i just can't keep everything. and right now, i've been more valiant about going-through-giving-away-selling-getting-rid-of. and so, despite the really beautiful wood handle on this vintage cast iron meat grinder - passed down to me by my mom and dad - a manual kitchen gadget - a peck, stow & wilcox - from the late 1800s or early 1900s - i have decided to move it on.

this is called 'the babycat chair'. though many would have disposed of it years ago, we held onto it...homage to our babycat. for some reason, he chose this chair - and really, no others - well, to be accurate, he did have a bit of a relationship with the red gingham wingchair recliner in our bedroom. this was his to do with as he pleased, i guess.

and there are things - here and there - as i continue to muster what i need to go through everything - things i find - things that must be considered delicate, things that must be held gently. they are not the delicate things that one would label fragile, nor the delicate things that one would think of as valuable. they are the unexpected, the morsels of real life, of real moments, moments felt, moments lived.

"i once believed that silence was strength." (anonymous) and then i didn't. because "silence isn't strength. it's complicity." (barbra streisand) and so i - in my noisy - will stand firm and tall. and i will wonder how others have not yet gotten there - to noisy. how others have not yet realized inside themselves that their silence - in these very days - is complicity.

in my son's first year at lawrence university, i had the joy of visiting the campus fairly often. one of those times there was a comedian on campus and, along with a group of his friends, i went to her show. it was fall 2011. tig notaro was about 40 then - though she looked way younger. i was 52 or so, not a heck of a lot older.

it is tuesday. we just watched the press conference during which the sexual abuse survivors of the notorious epstein case spoke in support of releasing all the files - yet again. these women showed photographs of what they looked like at the age they were first groomed, molested, sexually abused and trafficked. on this cold november morning in the capitol city of our country, they once again pled for justice.

in the initial moments when we clear our barnwood potting stand - pull all the plants for composting, stack the clay pots and garden tools to be put away, brush off the stand, close the wrought iron gate, and then step back - i feel a sadness for the loss of our tiny garden. this year yielded a wild crop of herbs and tomatoes, jalapeños and lavender.

in a really rare moment, we had the amazing chance to have our children and their partners gather around the dining room table with us. to say i was thrilled would be an absolute understatement. it had been six years since we had actually been together - my two children and us. it was a giant gift and i am grateful for it.

we have few vices. very few, actually. we love coffee. we enjoy a glass of wine. and chocolate - well - sometimes chocolate makes the list (more often for d than for me.) so when our dear dear friends made us a care package for a recent roadtrip, they included all three. a bottle of wine, a box (yes! a whole box!) of hostess cupcakes, and a bottle of stok cold brew coffee.

"life hack: stop trying to be cool. be nerdy and obsessive about the things you love. enthusiasm will get you farther than indifference." (posted on barkersounds IG) this could possibly be my new mantra. nerdy and obsessive and (possibly overly) enthusiastic. indifference slays me. the whole aloof, apathetic, flippant thing. all that gets under my skin, which is particularly sensitive to all the stuff on the opposite end of the spectrum from nerdy, obsessive about the things you love, and enthusiastic.

so it feels a bit like a continuation from tuesday's post that i wrote on sunday, but here we are - on monday morning - waking up to a winter wonderland. it all feels kind of early, if you ask me. i mean, it's only november 10th. but, somehow, in the middle of the night - in those wee hours when i laid awake - in the middle of a great dark hush outside - the kind of hush in which you would never have guessed what was happening - it was snowing.

it is rare that grocery shopping delivers such gloriousness. really, i would say, it is never. even though i celebrate the tiniest things - like a minimally-loaded cart that doesn't add up to over $100. rare, like i said. but on this day - walking out of woodmans market - into the early evening, ten minutes before 5pm on the first day post-time-change - we both stopped in our tracks.

dogga must have known. he woke us up well before the sun: it was time for his breakfast, for our coffee, for him to go out and about in the backyard. but it was still dark and the sun still had some coming-up to do. he must have known, though. somehow, in his dogga-dogga heart, he knew it had snowed. not a lot of snow, really, truly, just a little, a dusting.

