My wife and I have always taken Covid-19 and its variants seriously. All through last year, we wore masks, practiced social distancing, and observed all the recommended CDC protocols. This year, when vaccines became available, we took the first available appointments to receive two injections. We continued to wear our masks and to avoid indoor gatherings. Even though we felt protected by our vaccinations, we remained vigilant. Covid was still hovering nearby, but it was an abstract phenomenon. We were safe.

Over the last few weeks, we watched as the virus surged anew. We continued to wear our masks and to practice social distancing. We were willing to get booster shots as soon as they became available. In short, we wanted to do everything we could to make sure we were safe and to ensure the safety of others. We were still abstractly safe, or so we thought.

But a week ago, our world changed. We were notified that someone in our “pod” had tested positive for Covid. We were encouraged to get a test. The next day we made arrangements to be tested at a clinic in Easton. We breathed a sigh of relief when the immediate results came back negative, but according to protocols, our samples were sent to LabCorp for more sensitive testing. Two days later, those results came back to us: for me, the results indicated the virus was not detected. For my wife, it was.

She had some symptoms: a headache, watery eyes, a dry cough, nasal stuffiness, and a prickly throat, all of which she attributed to seasonal allergies. I felt fine. But that soon began to change. The following day, I too began to experience the same symptoms. Within twenty-four hours, my wife rallied while I went downhill fast. I took to my bed with a racking cough, fever and chills, aches and pains. We knew I needed to be retested. Within another twenty-four hours, the report came back, but I already knew the results. Positive. I had Covid. What was once an abstraction had quickly become painfully real.

The next three days were awful. I was useless. We quarantined at home. My wife took my temperature, administered Advil and Tylenol according to her chart, and made sure I stayed well hydrated. I slept for hours on end, waking only to read for a few minutes before going back to sleep. I lost my senses of smell and taste. It was a dismal time for both of us: she worried about me while I remained mired in an illness that seemingly had struck out of nowhere. Neither she nor I understood how this had happened. We had been so careful.

We took some small comfort in the knowledge that our vaccinations were preventing us from experiencing Covid’s most virulent rage. I felt like a had a mild case of the flu, but I never came close to feeling I needed to be hospitalized. I would ride this out on a wave of good home care, plenty of fluids, and hours of rest.

On the morning of the third day after the onset of my symptoms, I awoke feeling I had rounded the curve. I had a modicum of energy. Even though I still had no sense of smell or taste, I was hungry. I could begin to resume my fair of the household chores—at least those my wife was willing to give me. When I was able to unload the dishwasher, I felt I had conquered Mount Everest.

Each day since has shown marked improvement. I’m almost back to my former self. If the science of disease is true, maybe now my wife and I are triple protected from a future case of Covid because of the antibodies produced by our immune systems. But that’s a footnote to this story. What remains most true is that we will remain vigilant because Covid is no longer an abstraction; it is a real and powerful enemy and we all must do our part to finally slay the beast.

One final thought: Broadway plays, large sporting events, crowded museums; everything is reopening to great fanfare. But are we really ready for large crowds in close quarters? Like everyone else, I’m all for a return to our pre-pandemic “normal,” but my recent experience is a cautionary tale. We’re into our fourth Covid surge. Last week, 10,000 more people died from Covid, the highest toll in the last 6 months. I believe we need to pump the brakes on America’s great reopening; there will be time enough to enjoy life when it’s truly safe to be together.

Praise to all the caregivers who helped my wife and me. Thanks to all of you who wished us well. Special thanks and much love to my wonderful private-duty nurse. I’m eternally grateful you were there for me when I needed you most. I’m positive about that!

I’m very happy to report that I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown, MD. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

Good news winds its way home; bad news comes at you hard and fast. I learned this a few days ago when my phone dinged. It was a text message: “I just heard that X passed away. I know you were close. Sorry.”

Right away, I knew what had happened. X was only forty years old. I first knew him as a high school student but over the years, X and his family became close personal friends. I knew X had struggled with depression for many years. He had gone off to college, but then came home after only a few months and never went back. He became a personal trainer and a seriously good chef; he loved to cook for his family and friends and always took good care of his body. But despite his appetite for physical fitness and eating nutritious food, he seemed to sink deeper and deeper into the black mire of depression. He ultimately became almost agoraphobic, rarely leaving his parents’ house.

