Early in the new year Kate and Tom welcomed this beautiful little guy into their life. He was good enough to arrive at the best time for travel to India, so all of our hopes and plans worked out, and I was able to be present with my daughter for the birth and to hold my youngest grandson in his first minutes. This photo is a selfie I took of him on my chest. Mom and Baby are doing great, and so is Grandma, in spite of lingering jet lag! Thanks be to God!
In Wisconsin, where I spent the holiday with my oldest daughter Pearl, we had a freezing Christmas, with unexpected light snow. I’d never experienced subzero temperatures before; when I came out of church on Christmas Day my cheeks seemed to stiffen within a minute.
The view from the big breakfast room windows was soothingly white and still, until we let Dog Jack run out to exult in the snow by rolling in it and barking the announcement of joy to the neighborhood.
I was slated to travel from Pearl’s to visit my youngest daughter Kate, and a couple of days before that journey my son-in-law noticed on the weather page that it was 100 degrees hotter at my destination than at their house at that moment. So warm… because Kate lives and works with her husband Tom in India — and now here I am in India, too!
It’s not a country that I ever had any desire to visit, and even after I bought my plane ticket, it was only the thought of seeing my dear daughter that overcame my aversion to the dehumanizing strain of traveling to the other side of the globe.
From Chicago I flew to Toronto, and then on to Mumbai, or Bombay, spending 15 hours on that last leg of my journey. Some of you have heard me tell of my anxiety about that long long flight, but I have to admit that it wasn’t really bad! As soon as I joined the group of people waiting to board Air Canada’s Boeing 777, nearly all Indian folk, I felt that I was part of a congenial and helpful community. I had a good seat on the aisle, the perfect seatmate, and they fed us three comforting Indian meals.
Daughter Pippin had given me a splendid neck pillow designed for air travel, and it worked so well, I slept three times during that period that was like a time out of time, crossing about ten time zones and being carried into the future, and into another world.
I’ll be here several weeks, where winter temperatures range from approximately 60-90 degrees. I’m really happy to miss out on the dark days of a more northern January this year, though Bombay’s air quality is so bad — 195 on the index my first day — that the light is blocked out somewhat.
I have been busy these first three days of my stay with Kate and Tom, with just a minimum of minutes in which to scribble a few notes on things I don’t want to forget. I hope I can write here about some of the thousand things that have impressed me so far, and the experiences I have yet to encounter in this vibrant land.
But for now, I just wanted to check in,
and also to wish you a blessed new year of 2018!
[To continue reading posts about India, scroll down a little to the link “Bombay Baby” with its arrow pointing to the right, and click on that. Continue in that way at the bottom of each post. There is only one in the string of 23 posts over seven weeks that is not specifically about India.]
I’m not speaking of anything life-shattering, but just the day-by-day
and year-by-year transformations…. nothing is ever the same,
and yet everything important remains steady.
Brodie eating some of the Boston Brown Bread his father has been making:
Every time I am with my children and grandchildren I am overwhelmed with joy and also with awareness of how the moments are golden — and then gone.
For Thanksgiving Pippin’s and Soldier’s families were here,
ten extra living souls in my house for a few days and nights.
The children love my vintage toys, many of which are about forty years old now!
And crafting salads in the playhouse, with gleanings from my garden.
This year we did not eat turkey, but tri-tip barbecued by the guys.
And I helped the children make these puff-pastry goodies I saw a video recipe for on Facebook. They are pretty but not very tasty, because the pastry dough in the bottom of the muffin cups can’t puff, and comes out too dense and doughy. But it was fun, and they look pretty!
The days were full of matchbox cars, Playmobil, Legos, and children
sitting up at the table yet again for more pie, eggnog,
Fuyu persimmons and whatever was leftover and handy.
Thanksgiving comes but once a year!
We took a walk and wondered over live oak acorns with stripes.
Pippin is usually the one who notices such things first,
but we all learn from her attentiveness.
She also showed me three new birds in my back yard!
I was captivated by the flocks of kinglets
flitting from plum tree to snowball bush to rosemary.
I had collected leaves on my walks and pressed them briefly,
and we enjoyed comparing them and watching them change
over the days they were on the table.
The only ones we knew for sure were liquidamber and tulip tree.
Yes, those are Moomins who are also admiring the leaves!
As is typical but always amazing, both my son and son-in-law found projects to do for me.
Soldier remade some junky broken drawers into useful shelves,
and the Professor cleaned rain gutters.
I am the most loved woman on earth.
Joy brought this simple and much-enjoyed cranberry building activity for the children,
and Pippin and I collaborated on materials for needle-felting.
When Scout was in San Francisco with his parents one day, and Jamie was napping,
Ivy and I had girl time, happily poking our needles into wool roving
to make ducks and monsters and a bunny.
All my family have departed now, and left me in this lovely afterglow of sweetness.
The leaves are still changing… and fading. Soon I’ll need to replace them with berries!
Yes, another road trip! My first stop, as often works out best, was at Pippin’s. The children doted on me and I on them, and well, I like the parents a lot, too!
I drove through the rain the last couple of hours of my first day, up through the top center of California, and arrived in town just in time to catch the last ten minutes of Ivy’s ballet lesson. She is a beginner ballerina but was fun to watch.
Everyone was surprised that all three children and I could spend so much of the next morning coloring pictures I had brought, as we watched birds at the feeders. We colorers chatted about how it is way more fun to do coloring with other people, and we were proving the principle.
Between rain storms and frost the next two days we went on a couple of splendid nature walk expeditions, first to Lake Siskiyou where the Sacramento River comes into it.
Pippin remarked at this point, “From here we tend to make slow progress because there are so many rocks to look at.” Indeed. And to bring home!
On my second morning I stood at the kitchen window while eating my breakfast bowl, and watched four deer eating their breakfast of willow leaves off the back lawn.
And that afternoon found most of us along the Sacramento River Trail near Castle Crags. The last time I’d been here my husband was still feeling healthy and we were here together with Pippin’s family.
This time was lovely, too, nearly four years later, during fall instead of winter, with bigleaf maple leaves covering the paths, oaks and firs and Port Orford Cedars and more kinds of trees…. The children had a ball on the rocks jutting out into the river and Scout named one spot after me: Pearl Point, because I had told him the day before that Gretchen means little pearl.
Jamie was missing his nap but you would never know it by the way he marched along the trail and climbed cheerfully for hours up and down banks and over countless large river stones.
On our drive back home Scout’s mind was busy planning the evening’s activity and chattering about all his ideas. His mother and I were not enthusiastic about the first ambitious projects he came up with, so he said, “Well, then, Grandma, what would you like to do?” It shows a developmental leap, I think, that he was showing this willingness to consider what other people’s preferences might be.
I thought a bit, and answered, “I would like to do something that wouldn’t require thinking or talking, or being on my feet.”
“Is reading considered talking?”
“No.”
“Well, then, would you like to read that book about Kit Carson that you gave me for my birthday?”
I surely would love that, and I read three chapters while dinner was being prepared by other people on their feet, and Scout colored another picture while he was listening.
Now I’ve moved on to Oregon, where Walt has found and started restoring the truck he was only dreaming about back in September when I was here.
Oregon trees and their knock-out gorgeous fall colors
are competing for my designation of Favorite.
So far I think I like the last one best.
I’m not halfway through this road trip. Before I get home I’ll have slept twelve nights not in my own bed. I’ll have seen five friends and ten family members, staying in five homes. It does feel like a little much for an old lady, but I’m enjoying myself and will try to check in at least once more to tell you more about my northern adventures.
Gladsome Lights 