Look both ways -- a tale of a city and its suburbs

Having someone in from out of town helps you see where you live with new eyes.

When my brother-in-law visited, I was kind of psyched that after my husband picked him up at Union Station, they got enjoy a lovely drive through the District -- past the monuments -- at dusk on a perfect summer-feeling evening (not very April-feeling, but still about as nice as it gets). I felt some pride in the fact that they found delicious gelato in Georgetown on a Friday night and that our visitor enjoyed the next day's trip to MOMs, the natural food store we frequent most often.

And yet, I appreciate what living in a log cabin in rural Maine affords my BIL and what kind of rhythm that can foster. Sometimes I feel like I should live in the woods instead of just in a house that backs up to the woods, but I know I value urban life and convenience too much. I love being able to walk to a mini downtown, even if its restaurants are not organic. The grocery has some decent produce, and the library is right there. It feels like a community. And when Metro is not delayed or overstuffed with tourists, I think it's pretty cool that I can hop on it and in less than 15 minutes, be at the American Art museum across the street from the library I attend an ICAN meeting.

This weekend, I was wary of track work delays on the Metro, so I decided to drive up to Bethesda to work the Holistic Moms table for a Celebrate Mama event. Now that downtown is one hoppin' place. Lots of cool shops and restaurants. But even if we could afford to buy a home there -- our house would probably sell for an extra $200K if it were plopped down in that zip code -- I don't think I would ever want to dress well enough and be cute enough to fit in.

So there is my living-on-the-border self. Not a homesteader, not a chic city girl or hip suburbanite, either. I liked driving up on Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues and seeing all the urban, cultural stuff going on. But it was busy and a little overwhelming, so on the way home, I took the Beltway to the GW Parkway, and I enjoyed the quiet serenity of the tree-lined and river-lined route, even though it was probably a couple more miles.

Although sometimes having too many options gets overwhelming (can anyone say Internet?), I do find that I like to put myself in the position of having them.

Take a break, Winter.

I think my shoulders are finally detaching from my ears. Fifty degrees and the disappearance of last week's bone-chilling wind could not have come too soon.

I'm amazed at how different my attitude is now that I've actually had some warm, fresh air. The world feels open instead of hunched into a ball. I can leave my house without hours of preparation.

Yesterday we hiked in the woods behind our house to get to the park instead of walking along the sidewalk. Then we walked some more to meet a friend who recently moved nearby and walked back to the park. It was glorious. Even though I was sicker this week than I've been all winter and feel most of the day like my sinuses are blinking "drain me or I'll explode," after some time outside, the pain disappears, and my mood is vastly improved. The addiction to run to the computer is quelled, and I see remember how funny my son is.

Last week I went to a library story time featuring authors from Solar Publishing. After the reading, I bought their CD Earth Day Everyday, which is now on heavy rotation in our house. The vocals sing the praises of the sun, which I have come to appreciate these past days of thaw.

I don't even care if I see the shiny yellow ball in blue skies as long as its beams somehow hit the DC area the way they are supposed to. I moved away from the Midwest to avoid the kind of cold, cutting winters we've been seeing glimpses of here recently. I know there have been at least two New Years Eve days here in NoVa when I've gone running in a t-shirt. But lately all I can do is bark at my son to stop playing when I pick him up at preschool because Mama is not in a snowsuit.

So today, I announce with joy that yes, that was my kid wearing Tevas with socks. In January. Now that is hot!

Waldorf School Advent Garden

I just wrote this post at my column on the Washington Times Communities. The main idea is that I found this simple ceremony of children lighting candles and walking through a spiral of fresh evergreens to be profoundly moving.

It's late, and I don't know why the photo of the apple candle wasn't loading to the longer article, but here it is. No photos of the actual event, beautiful as it was and as much as I'd like a postcard; that, of course, would take you out of the moment.

Chores make the memories

As we drove through the neighborhood this evening, my son looked at all the trash cans ready to go out tomorrow and asked if it was going to be Friday, which is trash day around here. Then he asked, "Why did they take away the branches?"

He is so into the trash pick-up, it threw him off that he wasn't here last week for the truck drivers to wave to him or honk their horn, or to see the "leaf truck" come haul away all the brush he helped to clear. One weekend we had our first time working in the yard in our new house, and less than a week later we took our first family trip to the beach. And what he remembers is the branches that disappeared while he wasn't looking.

By some miracle, the world didn't melt into a puddle of "why?!"-laden tears when I explained the impossibility of being in two places at once:

"I guess we must have been at the beach."

"Oh."

That's what I call a good day.

Overdue travel: ripping off the band-aid

We have never gone to the beach. Except for in Maine. But not once in 9 years of living in the DC Metro area have we been to the ocean as a couple or as a family. Last year I took my son to visit my sister and her kids in the Outer Banks. But the three of us in our nuclear unit have never gone to the beach together or even been on any vacation that didn't involve going to visit family or friends.

We finally changed that. It seemed unwise to go through with our first kid-free vacation to leave our traumatized-by-the-beginning-of-school boy with his grandma overnight for the first time. So instead we all headed down to Chincoteague and Assateague Island for a short getaway.

I do mean short. We arrived at the hotel at 10:30 p.m. on a Thursday and headed for home the next day just after 2 p.m. It was cold and windy and a little rainy. But our little boy had a fabulous time playing in the waves just the same. We were out there for about a hour and a half, including two changes of clothing for me (pants to shorts and donning an extra jacket) and three for the little guy (into bathing suit from shorts, then to extra long-sleeved bathing suit on top).

Then we visited the nature center where some folks were going to set free Monarch butterflies they had raised and tagged. We learned about terrapin turtles and got to touch a horseshoe crab (I'd come to believe there never really was an animal -- only an empty shell). My husband stayed shivering in the car predicting nightmares about the swarms of mosquitoes closer to the woods while I jogged with my boy on my hip to give him at least a glance at some wild ponies. We ate lunch in town and then spent a while keeping our kid's fingers off fragile items in a gallery before buying a piece of art for the first time in years.

I told my husband that this trip was like ripping off a band-aid. We just needed to do it in order to move on. Now that we've done something, I'm hoping we can make it out to Shenandoah for some hikes and eventually back to Assateague for camping, which I've heard lovely.

And then the next band-aid will be to finally get away for a night without our little one.