I have learned a lot about depression over the last ten years. I have learned that it is a mental illness, a disease every bit as insidious as cancer or heart disease. But because it is stigmatized, mental illness, and the depression and suicide that can derive from it, is viewed differently. Suicide, as devastating as it is, is often seen as a cruel or selfish act, one that crushes the loved ones left behind who somehow have to pick up the pieces and move on.

I confess that not all that long ago, I was not very sympathetic to those who suffered from mental illness and the extreme pain that might cause someone like X to take his own life. Like Cher’s character in “Moonstruck,” I thought “Snap out of it!” But that has changed recently. In the past few months, my wife and I know of eight young men—eight!—who have taken their lives either by their own hand or because of an overdose of opioids or some other drug—willful or accidental, it hardly matters. All were under the age of forty and all were from upper middle-class families.

Many of my contemporaries have had elective surgery to repair a hip or shoulder or knee. At first, their aches and pains were relatively minor but inevitably the joint in question would deteriorate and the pain would become more and more severe. When the pain became so unbearable—when it was bone on bone—they each did what needed to be done and had the joint in question replaced. Most found immediate relief. Those kind of procedures were never an option for X. Although he had undergone years of therapy and was likely taking a lot of prescribed medications, those remedies weren’t successful because when X’s pain became unbearable—when his mind was bone on bone—he believed his only recourse was to take his own life.

Since that text message flashed on my phone, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about X. I speculate about what must have been going through his mind as he neared the black hole of suicide, but the truth is I have no idea. I guess he came to believe that only the eternal sleep of death would bring a measure of relieve and end his suffering. I only hope he glimpsed how much he was loved and how he will be missed.

There is terrible pain and anguish left in the wake of suicide. I feel both now. I wonder if I could have somehow helped prevent this tragedy by being a better friend. Maybe, but it’s too late for recrimination. We just have to keep caring for each other. It may also be true that mental illness and the severe depression that often accompanies it are part of the collateral damage inflicted on us by Covid-19, every bit as deadly as the virus itself. The first step in beating that disease lies in understanding the true nature of mental illness and of treating it like any other virulent disease.

I grieve for X and for all of us he left behind. I hope he’s finally resting in peace.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown, MD. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

 

 

 

I’m a year older this week but surely no wiser. Isn’t it strange that the older we get, the more reluctant we are to acknowledge the passing years? A few days ago, a little friend of mine proudly told me that he was four-and-a-half. Not four, mind you; four-and-a-half! “Just wait,” I thought. “In a few years that ‘half’ won’t matter so much. Soon enough, you’ll be like me, counting in decades.”

Slow down time. Younger folk don’t seem to hear the drumbeat of the clock; we older ones not only hear it, but we also slap our hands over our ears in the hope that that ticking sound will recede to become a just a faint rumble like far-off thunder. It’s an honest deception. Despite all the sturm und drang of this weary world, it’s still a miracle we’ve come this far. I should know; I spent my birthday with our two youngest grandkids.

It was, to say the least, a different kind of birthday. No cake, but the kids’ bedtime was far, far better than any Smith Island fantasy. The ensuing peace and quiet were gifts that didn’t need wrapping paper or even opening. There were, however, several renditions of “Happy Birthday” with “to Geep” (my grandfather name) inserted into the “to you” spot. I have to admit that I like those lyrics better—they’re more personal, more earned.

Now don’t feel sorry for me. Plenty of friends wished me a happy day; that’s one of the more redeeming qualities of FaceBook. Nearby friends stopped by to share some time on the porch and watch the never-ending circus. My son, daughter-in-law, and two more beloved grandkids who live in Colorado popped up on FaceTime to wish me well. Looking back, I think the tempered celebration was all-the-more sweet because of the juxtaposition of youth and (dare I say?) old age. I was their age once and someday—God willing—they will be where I am, sharing a laugh with good friends, fondly remembering the departed ones, and watching their own grandkids run amok. Nothing is certain anymore, but we can hope for the best.

On the following day, we multiplied: two more grandkids arrived, along with their parents, all a little glassy-eyed from some celebrations of their own the previous day. No matter. We strolled the town, then sat down for a midday feast of ribs, baked beans, corn, cole slaw, and cucumber salad. I waited for a slice of birthday cake but in an excess of common sense, the adults in the room decided that the last thing the little clowns needed was more sugar before the long drive back home. In the ensuing calm that followed their lift-off, our little house seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, but I think I detected a tinge of regret, too. I went upstairs and took a nap.

