Hudson at 6 months

From his most recent dcotor's report - Chad recaps and gives Hudson's fall travel schedule:

Hudson had a 6 mo appt today - 3 shots and general checkup...he weighed 16 lbs and 26 inches long.
30th percentile in weight and 50th in height.
He and I are headed to NM for a 4 day weekend this weekend and then, I am headed to Cambridge for Johnny's wedding the following weekend (Hudson is not on the travelling squad right now for the Cambridge trip).
On Nov 1, Hudson and Nanny Yvonne are going to Georgetown for a week with David and Sarah.

Hugs to H. Love to the dad.

C

Defining bittersweet

Tomorrow's the anniversary of Hudson's 6th month in our world and Linds' 6th absent from it.

I do not know what to make of this.

Hudson should not have to share his arrival with a departure. I hope that, as years unwind and Hudson gets more teeth, a voice, we'll discover how to celebrate Linds along side him.

Maybe an extra candle, or silence, or Lindsey-esque dance-of-joy.

Cousin Annie (newly-married + ever-thoughtful), sent the following: prayers from us read by Ashley to Hudson at Linds' memorial.

(Note to the non-denominated: I too sometimes get a little jeeby with prayers, so if you want to substitiute "wishes" or "fervent hopes" that's okay too.)


A Prayer for Hudson

We pray you always know how deeply loved and cherished you are by all your mom’s family - aunts, uncles and cousins included. They would do anything for you. Their love for you is unconditional.

We pray you are blessed with your mother’s remarkable gift for instantly warming a person’s heart with her enormous, brilliant smile.

We pray you know how grateful we are that you were born and how blessed we feel to have you in our lives.

We pray that you have your parents’ zest for love and adventure.

We pray you have eyes like your mother so your daddy can look into them and see 2 great loves of his life.

We pray your father teaches you to dance so you can woo all the girls onto the dance floor and make your mom proud.

We pray that you admire your father’s courage and strength.

We pray you grow up embodying the same joyful, curious and generous spirit as your mother.

We pray you grow not only in size and strength but in wisdom as well.

We pray you get to know your grandparents really, really well. They’re all amazing.

We pray your dad will find a way to acknowledge a moment of joy in each day, and share it with you, paying tribute to the joy your mom gave and received out of life each day.

We pray that when you’re 33 you will be living as full a life as your mom was.

We pray your father will sleep well at night and laugh and dance with your mom in his dreams.

We pray that your daddy reads you Goodnight Moon with much frequency.

We pray that you fall as deeply in love with someone as your mom and dad did with each other.

And we pray that you always know how much your mom loves you and that even though you can’t see her, we pray you always know she’s there.

Much love, from your mom’s cousins and sister: Ashley, Johnny, Tenley, Courtney, Andrew, Peppie, Susanna and Annie (and their spouses)

C (peace-out little H)

Grandpop's letters

Mom or Linds may be watching this week's proceedings from elsewhere, but here amongst the huggable, I've got family, friends and I've got Grandpop.
Who I called last night with the news of R and my engagement.

Every Friday since we were young, and since through the decades that the family's grown, split and rewoven itself, Grandpop and Grandma have sent a family letter.

For its first 4 decades, the letter was typed missive in a long office-y envelope. (Sometimes Grandma would have re-pasted unmarked stamps on to make postage.) With Grandpop's carats and spelling corrections, Grandma's own typed note at the end hilighting a garden show, a visit, they document the mundane of tennis matches, dinners, as well as the inevitable passages - welcome ones and others not.

My family's timeline captured.

Then, some years back, a cousin (Andrew?) started Grandpop on the computer. Though the computer's now been updated, Grandpop's use of it remains exactly as when he started: he logs on, reads the emails accumulated in his Juno account (spammers be ashamed) and, each Friday morning, he sends the family email.

Like the other cousins, I scan for a mention of my name - to be recorded by grandpop is familial posterity.

Which is a long and rambly way to say: In this morning's email, Rus and I my news came in under the wire.

Here from Grandpop:
Greetings on another gorgeous morning at Sea Island. As many know, Ruslan proposed; Courtney happily accepted; no date yet for wedding. Courtney, thoughtfully, called the good news last night. DELIGHTED. Felicitations to Courtney; confratulations to Ruslan. That will leave Alexander the only unwed grandchild.. That's way ahead. Meanwhile, maybe more great-grandchildren will appear??

