Catching Up is Sometimes Hard to Do

August is the month where the days can still be wickedly hot, yet after dark, the air becomes chilly; a forewarning of autumn’s approach. In Colorado even for a day or two in August, one may feel the need to pull out a sweater. Just last week we had a record low in the 40’s overnight. As summer passes, I wish I could just freeze-frame some special memories and relish in their wonder for just a bit longer. I guess in a sense that is why we take pictures and write in journals: to capture moments that might otherwise disappear from our memories. I haven’t written near enough this summer and the memories are already fading. My hope is that the memories are actually still there and just need a little prompting so that there is still time to capture their essence.

There have been so many times this summer when I have felt time slipping away; and in turn, I know I have neglected my blog. I am not sure why -- fear of judgment perhaps? This is my space where I try to just write and try not to critique what I say… yet still there are multiple pages I have written about my summer that have never made it to my blog, and now there feels like there is no time to catch up and such a large gap in time with three months passing since my last entry. Can one just pick up and start again? Can I just ignore the gap knowing that the longer I wait to catch up, the harder it will be to start again? So, here I am jumping in with a brief, non-descriptive account of my fly-by summer and where I am at now at the end of summer.

I started August celebrating my birthday in the best way I know: a weekend trip to the beach; it was a weekend where I didn’t take any work with me and felt like the perfect way for me to start a new year. Then, K came home the following weekend from a month in San Diego with the Navy, and we celebrated her birthday with family knowing she would be returning to her life in New England just a few days later. Our summer "emotionally" really felt over at that point, even though as a season we still have exactly a month to go.

I felt blessed to have three of her great grandparents at her simple afternoon birthday party. They are at the age now where I can’t help but wonder at each family event, if that will be the last event one of them attends. My dad and husband now each take a turn driving the hour drive down and back to Denver to pick them all up so that my grandparents can still be at the family parties. I sometimes think it bothers my grandfather that he can’t drive anymore, but I am glad he still agrees to come.

This year I made my one grandmother’s recipe "Hot Milk Cake" for K's birthday. It is a recipe she would make over 60 years ago in Baltimore. It is a vanilla-flavored cake that calls for hot milk & butter as part of the recipe.

“The secret,” Mom Mom said, “is to put the baking powder in last. She went on to tell me, “When your grandfather and I first moved to Denver in 1960, I did not know how to adjust recipes for the altitude to keep my cakes from falling. Over time I just created my own measures.”

What I never realized before this summer’s movie, Julie & Julia (2009) came out is that this was the same time-frame of when Julia Child was writing her cookbook: The Art of French Cooking, which was published in 1961. My grandmother, whom I called Mom Mom, would have been in her late 30’s when Julia Child started hosting her TV cooking show, which started in 1963. I realize now that Mom Mom would have been close to my age, just a little younger. I wonder how similar or different our thoughts are in comparison to our ages, but I will never really know and can only imagine based on the 42 years that I have now known my grandmother.

Mom Mom is a great cook, and I can still remember watching re-runs of the Julia Child show with my grandmother when I stayed over in the 1970’s. Mom Mom baked a lot and the family photo album has several pictures of panda bear cakes, Barbie doll cakes, and an assortment of decorated birthday cakes that Mom Mom would bake for my birthday or my sister's birthday. My favorite remains the Hot Milk Cake with homemade fudge icing.

K left just a few days after her party without she and I even getting time to go have coffee. We had to shrug it off and say, "Next visit." Now K has been back in New England working as a staff member for her university's NROTC freshmen orientation and I am looking forward to seeing her soon when M & I fly out to help her move into her new dorm for the year. This summer I was able to call her on her birthday which felt much better compared to last year’s no-contact requirement as a freshman going through the orientation experience herself. We do adjust, don't we.

In the mean time, D has started his first year at high school. He too is growing up, which I know sounds silly in writing. Of course, he is growing up. But I think he has grown up more now that his sister is at college and has to be more responsible. This week he figured out where his new classes were without getting lost; and has now exclaimed that he likes high school even more than middle school. When I heard this, I let out a deep breath of relief. This is excellent change of heart coming from a boy who openly admitted when asked that he was not looking forward to high school throughout the summer. He has even joined the Cross-Country team and feels connected; a part of the school culture. On registration day, he bought a new baseball hat with the school logo and a school t-shirt to show his spirit. He has also announced that the first football game is next week.

So, as I begin another school year, I am still not sure where summer went. Over the summer, I taught one of my favorite courses: Introduction to Qualitative Inquiry; online and in a seven-week format; it was fabulous -- just kept me on my toes; then, our family traveled to Rome for one week to celebrate my husband’s retirement after 30 years in education and my parents’ 45^th anniversary which needs to be a whole other blog entry; then in July, K left for a month in San Diego for Navy training; and I attended a conference in Chicago on my own. Then, M, D, and I joined M’s brother and family from Indiana at Gulf Shores, Alabama for a wonderful family beach reunion. Summer went fast and in some ways I never really felt like I had a summer for even on our vacations I had work to do. But I did still enjoy our travels and am thankful we had the time together and experienced new places.

Yes, I know I’ve been writing about this “lack of balance” pattern for years, and I am aware of the need to change this pattern. I continue to search for balance… and some New Age writers would tell me that in searching for balance, I will never find it because my focus is on the “search” and not already “being” in balance. So my plan for this fall is to just be aware of times when I do feel balanced/best and see what I can do to change my reaction to the times of imbalance/stress. Everybody has stresses in their lives - it is all relative. I am reading a book called Manage Your Time to Reduce Your Stress by Rita Emmett (2009) in hopes that I will truly figure out how to manage my reactions to stress better.

In closing, let me just say that I wanted to post something before I let any more time sneak away and create a larger gap in a infrequent blog… a short entry to let my friends know that I haven’t completely stopped writing. This fall I am teaching an eLearning course and an Advanced Qualitative Inquiry course so I am not sure how much I will write, but I would like to keep writing. For the most part, I’ve been working on my academic writing since this is the year before my tenure-track 4 year Comprehensive Review, which is due next summer 2010. Ten months may feel like a long time, but with as fast as time goes these days, it will be here before I know it, prepared or not.This too shall be an experience of self-growth.