housecamping in colorado

In planning this trip to Colorado, my first visit in 8 years, my visions usually involved waking up on a peak somewhere in one of the national forests, a steaming cup of camp coffee in my gloved hands, my breath coming out in icy wisps. The kids curled up in their sleeping bags, awestruck at the view of the continental divide just outside their tent.

So I’m almost embarrassed to say that we have been in Colorado a week now and have spent every night in a bed, with access to showers, stoves, Legos, trampolines, a swimming pool, and even television. Haven’t had a cup of camp coffee since last Saturday. Funny how my Colorado has changed now that I have kids in tow. After dragging them across the country for five days, all they really want at the end of the journey is to play, preferably with other kids. So, while I’m really missing the backcountry, I am so grateful for the hospitality of our friends, the Lentzes and the Nevins, who have basically provided us with a home base while we’ve been here.

And housecamping has a secondary benefit: it allows me to pretend, for a little while, that I’m a Coloradoan again.

Despite the luxury accommodations, we’ve done plenty of playing in the mountains: we’ve hiked in Boulder and in Golden Gate Canyon State Park; we’ve biked up the canyon on the creek path; we’ve pushed the Westfalia up mountain roads that taxed her poor old engine. But we’ve also had days by the pool, days where the kids rode bikes around the neighborhood while we chatted with friends. It’s not the rugged Colorado of my daydreams, but even this family-friendly version has been splendid for my soul. I’ve missed this place, and in many ways, it still feels like home.

And we’re going camping tomorrow.

Scribbles from the Road, Volume I

(typed in haste, with many distractions, from a hotel just outside Denver. . . .)

Day 1: Tuesday, August 3
Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, W. Virginia, Virginia

An automotive glitch set us back two days. Bryan, who had been eager to get on the road as quickly as possible, ended up spending the weekend under the van. We also had to wait for a part that was not going to arrive until Monday. We were both sullen and anxious. The kids, fortunately, were oblivious, and were surprisingly patient when we told them we wouldn’t be leaving just yet.

I tried not to dwell on the bad luck that seems to have surrounded our last few summer vacations. An uplifting call from my friend Lori, who advised me to take control of the situation by visualizing the destination (the Rockies) and cleansing my soul of negative energy, definitely galvanized me out of the doldrums and provided me with a renewed sense of empowerment. We’re going to Colorado. That’s it.

So, finally, on Tuesday morning, we piled into the van (we said goodbye to Sasha the night before; she’ll be staying at Bryan’s mom’s while we’re on the road. She’s done the cross-country trek and doesn’t need to do it again). Dylan and Lexi were much better passengers than we could ever have hoped for, amusing themselves with activity books, coloring, singing, and listening to my Ipod (a novelty for Dylan, who couldn’t get enough of being in control of the music). Before the trip, I downloaded several books on CD, and “Magic Tree House: the Musical” kept them occupied for at least two hours.

We had lunch on the campus of Penn State—Hazleton, which looked as if it had probably been an estate once upon a time. The kids played Nerf basketball and ran off some road energy.

In planning our trip, Bryan expressed a desire to take the Blue Ridge Parkway. Anxious to be in Colorado for as many days as possible, I put up some resistance. Driving through the Shendandoah Valley later on Tuesday evening, however, I had to admit that it was an excellent idea, even if it meant more days on the road. It was raining, but still the views opened up each time we passed a vista. A long, twisty road took us to Matthews Arm Campground in Shenandoah National Park. We arrived just after 7pm, road-weary but happy to have made it to the first destination on our TripTik. Bryan had thought to bring the kids’ scooters, and these provided a much-needed outlet. The campground, which was wooded, rustic, and quiet, was a lovely spot, and the kids were able to do several laps before dinner. We passed several deer who were so habituated that they barely looked up as we passed by. We could have reached out and touched them. I hoped the bears weren’t quite so friendly.

