In which I am surrounded.

At the moment, there are…

12 gold faculty marshal cords, complete with instructions, a picture, and labels reminding them to FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, return the cords in the labeled bags so I know who to track down later.

23 – no, 20 – faculty regalia rentals, complete with a purple labeled (in similar bold, all-caps fashion) to please return, etc. etc.

26 student caps-and-gowns (and hoods and tassels and zipper pulls) for students who have failed to pick them up during distribution or extra designated pick-up times.

A box full of senior prints to go with aforementioned caps-and-gowns.

A to-do list that has been scratched out and scribbled, annotated, re-written and, yes, cried over.

The ghost of french fries past.

Boxes and boxes of extra gowns organized by height, hoods not-so-organized by major, tassels and zipper pulls all waiting to be thrown together for those who “forgot” to order, or gowns ruined by errant irons.

And, because I’m me, half an outline for a new book that blossomed from a seedling overnight when I accidentally blew through the tumblers of the lock and it turned. Why do these things only happen when I am surrounded by everything else?

Why did the chicken cross the road?

On Sunday, I went for a long drive through the local backroads. There were lots of farms and fields and, at one point, this little one crossed the road. Later I saw an entire flock hanging out on the stone wall. The point isn’t so much that I saw it (although that was cool; love seeing me some cool animals in the wild), it was more that I had no idea what her name was.

They’re not the best snapshots – forgive me. But who’s that bird? Clearly not a turkey and not a chicken. A…prairie hen? Grouse? And am I correct in guessing she’s not, like, wild then. Their gang of birds live and are raised on a farm (probably the one in the background)? Not, like, the woods that we’re surrounded by. I as because there is also the pond to the left of us that could be their water supply if they’re wild. She looked pretty docile, all dressed up in her Sunday best. She didn’t look homeless.

Hit me with your best guesses. And, um, if you could avoid telling Uncle Teddy that I have no idea what I’m on about so he doesn’t feel like he failed me, that’d be great.

A secret apartment, to keep things interesting.

Those who know me know I can’t resist a good secret, especially if it’s of the hidey-hole variety. Secret passageways. Secret gardens. Secret compartments. It’s like a kind of crack for me.

(This will be important in a minute.)

Right now I’m in need of a little fix of Happy, a dose of Joy. Because right now, it’s Commencement season. It’s my huge spring production for my job. And I love my job, I do! I went to school here, and getting to work on the other side of the desk, helping the little ducklings who need some extra mothering or an understanding ear. It helps me deal with being so far removed from my own two kiddos. Naturally, I get all kinds of emotional when my ducklings finally cross the stage. I feel like I helped a teeny-tiny bit in getting them there. That’s the good part about Commencement season.

Then there’s the other parts. Like how things start to get absolutely nutsy at work. Commencement is just a little more than 3 weeks away, things are getting REALLY REAL. Katie is about ready to lose her mind kind-of-real. So. Of course. When caps and gowns came in, my boss, in an attempt to keep me on track and not babbling nonsense by 9 in the morning, sweetened the honeypot with — you guessed it — a secret apartment.

We have 46 boxes of regularly-scheduled caps-and-gowns. This isn’t counting the late orders that we’ll have to build into kits. Or faculty regalia. Or the reserves for the left-field surprises we don’t know about yet. 46 GIANT boxes. That have to go somewhere, and can’t be here, because – swanky office with higher-ups. And my boss’s office which is already filled with all the other boxes, baubles, and bits. Finding a space that wasn’t Central Storage was key.

Which is how I found out about the Secret Apartment.

As I’ve said, I went to school here. I thought I’d heard most of the ghost stories, or at least had heard a rumor of a rumor. But this super secret apartment that apparated out of nowhere? Was in the dorm I lived in as a senior! Get out!

Not exactly 221B Baker Street, is it? But it’s not nothing. And this whole time, I had no idea a spacious 2-bedroom apartment, complete with a city view, was lurking behind that innocuous hardwood door.

There’s a galley kitchen (with double! ovens!), enough shelf-space to keep even me happy, ornate chandeliers, a giant study space… It wasn’t long before I was scheming ways to get them to rent the space to me. I’d mother an entire dorm of ducklings if it meant I could have that much space! And just think of how easy commuting would be! I’d walk 10,000 steps and a giant hill on my way to work for all that room. Easy.