C

From Boston

It's many things that are amazing as I wrap my second full day of wearing my ring from R.

But here in Boston (where it's nicely, new england-ly, fall-ish) it's a little bittersweet.

I went to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum this afternoon. I took the blue line from Logan, switching to the green at Government Center and the red just now.

How many t trips did Linds and I make together? It was our yellow school bus. A-zillion daily roundtrips Shawmut-Harvard-Shawmut to school ("Shawmut" could exist only in Boston, with brother "Lechemere") and a billion one-off trips to museums, friends' houses, Fenway, Faneiul Hall, Copley, Kendall when dad was in grad school.

Linds and I knew all stop-names, and the way the train slows (still) as it rounds into the Harvard Station - same as in 5th grade, as when Linds was in 3rd.

This afternoon in the familiar tunnels, emerging by the fenway, then entering the turned-inwards beauty of the Gardner's central courtyard, passing through the damask shrouded rooms, seeing a collection piled and hung one above another, so passionately gathered, with such an aesthetic pack-rat's eye, seeing all that one life might achieve and then share, and - well - I was alone.

Alone with my very big news and the ring and, in my old home town, no mom or Linds to share with.
Alone without my R to enjoy all the beauty with me either.

So - amidst so very much beauty - I was a little sad.

And, now in Harvard Square, I'm nostalgic again.

I feel mom + linds so much here - across from the Border Cafe, at the head of the alley where the COOP's lingerie department faced off with academic lady's clothing. Charette seems to be no longer - something chain-ish in its place. Lots more banks, Brighams gone for eons, Newbury Comics staff still smoking on the back stairs of the Garage.

C - channeling the missing in Harvard Square (lecture's in an hour)

Scholar mom

Mom and Dad drafting PhDs (on legal pads and manual typerwriters, mom handwriting each cedilla and umlat in the final manuscript), Sea Island circa 1980.

Tomorrow I'm in Boston for the 3rd annual lecture honoring mom.

This year, the lectureship's brought over a Sir John Boardman, Professor of Classical Archeology and Art at Oxford. His ambitious topic (right up mom's alley) is: "Greeks Going East: Exploring the impact of Classical Greek Art in the footsteps of Alexander the Great, past Persia into Central Asia and north India."

(ahem)

A copy of Mom’s PhD sits on a not-prominent shelf in my library, atop books on Seljuk portals and Ottoman architecture whose spines are familiar from childhood but whose content remain an utter mystery. Needless, maybe, to state here: I never read mom’s thesis (it goes immediately to my bedside stack after I post this though), but its tenor infused the first decade of my life. That caravanserai, madrese, anatolia, alexander the great, persia... are all romantic words to me is mom’s doing.

In 1978 mom and dad – doing unrelated phDs simultaneously - won Fulbrights to do doctoral research: mom's would take her to Turkey's far corners, Dad’s to Worli villages and amongst India’s rural poor.

Lindsey and I were enrolled in school in Ankara for the year but occasionally pulled early, or delivered late, so we could join mom on the road - 3 ladies traveling Anatolian Turkey in a brown Citroen whose magic hydraulic suspension drew crowds wherever we went.

Absorbing little of the actual scholarship – neither Linds nor I’d go on to read in ancient Arabic or debunk some Seljuk theory - we did develop a taste for turquoise tiles and a nostalgic familiarity with dirt courtyards, the dank smell of bats (so that the deeper recessed of Angkor Wat felt familiar), the rules of Ramadan and candies of Eid, the color of a poppy field. Mom would photograph with one of the Minoltas slung around her neck (slide and b+w), measure portal widths and carving depths, while Linds and I squatted, or sang what John Denver we knew, or traded with local kids.



C (nostalgic, thankful, inspired)

Mom

On 10/02/2003 I was upstate with Rod looking after mom and, as we prepared a bath for her, she slipped away. I remember that outside it was beautiful. What I know of fall foliage will hinge on the golds of that day.

There was more to it than that - more pain and messiness. ALS is without sympathies, progresses relentlessly. In mom's case it swpet through her and had claimed her entirely within a year.

But once she's gone, it doesn't have her any longer of course. She goes immediately back to being ours and our memories (31 years) supercede the just one year that ALS had mom. Like a brief affair, we can sweep that one away and try to forget the mockery it made of her independence, grace and will.

But how to now remember my mom.
And Linds who's left too.

I know they're not all gone.
Some faith in me assumes they are together.