Day 2: Wednesday, August/4
Virginia, West Virginia
Long day of driving. Left our campsite in Shenandoah at 6:30 a.m. Had breakfast at the park’s Visitor’s Center, which offered up a brief panoramic view of the Blue Ridge Mountains before the clouds closed in. I’m happy to report that the Big Sky coffee press mugs Bryan and I bought for our trip to Utah in 2001 still make the best cups of camp coffee around. Nothing like a few grounds in your joe to make you feel burly.

The westy huffed and puffed over the hills (we hit a low of 30mph on the highway at one point), but she came through it all okay. We took a detour for lunch, one we came to regret. We were led to believe, perhaps by our own optimism, that Lake Moomaw/Gathright Dam was a short drive from the exit. As it turned out, we spent almost an hour getting there, down country roads and up a canyon. A wizened old cowboy pointed us in the right direction, and when we finally arrived at the lake, it was pretty but eerie. Completely deserted. The attendant in the Visitor’s Center seemed unused to company, especially a bunch of Yankees in a VW van, and so he stood and watched us awkwardly for a few minutes before asking us where we were headed. We had lunch at the lake, as well as a brief swim (when we arrived, we were the only people there, which I took to be a bad sign), then were back on the road for a long afternoon.

The kids, especially Alexa, looked roughed up. Somehow we imagined they’d sleep during the day and play at night, like desert animals. But Dylan can battle sleep like the best of warriors, and he’s very adept at keeping his sister awake, too. I finally gave in and let them watch “Toy Story” on my laptop, which had just enough juice to through the DVD.

Big storm rolled in as we were looking for a grocery store. Ducked out of the van and into a mall for shelter.

Storm passed quickly. Pulled into a KOA in Milton, W. Virginia, around 6:45 pm. When Bryan and I did our cross-country wedding trip eight years ago, I never would have dreamed of staying in a family campground, but as much as I prefer primitive camping, I have to admit that such places have made all the difference on this trip. The promise of a playground and a swim at the end of a long ride has definitely made the miles bearable for the little ones (and, consequently, for us).

Day 3: Thursday, August 5 .
W. Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois
Churches, adult superstores, churches, crosses, adult superstores. Wal-Mart. Home Depot. Welcome to Middle America! Uneventful day. Driving. Kids a little more restless. Had lunch in Louisville, Kentucky.

The air conditioning gave out, which changed the dynamic of the trip. The kids, amazingly, stayed positive. I have been devising scavenger hunts for them, and so they spend at least part of their days looking for various license plates, billboards, colors, restaurants, etc.

Pulled into an odd little family campground in Illinois around 6pm. The requisite playground occupied the kids while Bryan cooked dinner (scrambled eggs and homemade bread) and I went for a short run. Hot. Buggy. Saw an owl in the nearby nature preserve; he swooped down over a field, then perched in a tree, watching me.

After dinner, Dylan and I had a pleasant walk by the light of our headlamps. The campground is on a lake, and we walked down a path behind the tent sites and saw, under the moonlight, a small canoe with two men fishing. Dylan definitely shares my love for road trips, and we talked about doing a backpacking trip in the fall. He made many observations ( the boy can talk, just ask anyone who knows him) about the people in the campground, the different types of RVs, the lake, the cabins, the bats swooping over our heads, the trip. Whoo! No wonder he fights sleep so tenaciously. So much to think about.

Hot night; did not sleep well. Planned to leave early in the a.m. to beat St. Louis traffic.

More later. Kids harrassing me to get moving, already!

most likely you go your way and i'll go mine

“How could you do that to your children?”

This comment was made by a friend after I told her that I had taken my kids, who were 2 and 4 at the time, hiking at Sleeping Giant on a “frigid” 34-degree day. The phrasing was not only judgmental, it was borderline accusatory: there was the implication that I had subjected my children to some form of torture, a dreary trudge up some cold and lonely peak, rather than a winter ramble up a 1.2-mile carriage road. In reality, they were barely aware of the cold, bundled as they were in layers of thermal cotton and fleece, and though I confess that Lexi’s toes were cold at the end, everyone survived, and DCF did not come and pack my kids up and send them off to a better home.

