Deep Thoughts

He loves them, so far. Turns to me and talks about the "cool things" about glasses--like how the world looks blurry if you peek above or below them, and how sometimes you forget you're even wearing them. He marvels at the color of grass and the cutting details of light. He sits in the back seat and stares up at the passing tree line, mouth open. "Wow...."

Did you notice McCain's sideburns last night--one of them an inch longer than the other? He looked like somebody's distracted grandpa. His staff didn't serve him well.

My 16-year-old niece is visiting for three weeks--sister to the boys who were here a week ago. She has matured through a kind of sexual precociousness that alarmed me a few years ago, and has turned out to be a beautiful, smart, interesting kid. An eye opener for me, and a relief.

I finished another quilt last night. Am getting better at it, I have to say. I've made ten now--mostly for children. There's such unexpected pleasure in piecing something together for someone--in imaging their personalities, and picking the patterns, and sitting up close with it--with them--for a period. Having started at a place in time, there's a backlog of siblings who need quilts, too, because if getting a quilt is an act of love, not getting one is not an act of love. Next up: my sister's other daughter. Then my brother's two boys. And then my own two, who have sat patiently, watching.

A guest stopped by the house just before dinner the other night. My father had done the cooking. "You're welcome to stay," he said to them, "but we don't have enough food to feed you." The guest left. Dad recounted this to us later at the dinner table. He was identifying his invitation to stay as a point of generosity, but was frustrated that this person always seems to show up before meal time. I didn't comment until L asked me, "What would you have done?" This person is unemployed. She's a single parent. "I'd have invited her to stay for dinner," I said. "But there's not enough food," L said. "I'd have given her my food," I said. My mother finds her voice then and remembers life as a child in Ireland. "My grandmother would feed anyone who showed up at the door," she said. "And she'd whisper to us children, 'Go away with you, now--we'll find you something to eat later.'" My father, alarmed to find he missed the mark on this one, remembers, "When I was small bums from the road would stop by all the time looking for food. Mamma had ten children to feed. She couldn't feed bums." My mother's family had money. My father's family were poor. Nothing is simple.

School starts in a week. The bus drivers have been practicing the routes, up and down the hill for a week now. It's been a fun summer.