Today, it’s b-day plus two and I smell something cooking in the kitchen. There’s a little sprucing-up going on, some whispering, and a celebratory stir in the air. I have a feeling that maybe there will be some cake after all.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown, MD. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

We’ve been through a sweltering week or two and now it appears that the remnants of Hurricane Ida are going to pay us a brief but very wet visit. These days, there’s rarely a dull weather moment in this climate-changing world.

Some folk prefer images of a lovely sunrise or sunset; others are drawn to the arc of a rainbow or a moody, threatening sky. But when I look to the heavens, it’s cloud forms that always seem to mesmerize me. It’s not the science of clouds that captures my imagination: after all, a cloud is nothing more than an aerosol spray, a visible mix of minute water droplets, frozen crystals, and maybe a few dust particles suspended in the atmosphere. But even that explanation falls short because it doesn’t begin to account for the play of light within a cloud, or the variety of its hues, or the fantastic shapes that gather above us from time-to-time. I prefer a more imaginative, more artistic point of view—clouds as stereograms: pictures hidden within pictures.

I imagine it’s a universal childhood experience: lying in the grass, looking up at the sky, looking for some hidden image—a witch or a camel—within a bank of clouds. Not only did I love to find those hidden images, but I would also spend the next ten minutes drifting with them, watching them transform into something new and different: the bunny rabbit that became a marshmallow man, or the sailboat that suddenly turned into an octopus. A child’s imagination is like a cloud: it knows no bounds, that is until it’s cut short by some dull-witted adult who says, “Uh-oh; looks like it’s going to rain.” That’s a sure buzz kill!

There’s another element to the life of clouds: they provide dimension in an otherwise flat world. Baseball players know how difficult it is to track a fly ball in a cloudless “high sky.” There’s no ceiling, no point of comparison, no contrast. It’s easy to lose a baseball in the ether, just like it’s easy to become lost when there are no road signs to point the way.

On a steamy night last week, a few good friends gathered on a riverside dock to catch the evening breeze and share a cool drink. (There’s hasn’t been enough of either these days.) On the far side of the river, the setting sun used a towering cumulus cloud as a canvas, working an explosion of colors into the gossamer fabric of its shifting shapes. Out on the water, a graceful little sailboat—a Watch Hill-15—swung peacefully on its mooring. Then, out of nowhere, perhaps to add some perspective or to enhance the overall effect, a crop-duster came swooping low across the river, its fragile silhouette outlined in black against the massive cloud hovering in the evening sky. I reached for my camera in a lame attempt to freeze the scene. The result is the image that accompanies this Musing but it doesn’t really do justice to the magic of the moment.

No matter; I’m not disappointed. Maybe it’s just not possible to capture every fleeting moment in the life of a cloud.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown, MD. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

 

Sometimes, there is no graceful way to make an exit. No goodbyes, no tears, no long, last, lingering looks. You just pack up, close the door, and leave.

These past few days, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about America’s tragic departure from Afghanistan. Many years ago, I spent a few weeks in that country and quickly came to the conclusion that Afghan culture and politics were way above my pay grade. I admired the harsh beauty of the Hindu Kush in winter and marveled at the proud independence of the Afghan people. I laughed at the baker who baked pebbles into his bread so it weighed more on his scales. I tried to learn bargaining skills but it was readily apparent to everyone that I was novice and fair game for more skilled practitioners of that ancient Afghan art. But one day, there came a moment when I felt so far away from everything familiar that I knew I had reached the known limits of my own universe and that any step in any direction might well take me over the edge. It was time to come home.

As heartbreaking as the images of the current chaos in Kabul on the nightly news are, I’m persuaded it was time for our troops to come home. It was time to leave. All that treasure and all that blood, and yet, twenty years in, we were no closer to solving the riddle of Afghanistan. Like the British and Soviet empires who wrestled with “the Afghan problem” before us, we simply did not understand what we were up against. We believed we could fix a problem we couldn’t even begin to identify. We thought we could count on our military might and our good intentions, but neither of those wrenches fit the nuts and bolts of the machine we wanted to repair. We never had a fighting chance in Afghanistan and I grieve for all those men and women, soldiers and civilians, who paid the ultimate price in a war that couldn’t be won.

It’s certainly possible that our exit could have been more thoughtful or orderly, although “orderly” is not a word that is often used when describing either combat or Afghanistan. The best I can hope for is that this tragedy will teach us a lesson we won’t ever forget. Apparently, the ache of Vietnam has faded. Now, we have joined the list of nations that have tried and failed to fix the problem of Afghanistan. I pray we won’t be drawn into the next conflict that confronts us down the road.

