Wednesday, October 14: Catching Up

I titled this "Catching Up" but there's no way to catch up on my absolutely DELINQUENT stretch between posts. I'll do better. No excuses except pure busy-ness. Here are some big updates and thoughts from the past (eek) month:

Lucia's at Peak Teen Stage

Early this month, Lucia took her PSAT on a Friday, took the SAT on Saturday, and, later that afternoon, went to pick up her official driver's license. That was a peak-teen weekend, you know? She's careening off into the future. It is staggering to witness but also is flying by so fast it's easy to just not even notice it--oh, sure, take the biggest test of your life; pick up that first-ever official license; and don't forget to unload the dishwasher. Huge life moments all mixed up with everyday life. 

All XC All the Time

The kids are running running running, chasing PR's and team wins and trying not to bleed through their spikes. And failing. We went to Newville, PA, for the big Foundation meet on 9/26, and Greta--suffering from blood blisters in both big toes (shudder)--actually bled through her spikes. She wasn't even supposed to run that race, going with the team as the eighth runner (the alternate), but a last-minute ankle injury for one of the girls meant Greta was called into action (with twenty minutes' notice!). She'd been counting on a rest for her poor feet but persevered. 

There was another race on Saturday, the "Legends" race in Ohio, and both girls FINALLY got the PR's they were after. Lucia clocked in at 21:00 (she's so close to her goal of sub-21) and Greta dropped more time to 22:55. They were very happy. I missed this race--the only one I'll miss this season--since Molly and I were on a sister-trip to Maine for the weekend. But Andrew was there to see the happy team.

Olivia

Somewhere in here, on September 30, the girls and I went to see Olivia Rodrigo at PPG. I'd gotten tickets for Greta and a friend, and Andrew snapped up tickets for Lucia and a friend, then one of my friends had tickets and invited me. It was lots of fun.

Birthday Season Begins

Tomorrow, Lucia turns seventeen. Seventeen! The late teen years begin. I think seventeen was of my favorite ages. I've been digging through old journals from that year, trying to remember what it was like to be seventeen, a junior and senior in high school, absolutely consumed by the daily minutia of that time while much, much bigger things were so close but not, yet, really acknowledged. These 1994-1995 journals are pure gold. I'm there, driving all over southwestern PA with my friends, giving college a half-second's thought now and then (things were so different back then), but not looking much beyond the happy parameters of my known world. The return, via these pages, has been instructive. And also a reminder that I am one thousand years old, with clear memories of a time when we might spot a friend's car in a parking lot and go looking for them, text messages and tracking and all the rest of it so far beyond our wildest imagination. 

So. The first October birthday tomorrow, then Greta and me in quick succession. 

The Very Best Month

October is underway. I finally put out some Halloween decorations. To conclude this overdue post, here's the required October benediction from Bliss Carman; I'll never not get chills from the lines of this poem:

A Vagbond Song

There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood—

Touch of manner, hint of mood;

And my heart is like a rhyme,

With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.

The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry

Of bugles going by.

And my lonely spirit thrills

To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.

There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir;

We must rise and follow her,

When from every hill of flame

She calls and calls each vagabond by name.