While my friend’s comment did not quite cause me to second-guess my (obviously questionable) judgment (when I worked with children in Anchorage, we went outside every day, and often the temps were below zero), I was bothered, and have continued to be bothered, by the amount of unsolicited comments and “free advice” doled out so liberally by other mothers, even those who call themselves friends. We insist that our children understand diversity and recognize that there are different value systems within a particular society, yet when it comes to parenting, we toss out the filters, and even go so far as to suggest that a perfectly competent mother who clearly cares for her children has somehow committed an act of neglect or abuse by adhering to a moral or philosophical code that is outside the mainstream.

As someone who treats most minor ailments and illnesses with natural remedies, I’m used to this sort of judgment, and even understand it, to a certain degree. When our kids are suffering, we want to alleviate their pain, and so why wouldn’t we give Tylenol, or antibiotics, if they’re available? What kind of sadist would deprive her children of the right to over-the-counter medicine?

This is a logical argument, and I usually try to explain that some afflictions, like ear infections, often heal themselves, and can’t be treated effectively by antibiotics because they are viral, rather than bacterial. Or that natural remedies often strengthen the body’s ability to heal itself. And I don’t judge parents who do choose a more orthodox course in treating illness; as I said, it’s logical, and rational. But so is my method, I think. And I do give Tylenol, too—or did, before the recent recall.

The medical issue aside, I’ve come to the conclusion that the “judgment tic” is less about concern for the allegedly abused or neglected child than it is about insecurity: we are all, to some extent, insecure about the choices we make, and this puts us on the defensive when it comes to parenting issues. Breastmilk or formula? Cloth or disposable? Camp or no camp? More activities or fewer? Scheduled playdates or spontaneous play?

I have another friend a great parent, who believes wholeheartedly in “kindergarten enrichment,” as many parents do. Here in Cheshire, we have half-day kindergarten, and many parents feel this is insufficient, and so they supplement with afternoon preschool or some other scheduled program. To be fair, many parents choose this option because they are in need of child care, and kindergartners are bussed from school to their program, allowing the parent to work a full day.

I am fortunate enough to have a schedule that allows me to pick Lexi up from pre-school at 11:30, and then to get Dylan off the bus at noon. I say “fortunate,” but this is also a choice for me. For me. I’ll emphasize the personal nature of the choice, because let’s face it, people, we all have different approaches to mothering, and, news flash, with few exceptions, they are equally effective. I’ve tried staying at home full-time; I missed being in the classroom. So my schedule works for me: I teach part-time, I’m home most of the time. Some women are fantastic stay-at-home moms: I’ll use my dear friend Kristen as an example. She bakes all of her bread (and most of her cereal), she does cool crafts, her kids are outdoors in every season. One day last year, she was babysitting her friend’s two kids, in addition to caring for her own three (the oldest of the children in this episode was 5 at the time). She took all 5 hiking IN THE RAIN (no need to call DCF; it was spring). Dylan, Alexa and I met her at Brooksvale Park for lunch, and all of us had lunch under a tree while the rain came down. The kids were covered in mud, and they loved it. A year later, Lexi still says, “Remember that day we were dancing in the rain?” And I should mention that Kristen still finds plenty of time to feed her brain, get involved in the community, and take time out for herself.

Would this be the perfect scenario for everyone? NO. Kristen’s patience far outweighs mine, and I know this, which is why I work three mornings a week. Some women have worked long and hard at establishing their careers; should they be exempt from motherhood because they put in longer hours than I do? I have friends who work full time and who know that they are better moms because of this.

Back to kindergarten enrichment. The friend mentioned above asked me, at the beginning of the school year, where I planned to send Dylan in the afternoons. I said I did not need to send him anywhere, because I would be home. “I know,” she responded, “ but it’s not about child care, it’s about giving them all the education they can get.” I said that Dylan wouldn’t be idle; we read, play games, hike. Oh, and there’s the p-word: PLAY.

