I would love to live in a neighborhood like this: clean, surrounded by mature trees, with real sidewalks for pedestrians and cyclists. Every house has a large porch, intended for use as an outdoor room. How soon will we see these kinds of neighborhoods sprout up along the eastern United States?

www.rosschapin.com

Dinotopia

This week I ran across the book Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time, written and illustrated by James Gurney. I was floating around one of my favorite places, the Kennett Area Senior Center Book Store. It's a used book store whose donor base is often both affluent and educated, so the selection is good. I had a spare hour, child free, and wanted to enjoy every minute of it.

I am enamored by this book and plan to enjoy the other two in the series which follow. There's discovery and adventure, inventions and engineering, contemplation and philosophy. Read aloud season is upon us, when the kids and I bundle up in bed and enjoy a chapter book together. I might suprise them with this book soon.

For three weeks now, the paw paw trees have been yielding their sumptuous fruit. Some describe the taste of North America's largest native fruit as that of banana-pineapple, others say it is like a sweet mango, while others say it has an aspect of vanilla-root beer. Some hand sized raspberry plants padded into a small nursery bed in the spring quickly grew to productive canes within months. We've been enjoying the month long backyard harvest. Yesterday my husband brought in three chestnuts, the first ever to fall, from two trees which were planted when our seven year old was just a baby. We promptly set to roasting them, and enjoyed the warm, starchy sweetness.

New Discoveries

Abstract:

Fascinating and elegant shapes may be folded from a single planar sheet of material without stretching, tearing or cutting, if one incorporates curved folds into the design. We present an optimization based computational framework for design and digital reconstruction of surfaces which can be produced by curved folding. Our work not only contributes to applications in architecture and industrial design, but it also provides a new way to study the complex and largely unexplored phenomena arising in curved folding.

I've spent the last month transitioning into the new family schedule. I thrive off of newness and variation, though this new set of responsibilities has sent me back to the drawing board. My husband has been a great anchor, providing a calm focus in contrast to the background chatter of life with three young children.

My birthday passed by without much fanfare. In my haste, I forgot to ask for the day off (from mothering that is!). I was delighted by the special recognition at work. With every year that passes, I still feel ageless. Thirty-four seems a lot like twenty-eight, which seemed a bit like twenty-three. Although now when I listen to my favorite Miles Davis album, Live-Evil, the music has never sounded so good. It still sounds like the first time I heard it, which was decades ago. I bet I'm not the only person who feels this way about their favorite Miles Davis album.

So, new discoveries for this month include: hydrofoil surfboards, kite-surfing, paper folding, barefoot jump rope games, freestyle dance, roller derby, the writer Malcolm Gladwell and digital video cameras that film 1,400,000 frames per second.

Unison Hand Made Pastels

These beautiful pastels are hand rolled and air-dried by a small company in Northumberland, England. This may be a place where work and play are used as synonyms. Those colorful sticks remind me of the ones my older brother and I used to make when we were little. I recall one of our main games of playing pretend centered around the idea of 'work'---where we worked, what we did at work, that we were either going to or coming back from work. At one time, my 'office' was up in a pine tree. These games of make believe lasted hours, days, months, years.

Yesterday the rain poured on and off and kept my husband away from his usual tasks. He is a landscaper and an arborist, and for the most part he loves his work. He is also a musician, a composer. After tending to the kids and their needs all morning, he set aside some time in the afternoon to sit down at the piano.

He started off with a familiar tune, some classic jazz standard, and then kept going until he got through it without a flaw. As he warmed up, he went into some of his own compositions, playing them in rounds, changing a few notes here and a few notes there. The house filled not only with the chords, but also with the memories and feelings, the times and situations when he first sat down and played the bits and pieces of what would become full songs. Whenever I hear him play something new that sounds bright, distinct and special, I put in a gentle request:

"Oh, I like that one. Can you write it down?"

