row), so the sewing machine fiasco was a big time waster, but what can you do? Just move forward.

This week here, the weather is supposed to warm up. Supposedly it will be fifty degrees next week. I guess the end of winter is in sight. I survived my first Minnesota winter. Yay, me.

Okay, that’s all. I’m AGAIN going to try to get back to this blog on a regular basis. I miss writing. Does writing miss me?

I slept terribly last night even though I was tired. All night I kept working in my dream, putting merchandise on shelves. I worked (in real life) until 10:15 PM and so by the time I did fall asleep, it was late and my adult son woke us at 8:00 AM asking my husband if he wanted eggs. Is there anything more aggravating than being awakened from a fitful sleep?

After that I couldn’t sleep again, not really. So I’ve been puttering around, doing laundry, cleaning the kitchen (!), and filling out paperwork. I’m telling you, it’s an exciting life.

I’m going into tonight’s shift a little fatigued and wondering how the roads will be when I am finished working at 10:00 PM. We are gearing up for inventory next week in addition to processing an enormous shipment of product so we’ll be busy even if customers stay home this afternoon and evening.

Well. I guess that’s all.

Farewell and godspeed.

They met in Brainerd, Minnesota sometime before 1926. He was thirty and she was twenty and it was true love. They were married in 1926 and stayed married for 61 years until he died. She lived without him for another twenty-one years until she died at age 102.

By the time I was a child, they lived in a single-wide “manufactured home” with some added-on rooms, porches and a deck. I was terribly impressed–to me, it was grandma and grandpa’s peaceful house with beautiful plants and Lladró pieces sitting on top of their upright piano. They no longer lived in Minnesota–they’d spent most of their adult lives in North Dakota and then migrated to the Pacific Northwest in the 1960s. That’s where they lived in that little green house with the gooseberry bush in the back yard and calla lilies along the garage wall. Huge Rhododendron bushes grew on each side of the back porch. Grandma also grew roses and hung laundry to dry in the back yard.

Grandpa was a preacher. He had semi-retired by the time I came along but was still on staff at a church as the “visitation” pastor. He and my grandma visited the elderly in nursing homes, occasionally bringing us along to stand up front and sing church songs to the old people.

Both of my grandparents have been gone now–grandpa died the week after I was married. Grandma died in 2008.

And yet, I feel an odd closeness to them because we have come full circle. We are now living about an hour from Brainerd. The people here feel like my people. The gray-haired ladies I cut fabric for at work could be my relatives and I am always mindful of that when I exercise patience and help them pick out colors or yarn or ask them what they are making.

My own parents met at college in the Twin Cities but fled from these northern states soon after they married, eager to trade in a snow shovel for an umbrella, but it’s weird, isn’t it, that I have somehow landed back in the place where my story started?

The longer you live, the more you get to see how things turn out, which is one of my favorite things about getting older. (This is the last month in which I will be closer to fifty than to sixty. Now THAT is weird.) What a story it’s been, this life.

It’s not exactly a night shift, but a closing shift. I work from 1 PM to 9 PM today, though my boss told me I could come in early but why would I do that? This morning I slept in, showered and dressed, moved the kitty accoutrements out of my office, Swiffered the floor, put away clean dishes and filled the dishwasher, dumped frozen meatballs in the CrockPot for dinner (though I won’t be here) and put all the Christmas lights into tubs. They’d been sitting on the floor, literally strewn all over the entryway and living room (which is all just a big rectangle) so they could dry . . . and today was the day that I tucked them all into bins.

Oh, why, you ask, were “kitty accoutrements” in my office? Well, the kitties were neutered Monday and kept confined to my office overnight. It was the only room in the house where they could be imprisoned. They are back to their normal selves. Pup, in fact, had an ear infection and so got antibiotics and he seems much better. He has been sickly since we picked him up from the farm where he was born. (“Barn cats,” as I’m learning, tend to be sickly.)

Anyway, now I am going to leave a little early so I can return a dress to Macy’s. I had hoped to do even more but as usual, I always think I can accomplish more than time allows.

In case you were wondering, the forecasted high temperature for today is 39 degrees. And tomorrow, there’s an 80% chance of snow.

The end.

Winter reveals the structure of the world and the paths of creatures that might have been hidden in another season. That’s what I thought while I was driving down the road the other day, admiring the bare trees. I’m kind of loving it, even though so many native Minnesotans seemed to doubt my sanity when I declared that I wasn’t afraid of winter.

(So, I am afraid of driving in a blizzard but that’s another thing entirely, am I right?)

Admittedly, it’s been a kinder and gentler winter here in central Minnesota, or so I’m told. We’ve had temperatures above freezing a few times and my husband tells me that next week it will get up to 39 degrees. I’m mean, that’s practically short sleeve weather around here.

Today I took my Christmas lights down outside and while I was doing so, a woman walked by and told me that she voted for my house in the neighborhood Christmas Lights contest. She said anyone could just put up inflatables, even though the house with a yard full of them won. I thanked her and wished I could have seen her more clearly but I couldn’t because I was wearing my up-close glasses.

I’m blaming my age for my vision dilemma. I can see to read without any correction at all. However, I need glasses to see a computer clearly or to read anything at an arm’s distance. But if I wear “distance” glasses, I can’t see those things well at all. So I constantly switch glasses. At work–because most of my work is up-close, I wear the up-close glasses so I can see three to six feet away.

I know. I know. I need new glasses. It’s on the agenda for this year. Bi-focals, I imagine. I used to wear contacts almost exclusively, but they stopped working when I couldn’t see close up or at arm’s length or at a distance all at once. Meanwhile, the world is blurry either here or there.

*

I just finished reading (in two days) Leave the World Behind. I even took my Kindle to work to read on my lunch break because I just Had To Know. (I love a disaster/dystopian novel.)

Now I’m reading The Hiding Place. I thought I read this when I was a kid but it seems entirely new to me, though I know the ultimate story (holocaust survival).