Alas, my real nemesis was this:

That’s the Wall of Reality I ran smack into, face first. Sigh. If I must. Commence, commence, commence. Off I go, higgly piggly. For another 24 days. Not that anyone is counting.

Quick – someone come up with a Secret Time Machine.

And this weekend, we did the Culture.

I should have known to expect a little chaos after my weekend away. My uncle (and godfather) is a critically acclaimed, award-winning plein air artist. He’s incredibly talented. Because we’ve been around it all our lives, we take it a bit for granted. This weekend he had a show at the Asa Waters Mansion, a local historical mansion that is not only rich in history, part of the Underground Railroad, and filled with gorgeous architectural details (I got a tour – that’s a different post), but it’s also a gorgeous event venue. Events like art shows.

Have I mentioned that because my uncle is of an age, I have become his administrative professional for art show submissions, typing up price lists, master lists of paintings (name, dimension, frame, and price)(why am I telling you that? no one wants to know that), and completing sales because there’s taxes to compute. Basically I’m summoned to his house last minute to submit artwork thumbnails and files via websites and, on a Tuesday after a whirlwind and exhausting vacation, and days before the show, am summoned to do all the things. And to work the show Friday and Saturday.

It wasn’t what I had planned, but I have to admit – I had a good time. Tell an ambivert she has to do an art show and she’ll whine all week until she’s thrown into the mix. I found a cousin we didn’t know still lived here – 91 and in better shape than I am! I got a secret tour of the mansion and saw floors I hadn’t been on before. I found a new friend who was as into genealogy as I am, and who may be distantly (hundred years or so) related. I had some phenomenal cake! Oh, and I worked the show!

Isn’t it a gorgeous space? It took them four hours (and three truck trips) to assemble everything pre-show. God knows it took me a bit of time to make the nameplates and price list. It took two hours to disassemble and bring everything back – and that was with three sets of aunts and uncles, me, and some helpers from the Friends of the Asa Waters Mansion who run events. (And, because we know or are related to the entire town, were all friends-friends, too.)

We did quite well! I sold five paintings, which is quite a big deal. It amazes me every day that my uncle can make a living from his passion. How many people are that brave? Or talented?

These are a few quick snaps (poor snaps, but I was a working girl trying to move quickly) of some of his paintings. The first one is of the stone church out at the reservoir. It’s a very famous, romantic landmark. I have a painting of a different perspective of it that Uncle Mike gifted to me when I got married. The second pic is a smaller study of a book on a local farm. I love the water and the fall colors. And the last one is actually a permanent piece donated to the Mansion of the mansion where we were. It must have been fourth of July or the bicentennial because it’s all decked out in bunting.

My uncle donated another painting for the raffle to benefit the Friends.

It was a lovely two days, even if it was hard work. I love seeing my uncle in his element. I love being here with my family, doing things with them, instead of hearing about it. I love being the one everyone counts on to help. To be the carer. It all just makes my heart feel topped off.

Like I’m me again, in the place where I’m supposed to be. Even if I’m not posh enough to be properly cultured.

Spring, sprang, sprinted away.

It’s only April.

Only April.

April in New England, at that.

Pfft. Okay. Yes. I’m huffing. Huffing quite a lot, actually. You’d think I’d know better. (I do.) You’d think I’d have adjusted. (I swear I have.) Instead of tornado season like if I were back in Tejas, we have blustery winds, torrential showers every other day, and – yes – temps that change every other minute.

But somehow, in the space of ten days, my heart has seized the once mind-blowingly gorgeous offerings of 50° here, 63° there, and now outright expects it as the norm.

Katie: it is April. Only April. In New England.

Yes, when you return from vacation and the forecast promises a low of 46°, it might lie and only be a single degree above freezing. You might have a bit of ice at the edges of your condensated windshield. You might have wanted a jacket, not just a heavy duster. Even if it’s in the 60s later that day.

But 28° this morning? A full-on scrim of frost and ice on the inside of the windshield? It’s too much! I do not know where spring has gone, but I would like it back now, please.

Time to Begin Again, Michael Finnegan.