My friend conceded that I do manage to do a lot with my kids. But then came the backhand: “And I know that you’re someone who, if you find that Dylan is falling behind—and he might, because the kindergarten teachers have to teach to the majority, and the majority of kids are in enrichment—you’ll send him to an after-school program.”

Other parents have echoed this concern about what “idle time” in the afternoons might mean: “We’re not educators. Johnny is too old to be sitting on the couch all day.” Why is Johnny sitting on the couch? Does every ounce of our kids’ “education” have to come from professionals? And don’t even get me started on the fact that privileging “enrichment” programs perpetuates an elitism within the public school system.

Motherhood is likely the most ass-kicking job any of us have ever had, so why do we make the “workplace” so competitive? Why are we so quick to dish out judgment rather than support? I’d have to wager that, our human shortcomings aside, most of us, at any given moment, are trying to be the best possible parents we can be. We make choices based on our values, and unless your values include drinking an entire bottle of wine every day at noon while your kids play violent video games, most of our kids are probably going to turn out okay, even pretty well, some even spectacular. So, come on, people, let’s lay off, listen, and most important, let’s take it easy on each other. ‘Kay?

As Yet Untitled

Every May, when classes have finished and I have had at least a week to catch my breath, I set to the daunting task of de-cluttering. Never a slave to organization, I invariably find old journals, papers, letters, cards, and books I had forgotten I’d bought stuffed into the most unlikely nooks and crannies. An unfinished short story sleeps restlessly under some cassettes, mixes for various moods, made in my twenties. Pictures from a hiking trip yellow and curl under old cross-country rosters. Snapshots and snippets of different lives pasted together to construct one life.

Once, in a writing group, someone gave a prompt to “describe your life in one word.” I wrote, “periphery.” Yesterday, using two words to accomplish the same feat, I wrote “perpetually passé.” I often feel on the verge of something exciting, but I come to the party late. I’m surrounded by people who do exciting things: writers, artists, activists, ultra-marathoners. People with focus. And while I run, write, parent, play a little music, I’m forever distracted, and therefore projects remain unfinished, disappearing into drawers.

But this past January, I vowed to be more mindful, whatever the task: dishes, bathing children, gardening. To treat even the most mundane task as a creative act. During the school year, when hours of my time are spent commenting on freshman essays, the creative fluids are squeezed dry, and at the end of the day all I want to do is put my feet up and read Tolkien, or Mary Oliver, or nothing at all. But May has arrived once again, and I don’t want to let the summer slip by without feeling as though I’ve accomplished something: organized closets, ripe vegetables in the garden, meals from scratch. But, more than anything else, I want to write again. And I don’t even want to think about a finished project yet; I just want to know that I have spent a portion of each day putting words on paper, however banal.

Yesterday, going through drawers, I found a stack of papers from a class I took in grad school called “Problems in the Profession,” taught by one of my favorite professors, Philip Baruth (a sometimes commentator on NPR). On the front of my portfolio, he wrote, “You’re one of those people who seems to be already very much in the English profession, Tricia. . . . In brief, you present ample evidence that you can handle the world outside UVM. . . .. More than that, your work suggests to me that you’ll do very, very well in academia. . . .” After the initial surprise at this brief encounter with my former self, I had to chuckle. Even though I teach at a university, I couldn’t be farther from “academia,” at least in the sense that Professor Baruth intended. When I do have time to write, I’d much rather write fiction, or creative nonfiction, than do a Lacanian reading of Paradise Lost (though admittedly, when I finished reading Tolkien last winter, I immediately went to the library and checked out a book of critical essays on Lord of the Rings). And yet, there was something encouraging in this meeting with Grad Student Tricia, and I spent a few minutes having coffee with her, if only to get a sense of the energy and fervor with which I had once sat down to the computer, or to my journal, or to a table at Muddy Waters in Burlington with one of my fellow students.