And, honestly, sometimes I'm not sure the reality of their absence here has quite reached me. They're still alive - never ever dead - in my dreams. They still have opinions, would weigh-in on matters if just given a voice.

So sometimes it's like the two most important women in my life simply stepped off stage and behind curtain. In the photo here - taken on Lake Van in Turkey - mom and Linds hold hands. Imagine that, like scuba divers, they just fell backwards together and so not visible but still there. They don't happen to be in this scene but will return for others. My jerry-rigged version of eternal being makes it bearable for me.

C

But of the wedding

I shouldn't be all gloom and lost cities.

R and I had wonderful weekend at cousin Annie, and cousin-in-law-now (yes?) Taylor's wedding in Santa Barbara-the-beautiful.


Our family gathered, the cousins had cousin time finally in happy circumstances, the bride was aglow from within and her groom handsome, the setting the stuff of fantasy and Hudson on hand to love.

I have photos to prove all the above, and tell more stories.

C

Sharp dressed H

Chad and Hudson flew from Dallas to be at the wedding.

Chad -
single father of an almost-5-month old,
full-time at a job that takes him to lands beyond the pale of standard business,
and widower of less than a year -

travelled some 5 hours (in coach) with his tiny son to be at the wedding.

Chad packed their bags - Hudson's with an outfits for each event (photos to follow). He'd kitted a diaper bag for eventualities. Along with his own suit and tie, he'd brought Hudson's onesie-version. Then, together, the two came west to stay in a hotel room that Linds had booked in early April.
(Linds had already arranged for a crib in the room.)

After people ask after Hudson, most ask how Chad/the dad is doing.
I answer some combination of coping and sad.

But what I really should say is:
Chad and Hudson are making it through, and forward, every single day. Hudson's healthy and handsome and a total joy.
And Chad is the man to thank and also celebrate.

C - sending my love southwards to the two exceptionally well dressed men

Going west to see the man

Hudson's already there (as is dad, most of the family).

Which means that Hudson, age just short of 5 months, gets Santa Barbara on his been-to list before his west-coast-illiterate aunt.

Not so many years from now maybe Hudson can act as my advance team.

In the meantime, spoke with Dad and got the debrief on weather, family, running paths and Hudson himself.

R and I off madly early tomorrow for cousin Annie's wedding to Taylor.

C - miles to go before I see my nephew

Back, to Hudson

The beautiful boy and dad Chad, captured.

There was a teaser photo of Hudson - serene and B+W-timeless on Chad's hand - that I posted a few weeks back.

Since, Chad's shared the whole series of Hudson at 3 months and they're here.



The photos are by Melissa Wollitz, a friend of Chad's (Hudson's too it seems by his photogenic calm): her website.



With many thanks to Melissa for capturing,
to Chad for documenting,
and to Hudson for going ever-stronger.

Love to all - C (with R, back last night from Bulgaria)

Reporting to Linds

If Hudson's 4 month birthday was a few weeks back, then so was the anniversary of Linds' death.

When R and I were still on the runway yesterday, awaiting a gate for our plane and feeling bad for ourselves, amidst grayness and drizzle, to be returning from holiday, I called dad.

As one of a pair of daughters, I was the un-communicating one. Lindsey had taken the role, even more so since mom's death, of reminding me a little before birthdays, anniversaries: call grandpop, father's day Court - get on it. With a phone perennially Quiet, I'm an emailer who needs admonishing to emerge from my tightly-held circle.

Like we do in family, I fell into and filled that role. Dad would no more expect me to check-in on landing then send an easter card, or remember his and sarah's wedding anniversary.

That's what Linds was for.

So, checking in with dad from the runway yesterday was a new jolt.

I was telling dad that R and I were home, safe on US tarmac.
But, as I filled Dad in on Bulgaria, and he on life in the last week, Hudson's movement and Thanksgiving plans, I had to stop myself from asking how Linds had been.

She would have been proud of me, checking in with Dad. But her training's been turned around, absorbed and needs an outlet.

I want to check in with Linds now, and tell her about Bulgaria. Last year I could.

C

At 4

Catching myself up on Hudson posts.
And missing the guy.
All reports excellent though but feeling some slight sadness, guilt that he's barelling into his life and I'm missing the moments.

This from Chad, on Hudson's 4th Month doctor appoitnemnt:

He was very cute and smiled a ton for the doctor. He can now start eating rice cereal if he is willing to. At 6 months, he will start on fruits and veggies. It should be exciting to see his first real feeding.

