are you there, dog? It's me, kerensa

I took the curtains off the sidelite windows yesterday, in preparation for our new storm door, and each time I pass it by, I am startled by how naked I suddenly feel. Our world has become one whose hatches are battened, toggles are buttoned and seams are sealed tight. Fifty years ago, it was customary to pop your head in your neighbor's door and let out a "yoohoo", and now the door has become deadlocked, barricaded and made of steel. I have mentioned before that I was raised on a mountain, where privacy was not only possible, but all too often the norm. In winter, the street was dark as pitch, because the inhabited homes were few and far between. My parents would go to sleep early, and I would be left in the quiet, longing for companionship and the noises of a suburb. Friends who lived below Taborton led, in my eyes, an easier life. They did not help split wood with a hatchet in November, or drag mattresses in front of the coal stove during power outages. When they wanted...

First Written Friday, February 16, 2007 So apparently, according to my mother, I am an odd duck. I used to look forward to the first day of school with fervor. The smells of new shoe leather, the classroom and supplies. The feel of your new first day dress, and perfect September air. Everything was new, and fresh, and full of promise. Which teachers were to become your destiny? The ones who drove you crazy with their stupidity, or the ones who picked your brain and tested your limits? Would your friends be in your class, or in your lunch? What about the guy you had a crush on? I want to tell my children they will have great teachers, and terrible ones. They will make some amazing friends who will bring them nostalgia in adulthood, and they will have some friends who cause me to inwardly cringe. They will have fabulous days, and atrocious days, but the good days will outnumber the bad. There will be a lot of learning experiences that will be invaluable to them for their entire ...

Like kids in a candy store, they are furiously digging their grubby paws through the clearance bins, in search of an item, any item, that would make this dig pay off. They eagerly examine scrapbook stickers and notepads (although the monogram P and V are all that are left), until they find something random and I agree to add it to my basket. We are there to buy supplies for their Halloween costumes, and before you get overly impressed with my superwoman skills, I must admit this is the first year I am attempting homemade costumes. When my sister and I were growing up, my mother was that aforementioned supermom. She made us gourmet meals on a tight budget, managed a full time teaching job and still managed to be the mom who dug out her sewing machine periodically. When the kids in 7th grade were all buying Skidz pants (atrociously ugly), she actually made me a pair so I could fit in (though I never wore them- because I was a perpetually embarrassed preteen) My handmade costumes ranged f...