Motherhood provides a convenient, and even legitimate, excuse for falling into a pattern of creative apathy—no, I don’t like that word. For languishing, for putting the writing self aside. And my friend Kathy, an accomplished teacher, writer, and mother, has convinced me that it’s okay to give ourselves permission not to complete a piece of fiction, or an essay, or an article, while school is in session. She has completed a draft of her novel each summer for the past few summers, and is currently shopping for an agent.

I like this method; it makes sense. But the danger, for me, lies not only in not writing, but in not staying awake. Once upon a time, I would go for a run, observe the exact position of the sun and the trees as I passed, and reach for my journal the moment I had finished the obligatory post-run glass of water. Now my tendency is to put the journal at the bottom of the priority list, and the memory of the sun and the trees shrivels, along with the words to describe them.

But that’s why I’m here, this morning, and why I’ll be here again tomorrow. And hopefully the day after that.

Indulging Childish Fancies

When I was eleven or twelve, I learned that our city, Waltham, had a girls’ youth hockey team, the Lady Hawks. I was intrigued. Both of my brothers were hockey players, and my parents had made sure that all of us were skating by the age of two or three. Ponds still froze in those days, I mean really froze, and we would spend entire days on the ice, stopping only for lunch or snacks (and, on rare occasions, for freezing hands and toes). I had figure skates, not hockey skates, and to be honest, I spent more time working on twirls than on dribbling pucks, but still, the idea of hockey excited me. I read my brothers’ Hockey Digests. I knew the lingo (“Ray Bourque had a hat trick last night!”) And every Christmas, Santa would put Bruins tickets in our stockings, and as I went to sleep on Christmas Eve, I would cross my fingers and hope for a game against the Canadiens, Boston’s rival. In the morning, when I pulled the ticket out of my stocking, I would scan it right away for the red “C,” Montreal’s logo.

I’m not sure how I found out about the Lady Hawks, because we had no internet access back then, and we weren’t inundated with hockey flyers at school, as kids are today. I think I saw a picture in our newspaper. I showed it to my Dad. “Dad!” I yelled, nearly giddy. “There’s a girls’ team! I can to play hockey!”

My dad chuckled, pushing the paper away. “You’re not playing hockey,” he said, quietly but with obvious resolve.

I frowned. “Yes, I am. See? There’s a team!”

He was adamant. I wasn’t going to play. It wasn’t a girls’ game. “But you let me play baseball,” I argued. “Why can’t I play hockey?”

He was growing frustrated. “You just can’t, that’s all!”

I remember the conversation ending with me declaring that I was going to play hockey “every chance I get,” to which my father replied with a bemused half-smile.

Some time during my college years I lost interest in hockey, mostly because I was occupied with Shakespeare and Fielding and French camp, but also because the game, at least in the NHL, had lost its purpose. Hockey seemed to occur between brawls, and after the departure of players like Wayne Gretzky, the emphasis seemed to be on punching rather than passing, on fists rather than finesse. Skill was incidental. Moreover, despite the fact that they were making shameful salaries for playing a game they loved, the players often went on strike, and consequently, so did I: I was done, I stated flatly, with the NHL.

I never actually played ice hockey. I joined a girls’ floor hockey league in college, and every now and then I would play street hockey with my brothers, but mostly, I came to consider hockey a game for kids—kids and men who played at the crack of dawn or after bedtime. After I had earned my master’s degree and started teaching, it was comical to imagine donning shoulder pads, knee pads, a helmet, hockey jersey, et cetera, et cetera, although Bryan, who played pick-up hockey at a rink in Cromwell, often encouraged me to give it a try. I laughed.

But this winter, the pond has frozen! Two days ago, Brooksvale Park in Hamden officially opened its pond for skating. And Dylan, who has been playing hockey informally for the last year, really needed someone to play with. So, as his main source of entertainment, I felt it my duty to oblige. “I’ve never played ice hockey, Dylan,” I said sheepishly, "but I’ll give it a try." (Lexi offered to play “coach.”). Several years ago, Bryan bought me a pair of hockey skates, and I had complained that they were much harder to skate in than the white boot skates on which I had learned. But now they have a purpose. And my old stick, which was lost for many years behind skis, snowshoes, and mountaineering gear, was overjoyed to come out and play.