He's still growing well. He is 25 inches long and weighs 13 lbs 5 oz.

I guessed 13 lbs 8 oz...of all the guesses, dad won. Even the nanny underguessed. He was 50% in height and 25% in weight, so that is consistent with previous appts.



C - proud aunt of a rice-cereal-ready (if willing) infant

(Photos: Hudson attending a party and being kissed by cousin Bailey)

Hudson, the boy

This just from Chad. Chad's hand and the gorgeous photo - of which there are more - is by Melissa Wollitz. Her work is here.

He reports:
"Nanny is working out fine.I think we've come to some common ground on hours and responsibilities -- always a give and take. Weekends are so hectic from the time I get home from work on Friday until Monday morning. I am doing the evening feedings now although they are now stretched out to almost the whole night. He's on a pretty good schedule.

Hudson is maturing so quickly...he is so aware now of sounds and voices and smiles all the time. He is looking so cute too and finally is getting a non-infant looking face..."

C - missing

Catch-Up

I've not been a concientious blogger this week.

R's apartment has, inexplicably, fallen off the wireless grid. R's neighbors are keeping their own networks uneccesarily inaccessible.

So I'm back at Starbucks, where t-mobile's having its own flaky week.

It's not that it's so very hot that everyone's already pulled a Paris-in-August. But it might as well be, and people who look lost on subway platforms, wearing white sneakers and abroad in fanny-packs, are outnumbering the usual city types.

Anyway, as soon as T-Mobile, obliges, will post some very recent Hudson pictures to sustain us through these dog days.

Hudson has a new nanny as of last week. His first nanny showing neither experience nor that stamina needed to properly care for the little man, has already been replaced by a huge improvement of a nanny sho speaks many languages.

From Chad:
"The new nanny is working out great. She's French Italian by birth and speaks spanish, italian and english."

C - toasting the multi-lingual man of 3 months

He rolls, he bathes

The very latest from our man in Dallas. Though he's owning new moves so fast that his current role may be obsolete.

(he may be flipping)



And lord knows, he'll outgrown the kitchen sink in just days.



C - upstate and, amazingly for a place where cell-phones don't connect and vonage draws a blank, utterly on-line.

Inheriting Grandma

Everyone who spoke Saturday mentioned it, how Grandma gave.

And she had a whole lot to give.

Saturday morning the girl cousins and aunt snooze went through Grandma's jewelry (posthumous giving).

Grandma had had her "good stuff" stolen from Meadowlark Hill sometime in the '60s (there's a story but I can't recall and she'd have been the best to tell it).
Anyway, what Grandma wore for the next 40-some years were adornments more spectacularly Grandma than whatever could have come before. What brooches and strands and cocktail rings and charm bracelets lacked in broad-market value, they trumped in Grandma-exuberance points.

Lots of bright colors, lots of avian and vegetal-themed pieces, cloisonné mixed in with tourmalines, enameled Harvard clip-in earrings beside a triple-strand of not-quite pearls.

And since each was familiar for its place in our Grandma memories, many prominent on grandma's bosom, they were trips unto themselves.

We all wore pieces to the service that evening - Grandma's giving just keeping on...

C - old enough to have her first cocktail ring

And we gathered

That's all the cousins, Snooze, Tommy stuck back in there, plus Hudson, with Grandpop fronting at Ocean Forest, Sea Island this last Saturday.

R and I returned Sunday eve. If you can say you had an amazing time during a weekend spent mourning a great lady's passing, then we did.

The few days of cousins gathered, time beside Grandpop going through photos and Grandma's iconic jewelry (cocktail rings and enormous brooches), thick-hot Sea Island heat and funny smelling water, mingling amongst moredistant Forster cousins and friends of the G's, telling Grandma stories, making sandwiches and playing RumiQ with/against) Aunt Snooze - well, it wasn't horrible.



I'll post pictures which will do better work of communicating what was good.

And I'll post our words too from the memorial. Grandpop had asked Tenley (eldest Stephenson daughter), me (eldest/only Pyle), and Andrew (eldest Gates) to speak. We managed, i think, to bring Grandma back to life for a few moments and though there were plenty of overlap (congo bars and glue guns got lots of play), we roamed widely in our tales.

Okay - pictues to post and non-blog life to live.