My life has always been filled with music and songs. The radio playing in the kitchen. My dad’s stereo blasting on the other side of the closed kitchen doors. Records, cassettes, CDs, playlists. Walkmans, Discmans, and transistor radios. Live music. Girl Scout songs. Records and nursery rhymes and silly little folk songs and tidbits Mum would sing to us. Some of those ones weren’t even real. We’d just sing them here and there as we went about our tiny little uncomplicated little kid lives.

There was one of those songs that I loved because it was catchy, because it was nonsense (I’m sure), and because it had that magical earworm quality kids seem to love: “There was an old man named Michael Finnegan, Climbed a tree and bumped his shin again, He climbed down and then climbed up again, Poor ol’ Michael Finnegan, Begin again…” That poor ol’ Michael Finnegan was always doing things, and then having to begin again. At the time, it felt like a curse. The endless suffering of the Sisyphus of our youth. The struggle of always having to begin again.

Now, it feels more like a blessing.

A small grace to have the chance to not exactly start fresh – nothing is ever that uncomplicated. But to begin again? Yes, that feels closer to what this is.

I started this blog sixteen years ago. It was a place for me to discover myself again, figure out who I was, process everything I was going through. It was 2028. ‘2008: The Year of Kate’, I branded it. And now here we are, beginning again. ‘2024…What’s It All For’? Hmm…there might be something there.

What’s it all for? To again use writing to process what I’m going through? Self-reflection? To create connection. It’s a place to create meaning for our brave and scrappy little group. Sixteen years ago I said, “You can’t get there from here.” But I swore I had a plan. Well. That plan might have collapsed under outside influences, but here I am, still standing. Time to find a way to get there from here, maybe with only the barest hint of a plan. Be myself; keep writing; find a way forward. 2024. What’s it all for? It’s for us: that’s what it’s always been for.

C’mon, Michael Finnegan. You’re up. Time for us to find a way to begin again.

My best life apparently includes ALL the wildlife.

Today was a rough day. Like, almost throw up from the stress of it all kind of rough. Because no one likes surprises. Especially stressy, tough surprises. And not those surprises over and over again.

Honestly, yous guys, I feel like Wile E. Coyote a bit, because just when I feel like I’m getting back on track, rebuilding my best life, feeling great about who I am and where I’m going (except for one or two pins I need to fall into place), and then… KABLOOEY!!!

But! When I woke up this morning, I pulled up my Girl Scout socks and told myself that anyone who can find a bald eagle in the wild – a bald eagle nest, even! – doesn’t have anything to worry about. She’ll manage.

Of all the inspirational things I tried to tell myself, that was the one that actually stuck to the wall.

Because you know what? I DID see a bald eagle – a bald eagle nest, even! – in the wild! I’ve seen a mature bald eagle, majestic, breathtaking, damn near miraculous honestly. And I’ve seen two fledglings still in the nest (…who i maybe thought were part of the tree at first. Shhh! -don’t tell!). The fledglings were ginormous; nearly the size of their mama. They all just sat there, occasionally preening. Not much ado about anything.

How crazy is that? I’m a city girl. I didn’t roam out of the city…well, maybe a little towards the suburbs as we roamed the Langolier pole path, and sat by the sides of swamps. By “we”, I mean one of my uncles took me. He used to be an avid hunter, and for the past 15 years or so, he’s changed fields and now photographs (and sells prints of) New England wildlife. I had gone to his house to vent to him and my aunt about the newest surprise stress, and after I finished unloading, my uncle asked: “Wanna go look for some eagles?”

“Uh – YES!!!!!” was my reply. I think I had my shoes on before he finished turning around.

I’ve been asking him him he finds all of these animals; I know there are tracking methods I could just study, but my uncle’s talents are beyond that. He just happens about all kinds of things, like he’s a woodland magnet, or maybe a Disney animator with a magic wand.

Whatever it was, we saw the mama (or papa) eagle with the two fledglings at the first pond. Then we went to check out the owl tree – sadly, nothing doing there. I’m glad we went though, because he’s been telling me to look in the tree in the town center. I drove there and there are twenty trees in the little triangle of park! The owl tree he meant? Is across the street in front of someone’s lawn. But he made up for it – we went rambling down backroads, seeing the squirrels the size of cats; a deer ran in front of our truck thankfully when we were crawling along; there were red-wing blackbirds; crows the size of eagles; an empty osprey nest; and then my proudest moment: I asked what the bump on top of a telephone pole thingy was, and it was an Osprey sleeping! Mrs. Monopoli would be so proud of me!