The ice was surprisingly smooth for pond ice (Brooksvale Park, in Hamden, has a fantastic crew, and they plow and clean the ice themselves). Once we made it past the downward slope of the bank and the bumps that invariably sprout up around the edges, I slid the puck out to center ice. And then, twenty-something years after my declaration, I was playing ice hockey, and what a rush it was. Dylan was a tenacious defender, and fortunately for us, Alexa, who believes all the world is a stage, was perfectly happy to pretend there was an adoring audience for her “tricks.” We played until there was no more light, and as I skated across the pond for one last slapshot, I felt, for a moment, the presence of Dad. “Take that, Dad!” I said as I got into position, and I could hear him laughing.

Intact but Exhausted: On Parenting the "Spirited" Child

Spirited. What a lovely euphemism for a tempestuous temperament. A while back, I posted, here on this blog, an essay called “Seatbelt, Please,” which chronicled, to some extent, the joys and frustrations of parenting a “spirited” toddler. In my post, I quoted Dr. Sears, whose “Fussy Baby Book” brought me much validation and comfort during some dark times with my volatile daughter, Alexa. Sears sings the praises of “fussy” children, arguing that they generally grow up to be more vivacious, more interesting, more spirited than the average child.

In our culture, 'good' children are ones who do what they're told, without discussion. They sit quietly in their high chairs and eat what they're fed. They obey the Sunday school teacher and take their seat when asked. They don't talk in class at school and they certainly don't argue with their parents.
"I've met very few children like that, yet we persist in the fiction. . . . (Sears, 160-61).

In response to this passage, I wrote, “I love a good fiction like anybody else, but I also love a roller coaster.”

And it’s true; I do seem to seek out chaos and drama, at least on occasion. But, man, I’m finding that this particular ride quite often turns my stomach upside down, and I’m finding it difficult to locate the good-natured, retrospective mood that seemed ever-present in that earlier essay. For the present, I’ve abandoned Dr. Sears, and have turned instead to one who provides a different kind of perspective: Dr. Merlot. He’s sweet and smooth and invariably brings a little tingle of warmth. He doesn’t question my parenting strategies. He lets me lie back in his warm, liquid arms.

Woops—pardon my reverie. For actual advice, I do turn, on occasion, to books. I found this statement in Mary Sheedy Kurcinka’s “Raising Your Spirited Child” (there’s that lovely term again):

“Spirited kids like to make very sure the limits stand firm. As a result, they test more than other kids. This is not a figment of our imagination”(Kurcinka, 169).

Let me raise my glass to Kurcinka for taking time to point out that I’m not crazy. Because last week, when I picked up Alexa, kicking and screaming, and marched across the playground in front of two of her friends’ moms, I definitely felt, for a moment, like Joan Crawford. I imagined my hair flying all around my face, a savage frizzy mane; pictured my face in white Kabuki makeup, my eyes wild, bursting from their sockets with rage, as in the “wire hanger” incident in “Mommie Dearest.”

But I’m sane, so that’s good.


Here’s what triggered it: my cute little three-year-old has started rolling her eyes—in appropriate moments, no less. And the eye-roll is a punctuation mark, an exclamation point at the end of a whole lot of attitude. It started last Tuesday, at the Hamden YMCA, where Dylan was a guest in his friend Matthew’s swim class. Lexi pouted for a good 45 minutes, saying, grumpily, “I wanna swim.”

And at first I was sympathetic. It was 4:00 in the afternoon, not a good time for three-year-olds under the best of circumstances. “Lexi,” I said patiently, “I know you’re upset, but do you know why Dylan gets to swim today? It’s because. . . .”

And I never got to finish that sentence, because she hit me with the first eye roll, a very dramatic, eyes-back-in-your-head maneuver, followed by an exaggerated sigh. I was dumbfounded.

“Whoa,” my friend said slowly, equally floored.