C

Grandpop

It'd be treacle if I praised Grandpop (and Grandpop's pants) as I'd like to - too muc a blog love-in. Plus, everyone who hasn't yet met Grandpop might mob the poor man's quiet life in Sea Island.

So, a few notes on Grandpop but no street address - that's it.



Grandpop retains the gentle North Carolina accent and manners of his youth; a southern gentleman (it seems to me) minus the red-state politics.

Grandpop's kept a factual diary every day since highschool. When he passes, it will be donated to the Exeter Library.

(He's maintained the same pant-waste-size since the same year. I'm going to guess no bigger than 34".)

Grandpop and Grandma addressed one another as "Gorgeous" and "Handsome". They were married for 65 years and he still blushes when referring to her figure.

Grandpop lunches weekly on St Simons with a group calling themselves the ROMEOS: Retired Old Men Eating Out.

He mixes plaids with plaids, seersucker with like-stripes. (Grandma shared a love of colors, patterns.)


(Loves his great grandchidlren too.)



When asked by dad, recalled that they drank Dubonnets and ginger ale in at the Shah Abbas Hotel in Isfahan, Iran in 1975.

C (Hoping our own era produces like-gentleman.)

Sharing Grandma

This is, mostly, what I wrote/said for Grandma. I followed Tenley (eldest cousin, she spoke fluently, intimately), and was followed by Andrew (eldest/only boy of the first 7 cousins, who spoke warmly and hysterically).


For Grandma
July 15 2006 at Ocean Forest, Sea Island
I know I was asked to speak not because I'm the eldest - representative of a too-fast dwindling Pyle/Brown/Newhall contingent - but because I was (you all know this), always Grandma's favorite.

Now I'm sure Andrew will follow me up here with a counter-claim. In fact, I think each one of the cousins, given a chance at the podium, would repeat the same claim – clear in their memories and utterly authentic - in which they were indeed Grandma's true favorite. Memories in which they were the center of Grandma's universe, the projects launched together, the meals and congo bars prepared, the wreaths assembled and the garden time shared were, all, intimately , tailored by Grandma to that cousin. Each Grandma episode was effortlessly custom-spun by a woman whose warmth, intelligence, imagination, creativity and life force swooped up each cousin in turn, hugged her/his interests in close, inspired them outwards and pushed them on.

Grandma nurtured each of us in turn by egging on our own, oftentimes peculiar, passions. Always a regular field-side at the grandchildren’s sports events, Grandma thought nothing of standing in the chilled, holiday-empty Exeter hockey rink as I completed lap number zillion of the ice. My sole spectator, alone ice-side, Grandma cheered me on as, one arm loose and the other tucked behind my back, I rounded the rink once more, pursuing my Eric Heyden dream (in figure skates).

Grandma was also a strong proponent of empowerment via the right gadgets - herself an early adopter of the microwave, the George Foreman Grill, the Cuisinart and drip-dry sheets. She taught us all how to wield a glue gun (for which I remain grateful) and, on graduating high school, gave each one of us a plying/wire-cutting/hammering/wrenching tool that would, she said, see us through any college need.

With my own parents newly grandparents themselves, I've been thinking about the title, and the role, for which my own might have written the book.

Fortunately, though, this isn't a eulogy for Grandpop and Grandma. We can celebrate the team that's been split up, and remark as we often do in the wonder that was their loving and enduring marriage/partnership, but we are here to celebrate Grandma for she was, as she taught each one of us cousins to be, first and foremost an individual.

Dancing well around the strictures of her time, Grandma moved natively into disciplines and passions. She invested so much of her wonderful “self” into her “projects” that they became parts of the Grandma entity - unimaginable as separate interests. Grandma’s indoor gardening, wreath-making, Chinese history studying (and snuff bottle collecting), decorating, curating and group-organizing were no more “hobbies” than Grandpop's post-Dupont work with alma-maters Exeter then Harvard was simply a way to pass his later years.

I've lost, we've all lost, 3 women and 3 generations in a madly short span of 4 years. My mother Nancy, sister Lindsey, now Grandma. Hoping not to sound flippant: if it's possible to have peace with a death, then Grandma's has been by far the easiest of those three to bear; not only because hers was a long life and well-lived, but because the gifts Grandma gave so fluently and wholly through all of our lives have meant that my Grandma-appreciating has been going on for some time.

And what gives me greatest comfort now, in Grandma's final passing, is that each day I feel a little bit more of Grandma coming out from me – as if (and this may be hubris) my pores are breathing out a Grandma-essence.