At the next place, which was next to an adorable old-timey cemetery a few towns over, one I’ve driven past a hundred times!, we saw osprey in their nest with wee ones; Great Blue Herons stalking fish in the shallows; other Great Blue Herons in nests (like apartments) with fledglings; paired swans; Canadian Geese; duckies; and even muskrats swimming around! And then, as if that wasn’t enough Disney wonderland to lift anyone’s spirits, he pointed out a doe that was walking through the woods on the opposite shore. See what I mean about how he’s a woodland creature magnet?

All of that buoeyed me today. I hope the thought of it helps someone else, too. I’ve given Uncle John a new list that includes pheasants, bobcats, and a black bear that’s a safe distance away. (If football has taught me nothing, it’s: be very, very specific with your requests to the Gods above.) Oooh, and pheasants – I should tell him there’s been an update. I can’t add porcupines or anything else until we check some off. But it’s okay – I’m keeping track.

And then it turned out the stressy thing went my way this morning and I have a month’s reprieve so I can show everyone that I really am trying to be the best Katie I can be. It just turns out that my action figure comes with a field guide and binoculars.

The girl went over the mountain…

It’s rainy together. Rainy and miserable. And to be honest: it’s kind of put me in a funk.

To be more honest, I started out having a bit of a Jonah day. I have some custody stuff that bubbled up over the weekend, and…. I keep making hard decisions and tough choices and wondering when the terrible, awful, no-good, very bad hurdles will stop showing up. I’m doing my best to build myself back up, but at some point… Man.

So! Because I’m having a bit of a moment, a bit of a day, I decided to post something that I did this week. Another thing that made me feel deep happiness: I reached the top of Mount Wachusett.

There are a ton of hiking trails, all of which I want to crawl into, and explore, and see wildlife. They’re the kind of trails that make me want to sing Girl Scout songs at the top of my voice. (But that would scare the wildlife and the hikers.) So I haven’t. Yet.

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The pictures don’t do it justice; the views are phenomenal, even in all the haze. There are helpful signs at the top of the firepost-climby-tower thing. They show you which mountains are which, and where they’re located. Did you know that you can see Mt. Snow in Vermont? Or mountains and ridges in New Hampshire? Obviously you can see Mt. Manadnock. That bit that’s circled red in the picture? You can’t make it out as well as in person, but that’s the Boston skyline! It’s stunning!

I can make it over the mountain. I know, sometimes, that it seems like asking for help and getting things in order creates more of a problem that never seems to end. But this is the life I’m meant to be living, and if there’s a mountain in my way? Well, then there’s a mountain in my way. It only holds the power that you give it and allow it to have.

So I’m going to be sad if I need to be sad. But I’m also going to remember that I can go back to that mountain top at any time and remember that I can do it.

I can do it.

….the girl went over the mountain, because that’s what was next.

Chasing deer and owls and sunsets (oh my!).

I spent my evening at my cousins’ again – they leave tomorrow on their new adventure, and I’ve spent nearly every night this week at their house helping them get ready and just enjoying the excited vibe.

When I left, rather than head home, I banged a (figurative) left and drove through the backroads of the towns around me, chasing the idea of finding an owl or turtles or frogs crossing the road or a deer or any number of fun wildlife.

I saw turkeys, grazing on a hillside, but wild turkeys don’t even count anymore….even if I tweet “Turkeys.” every time.

I didn’t see any lynx or owls or deer on the backroads (though I did see a fawn cross the road ahead of my car when I was driving back towards home). Instead, I found this:

It’s not what I was looking for. But it’s just what I seemed to need. Don’tcha think?

Let’s go Red Sox (clap, clap, clap-clap-clap)!

Is there anything better than seats on the first base line, in the early summer?

Hanging out with friends, good seats, frozen lemonades, sunglasses, goofy smiles, and that moment you learn you’re in the shade not the sun. Summer nights in the Woo!