Then, the next day, at the playground, it happened again. She wanted to take off her shoes. I said I thought it was a bad idea. I said, “It’s not summer. It’s fall. It’s cold. Do you understand?”

“No,” she replied, her eyes innocent. “I don’t.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Lexi,” I said, my voice clearly showing signs of anger, “If you want to stay at the playground, then you need to be a good. . . .”

There it was again: the eye roll. Not quite as dramatic, but enough to make an impact.

“Use a Firm Voice,” instructs Kurcinka’s book. “A firm voice,” she goes on to explain, “is not harsh or loud. It is simply a voice of conviction—a voice that states clearly, ‘The rule is . . . I will help you follow the rule.’ The tone communicates to your spirited child that you are committed and willing to get up and enforce this rule every time” (Kurcinka, 168).

If nothing else, I think I have been consistent in the area of rule enforcement, even if, in certain moments, it’s Joan Crawford-Kabuki-style enforcement.

In my previous post, I wrote:

Discipline. Sears says that attachment parenting is discipline in and of itself: when your infant cries and you hold her, you are teaching her that the world--or at least her world--is a place of comfort and love, and this, according to Sears, will give her the confidence she needs to go forward. I mean, really, can a 2-month old manipulate us, as many popular books suggest? When Alexa cried, I nursed her. I held her. I cursed her silently at times (sometimes not so silently), and Bryan and I bickered like brats in the middle of the night. (Me, March 2008)


And despite her ability to drive me to the edge of reason, I still find that she responds so well to love and nurturing, that even though she tests, and tests, and tests, there is a loving little creature inside that devilish costume. And I confess, too, that I find her adventurousness amusing, even thrilling. After her “time out” in the playground, she was back on the merry-go-round, hanging upside down, being thrown from the reckless ride two or three times, and jumping back on to exercise her athletic prowess. It was frightening and entertaining all at once. I was sure she was going to leave with a broken arm, but in the end, we all left intact, if a bit exhausted.

Hail to the blithe little spirits of the world.

I’m off to my appointment with Dr. Merlot.

words for warmth

Words for Warmth

A Reading Project to Support Homeless Veterans in New Haven

For many, Autumn in New England is a warm prelude to the winter holiday months. We turn up the heat, light a fire in the woodstove, and wrap a fleece blanket around our shoulders as we settle into the evening hours, curled up with a favorite book.

For scores of veterans returning from the present wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this cozy scene is not merely idyllic, it is inconceivable. The bite in the air signifies the reality of winter and all of its foreboding uncertainties: for many veterans, the season is a sobering reminder that a warm bed and a stable support system remain, for the present, elusive luxuries.

Reading for Relief

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden

How can books help provide relief from the cold? From now until Veteran’s Day (Wednesday, November 11), 0ur team of motivated young students will be raising funds for the Homefront, a refuge for veterans returning from the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, by reading books—lots of books! By pledging your support, you can help them reach their goal of $250.00, all of which will go toward helping the Homefront open its doors in January.

And best of all, when you make a donation to the read-a-thon, you not only provide funding for the Homefront; you also promote literacy!

For more information, or to make a donation, contact:

Tricia Dowcett tdowcett@gmail.com

Lori Ouellette lori1026@gmail.com

Joanne Dragunoff jodragun@gmail.com

Ann Bickell abickell@hotmail.com

Please support our team with a pledge. Winter is fast approaching, and our returning soldiers need our help. Together, we can help those who sacrificed so much for us.

What is the Homefront?

The Homefront is a house, a refuge for veterans returning from the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have nowhere to go and need support and reconnection.

Veterans can live at the house for up to two years as they address the causes of their homelessness. The house is divided into apartments where the men will live together and receive support from both trained staff and each other.

The Homefront's goals include:

• Providing stable housing
• Encouraging veterans to pursue higher levels of education and vocational training
• Fostering self-determination
• Reintegrating veterans back into their communities
• Freeing up space in the already overcrowded shelters

For more information on the Homefront, please visit www.columbushouse.org.