For some time, on vacation with R in Antigua last New Years, trolling the rough-edges of my wilderness-garden in upstate New York, I've been channeling Grandma without naming her. Squatting on our hotel's beach to sift sea shells, marvel at driftwood, then bring the lot back home in baggies (as I did again last week with Maine rocks), setting out the bird feeders and following the progress of the finches, the easy glamour of the cardinal and the noisy work of the woodpecker (studying the books Grandma has given), assiduously reading my pruning book then wandering my woodland with trowel and clippers in hand, collecting sea glass, pressing flowers and identifying trees as we had at the Arnold Arboretum, buying my first sewing machine some months back...

Grandma runs through me, through each of us.

Often, I find that when I like myself the best, and am getting the purest pleasure from whatever little venture I've launched on, I'll realize, with a start, that there's Grandma again.

CTP

All Hudson

Hudson:
can't talk
just manages to keep his own head aloft,
rolls left from tummy center,
arches when he's filling his diaper,
dribbles white gook hours after feedings,
screams,
cries real tears,
pees aloft during changing,
fills out a onesie,
sometimes sleeps through the night, and sometimes doesn't,
stares,
finds calm in the treetops,
prefers outside to in,
puts up with the baby Bjorn,
doesn't get goosebumps,
mostly likes baths,
and has taken all of our hearts and clenched them in his tiny hands.

And he's looking a lot like Lindsey these days. It's hard not to think there must be reason in there, answers and some wisdom.

Here's to the man who kept 9 adults in thrall.

C

Sea Island with Linds

A long time ago in our mom-made dresses.

I travel south in a few hours and we'll say our official goodbyes to Grandma tomorrow afternoon. I'll be back here by Sunday eve.

So many places from my childhood and goodbyes this year. And then the big hello to Hudson. Ooosh. Fate's are busy and time-outs few.

C

Women we've lost

Lindsey and Grandma, celebrating Grandpop's 90th in Sea Island last year.

Others have losses, these happen to be ours.

Grandma passed away last week. Grandpop was by her side (he'd been for 65 years) and Snooze and John, Susanna and Keith were there as well.



We'll gather as a family in Sea Island this weekend to celebrate Grandma, check in with dear Grandpop and provide everyone with some fine Hudson time.

(Back from Maine last night - better part of trip spent on Bangor then Boston runways.)

Love to all

C

Hudson's firsts

Scenes from Hudson's first:
boat trip (to tiny Islesford aboard Sea Princess)/
lobster boats and traps up-close/
presence at table while others ate lobster with bibs/
encounter with vehement mosquitos waylaid by aunt/
view of a sunset over Seal Harbor and Northeast.

As with all of Hudson's firsts to date, he was mostly magnificent and attracted admirers.

C

Scenes from a Maine christening

What he wore

Babe to a christening.

Hudson considered more traditional (and frankly girl-y) christening outfits but ultimately opted for a rugged, yet textur-ally elegant, ensemble.

Hudson wore a understated light blue one-piece number, with tiny embroidered train detailing. (The outfit began with a matching hat but what with the mutliple dousings...) For warmth and swagger, Hudson was swaddled in an all-that Calypso cashmere super-baby swaddling blanket.
(Outfit by MK, blanket by friend of Chad's.)

He was, by and large, an agreeable and adorable christening-subject.

Well-dressed but no dress, throughout.

C (Your fashion-eye in Seal)

Letters to a young Hudson

PROMISE
The readings, letters, poetry and wisdoms written/read/sent on Linds and Hudson's behalf, will be available to all very soon. Cintra generously offered to host the many pieces but, discussing just now with dad, I think we'll go build a simple site for Hudson that can host it all - video too.

Stay tuned for that.

In meantime, I'll start to post some of the readings and prayers from the christening.

My own (happened to have handy), is excerpted from Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. Heady advice for the little fellow.

"We must assume our existence as broadly as we in any way can; everything, even the most unheard of, must be possible in it. That is at the bottom the only courage that is demanded of us: to have courage for the most strange, the most singular and the most inexplicable that we may encounter...

We are not prisoners. No traps or snares are set about for us, and there is nothing which should intimidate or worry us. We are set down in life as in the element to which we best correspond, and over and above this we have through thousands of years of accommodation become so like this life, that when we hold still we are, through a happy mimicry, scarcely to be distinguished from all that surrounds us.
We have no reason to mistrust our world, for it is not against us...