There's something about the warm weather that makes me feel like building. When I was a kid, about nine years old, I recognized that I wanted to be an architect when I grew up. A couple of years later, my family embarked upon a summertime labor which brought me close to that aspiration. In our back yard, starting in the summer when I was eleven, we built an addition that doubled the size of our house. My dad was a teacher, and had the summers off. He supervised us with incredible patience and care. The older siblings were all given a new pair of sneakers, a hammer and a nail apron. We started off the project with digging, shovel by shovel, the crawl space and foundation. The younger kids had a great time playing in the piles of dirt.

If I remember well, that phase took a month or two. I enjoyed the physical labor, and didn't hold much of a grudge on 'having to' work on the addition. We worked the morning until lunch, took a two hour break, and then worked some more through the afternoon. Any socializing or hanging out was done after dinner.

The addition was like a part of the family. Our cousin played a main role on the work crew, as well as various aunts and uncles. I remember when the trusses were delivered early one morning. We all stood there in our youth, commenting on how in the world we would get the largest ones up to the second floor, let alone nail them in. We were a motley crew, and we knew it. Somehow we knew that this great responsibility was really an honor.

So, as the summer rolls along, I aim to focus my skills and build something with wood, hammer and nails. Of course the kids will be asking, "Mom, can I help?"

Summer vacation is in full swing. The kids were finished school on the 17th of June; it was a very long school year. We've been passing the time with board games, hanging out with friends and visiting with family. The kids caught up with two different sets of cousins, first nearby in Newark, and then at the beach.

I got to try out a new set of fins while swimming in the ocean. The week prior, I'd spent a little time reading up about free diving. While the ocean is not the safest place for me to try this out, our neighbors up the hill have a one acre spring fed pond. With friends nearby, I look forward to exploring the underwater world there.

On most days when I'm not at work, you'll find me at home in the backyard, working in the garden. Pictured above are the snap peas and broccoli. Our youngest child has a wheelbarrow and set of tools which keep him happy. He's got a pile of sand and soil of which he is fully in charge. He helps me water and mulch, and will gladly transport piles of weeds onto the compost. Even in the heat of the day, he stays focused on the task. When he's tired, he stops working and lets me know he's ready to go inside. I try and follow his lead. These are very special times that we share together.

This week there was an incredible thunder and wind storm. The power was out, and dinner had been served hours before. I was ready to be relieved of any domestic chores, so I decided to go out for a run. Our second child was adamant about joining me.

"Not today. I want to go by myself."
"Mom, I want to go with you. Please, please Mom!"
"Sometimes I say yes and sometimes I say no. Right now the answer's no."

He runs away as I lace up my shoes. By the time I am finished putting my hair up in a ponytail, he returns, holding his thickest pair of winter socks. He proceeds to put them on, pulling them up as high as they can go.

"OK, come on, we'll go together."
"Yeah!! Thanks Mom."

Children are so easily pleased. We drive to a nearby trail, and the second we close the car door he's off and running. I follow his lead, and let him set the pace. When he's tired, he walks, and I run ahead and then back, so that we're always in sight of each other. Half-way through he asks if he can take off his shirt.

"Sure."
"Yeah, I saw two other people running with their shirts off."
"Well, it's pretty hot."
"Hey Mom, if you're sweaty, you can use my shirt to wipe your forehead."
"Thanks. Can I use it right now?"
"Yeah."

He's a very considerate person. We had a wonderful time, and we've got plans to run together once a week. Next week he says he wants to have a race.

Our daughter has been busy, with end of the school year projects and tests. Last week we finally caught up for some laughter and conversation.

"So, what are you reading now?"
"The Percy Jackson series. Oh Mom, the 5th one came out last week. Can we go to Borders soon?"
"Let's go tomorrow after breakfast."
"Oh, cool, thanks."

She's old enough now to buy these things with her own money. The next day she spends all afternoon reading on the couch. I admire the way she works hard at school, and then sets out to relax on the weekend. She's meeting her own needs. She was one of twelve students (out of 56 who applied) chosen to be an ambassador for her school. Reading that letter of acceptance was a moment for me to step back and realize that her school community recognizes her for the wonderful individual whom she is. I am happy for her, and humbled by her wisdom and grace.

It is really helpful for me to recognize how easy it can be to be a positive, loving presence in my family's life. They are continual reminders of the never ending present moment, otherwise known as 'life'.