i would not think twice about using this emergency life ring were someone to be thrashing about in the cold water of the harbor below the dock. i'd quickly read the instructions and throw out the rope to anyone - ANY one - who might be drowning or even flailing, trying to survive. i have no doubt that most of the people i know would do the same; they would not ignore the seriousness of a person in extreme need of help.

they were luminescent as the noon sun caught them in its grasp. magical. glowing. each individual seed seemed poised for takeoff, ready to catch the breeze, twirl and fly. it is much like how i am feeling as i painstakingly go through the house ... the bedrooms, the attic, the basement ... the memories all gather on the plume, ready to catch the next breeze and twirl in front of me, bringing me back to moments a long while ago - many decades or even just a few years.

"life is only a reflection of what we allow ourselves to see." (trudy symeonakis vesotsky) when i started my first teaching job - at a K-2 primary school in the poorest part of a county in florida - i found out quickly that the previous teacher had a favorite record album that she played over and over and over. i'm not sure how much music teaching she did, but i know that she played this record for every class, every day.

this is the best place to think. it's the best place to ponder, to wonder, to sort, or to just - simply - take one step after another. it's the best place to be quiet and the best place to have conversation. we link arms. we walk. and walk. and walk. we can see why pct hikers keep on going. it is cleansing and powerful.

on the same night we waltzed in the rain, we strolled up and down main street, window-shopping. we were too drenched to go in anywhere and that wasn't the point anyway. we just wanted to etch it all - best as we could - memorize it. the harbor had always been a refuge and i was grateful to see the post at the information booth - in several languages - declare…

with what seemed a millisecond between seasons, it is - clearly - fall now. i had a list of places to go, places to show d. but the tropical storm/nor'easter put a crimp in all that. planting fields, millneck manor, blydenburgh park, hecksher park, every beach on both shores, out east - it was all on the list. but the reality was that both time and good weather were limited.

i could see the maple tree up over the roof of the house. it had really grown a lot in the decades since our family lived there. i thought about all the time i had spent in that tree...an innocent poet trying to piece together the world, make sense of it. back then, i was proud to spend time with my family, my beloved dog missi, on the piano bench or the organ bench or tucked against the trunk of my tree, riding my bike (or, later, driving my little vw bug) to the beach or the harbor, studying, doing homework.

littlebabyscion stayed home. good thing. we would have been dwarfed in the middle of all the trucks on the highway going into the city. at least big red had a bit more presence than LBS would have had. even so, it was like being in a cave - we couldn't see anything else but the trucks. no view, no signs, nothing.

i hadn't had manhattan clam chowder in forever. but it was on the menu and the day in the village was sunny. with the scent of fresh bread baking wafting around us, we ordered a couple bowls and a couple kaiser rolls. we took it all outside to a tiny bistro table on the street next to the harbor. if we could, we would go back today.

it made me cry. it was all i could do not to down-and-out messy cry. had i lost control it would have been ugly. i grieved for every single american child as i struggled and hiccuped my way back to some semblance of calm. phil vassar's lyrics were poignant and profound and deeply troubling. the concert was amazing. phil vassar is a prolific songwriter, a consummate performer, his voice strong, his ballads clear.

we had the gazebo all to ourselves. it is likely that the tropical-storm-nor'easter had something to do with this. no one seemed inclined to be strolling about, nonetheless lingering on the gazebo. so we danced. on the rain-soaked boards of this beautiful age-old gazebo, we waltzed to the music on my phone - the cherish the ladies instrumental if ever you were mine…

even in torrents of rain i wanted him to hear the clanking of metal-rigged sails. even in torrents of rain i wanted him to sit on the benches and watch the water. even in torrents of rain i wanted him to feel the dark sky blanket this harbor. the design of the small pavilion at the end of the dock has stood the test of time - this slip-less harbor site where most boats are moored off-dock, with skiffs back and forth.