How should we forget those ancient myths that are the beginnings of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave.
Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us..."

So you must not be frightened dear Hudson.

C - your aunt who will quote things you won't get till much, much later

H on the beach

It's not as if Hudson's life came to a full stop post christening - since, his days have been filled with Maine sort of events.

There was the beach cook-out he attended a few evenings back.

R laid a fire pit amongst the stones, we (minions) gathered dried wood bits, sausages were bought and hamburgers made.

And the weather - Maine's real ace - stayed agreeable.

Via R's great gift, the corn was perfectly timed to be completed and yet stay warm as the burgers cooked, then the rolls were browned. As an almost showy finale, R warmed the blueberry pie itself on the grill and all declared it cooked through.

And Mr. Hudson, attending his very first beach picnic, by observing all, sanctioning the rock skippers and judging none for their wine/sausage consumption, was a great addition.

Daily we add to his firsts.

Daily he thrills us with his own.

Sleep well dear Hudson.

C

Guess who's been christened

Hair askew and wet from the waters of:
The Atlantic (Seal Harbor-sourced)
The Hudson River (Hudson River @ 70th sourced)
The River Jordan (an auspicious-place sourced)

So many more pictures that I've been too overwhelmed to start in.

Stay tuned though.

C

Making do with dial-up

My heart's with dial-up - I'd hate this Maine I love any other way - but it is limiting blog-wise.

Photos, for starters, take a few eons-each to upload - if at all.

Which makes for dry posts.

Which is that much sadder because I'm RICH in Hudson photos right now. And christening photos and family photos. With the photos I can't show you I could transport you to the tri-part ceremony we made for Hudson Sunday afternoon.

We started at 2 in front of the cottage, by the smaller of the two lawn-stones. Sarah had set out a table-cum-altar that we gathered around. The afternoon's score played on Matt's iPod. The three waters: of Atlantic, the Hudson River and the Jordan, were set out and a picture of Lindsey to watch over us all.

We proceeded to the beach. Reverand/cousin/MC Ashley went barefoot down (our beach is not clog-friendly) and we stood with the islands at our backs as Chad, then Lynn and MK read. And Hudson had his first head-wet.

Then we went into the woods. Hudson was a smidgen edgy for this part (or for my reading in particular) but otherwise, all was primordial-ly fantastic as we stood beneath the pine canopy on a moss floor. Sarah read, and Matt and me.

Then back to the beginning place on the lawn. R read If, Dad "Oh, the Places You'll Go". Ash did a last prayer of welcome, Hudson had his third and final dousing and we tossed him in the ocean.

We didn't.

(checking who reads now there are no pictures to look at.)

But we did take an almost-3-month old with a very sodden hair-do in to be fed.

He's seemed wiser, more grounded and more christened in these days since.

No, not really. But it is certain that he has Maine in him now, and all of our love, for good.

And Linds was for sure there.

Love to all

C

Happy Hudson Christening Day

R has chosen Kipling's If to read to H.

The weather's chosen to hold its cards close all morning, clearing now.

The Times chose to come late to the village store, it's not a timely thing here.

We had blueberry pie for dessert last night, which made people swoon.

And Hudson's in Maine, and to be chistened in just ten minutes.

Hudson's Maine welcome

This Sunday
(Lindsey had scheduled months ago, even made the reservations), Hudson's to be baptized,
or christened,
or doused,

(a loose-ish sort of family)

and read-at by all of us who've paired readings with the task at hand:
Welcoming Hudson to this world, to Maine and, there's a good chance, to fog as well.

With Sarah at the helm, Matt's amassed song requests. Our DJ will come laden with iPod and CDs. Mozart will be represented, as will Jim Croce, John Denver, Ray Charles and Andean flute players. I expect an Hallelujah chorus and maybe some Free to be You and Me to temper that.

As at Linds and Chad's wedding and Linds' memorial, cousin/reverand/friend Ashley Jansen will officiate.

This evening, I took an empty ice tea bottle down to Manhattan's western edge (under the West Side Highway and an embarrassing scramble past geese and down some rocks), and filled it up with Hudson River water. That too will play a little part.

To Maine we go, gathering bits to fete our young man.

I get giddy up there, balsam-infused posts to follow.

Love to all.

C

Hudson's village people

As if needing more evidence:
a sampling from Hudson's album.