I do know this: isolation is not the answer. The world we’re living in is far too complex and interconnected to allow us the luxury of withdrawing from our global commitments and responsibilities. But we have to find a smarter way of surviving in the jungle. Thinking that we can simply impose our political will or our democratic values on other people is a cultural arrogance we can no longer afford.

In 1890, Rudyard Kipling published his poem “The Young British Soldier.” He knew all-too-well the tragedy that is Afghanistan and he tried to convince the British public and leadership of the folly of engaging in a far-away war that could never be won. It ends with this sad verse:

When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest role to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.

Sigh.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown, MD. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

 

 

 

 

Dépaysé (pronounced day-pay-e-zay) is a French word that literally means outside of one’s own country. But its contextual meaning isn’t so much geographic as it is emotional or psychological. To be dépaysé is to be removed from familiar surroundings; disoriented; adrift. And that’s where I was a few nights ago.

So, in the wee hours of the next morning, the first question I asked myself was “Why? Why am I feeling so dépaysé” “Maybe,” I said to myself, “it’s because you’re away on vacation—a week at the beach with the family, followed by a week visiting good friends up in New England—so you’re removed from the rhymes and rhythms of your routine.” OK; fair enough. There’s more than enough angst to go around on a vacation: a heavy table fell on my toe; my wife’s shoulder is bothering her; there’s pink eye afoot in the house; and driving up and down I-95 makes fire-walking look like a cakewalk. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

But I think there may be another explanation for the way I was feeling: I’m approaching yet another birthday and the beating of my heart is beginning to sound a lot more like the ticking of an old grandfather clock these days. As we age, we become more gelled in our routines, or, as Paul Simon so eloquently once sang, we “like to lean on old, familiar ways.” But Paul came to another conclusion; he was happy enough to be “still crazy after all these years.” I’m not sure that’s the outcome I’m looking for.

If the feeling of dépaysé were a disease, what would be the cure? Better yet, is there an antidote or a vaccine? Travel may be an expansive experience, but returning to a more familiar landscape has a certain comfort to it. Home. At some point in the aging process, the familiar becomes the comfortable, the known trumps the unknown. I guess I’m getting close to that border.

I remember that as my mother passed the age of 90, she downsized. All she needed was a comfortable chair, soft light, and a good book. An inveterate reader, she did all her traveling by turning pages and never again left the comfort of her smaller rooms. Her body may have been shrinking but her mind kept expanding, spreading across oceans and continents to the very limits of the universe. At the time, I may have scoffed at her retreat, but now I understand it. Someday soon, I may even embrace it.

So, as dépaysé as I might have felt, I know there are still worlds to explore, borders to cross. The wee wife and I were thinking about going to Italy this fall, but that pesky Delta virus has deterred us. Maybe we’ll go next year, unless some nasty new viral strain raises its ugly little head to lock us down yet again.

In the meantime, I’ve shaken off this feeling of dépaysé and am enjoying these happy vacation days with family and friends. I can always come home later.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown, MD. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

 

 

 

 

 

This is the week of our annual family pilgrimage to Rehoboth. There are only 41 of us this year spread out over four houses; last year, we had 46 and I’m still trying to figure out who’s missing. 

But I digress. Last year, I found myself thinking a lot about the pandemic, the upcoming presidential election, and ice cream (not necessarily in that order). This year, there is a new, unbidden thought keeps interrupting my beach reveries: I keep thinking about undertows. I have no idea why. As far as I know, there is little or no undertow along this stretch of beach, and if there were, there are plenty of well-trained lifeguards to leap to the rescue. So, I guess it’s not the actual fear of being swept out to sea that’s swimming in my mind; rather, it’s the metaphoric quality of the undertow phenomenon that’s driving my little train of thought.

An undertow is the current beneath the surface that sets seaward or along the beach when the waves are breaking on the shoreline. Undertows don’t actually pull you under; they just sweep you far enough away from shore to exhaust you. Should you get caught in an undertow, the experts remind you to remain calm and to swim diagonally back toward the beach. Yelling for help is another good idea.

But just that applies to the undertows one encounters in the ocean. The reason I’m thinking about undertows now has more to do with their metaphoric manifestation. You see, an undertow can be any underlying current, force, or tendency that is in opposition to whatever is apparent. Like refusing to wear a mask in the face of another Covid surge, or rejecting the results of a fair and free election, or going out for ice cream when you’re trying to lose weight. 

There’s another dimension to all this, literally another dimension. Undertows don’t usually end in disaster for a swimmer. They might make it difficult to exit the water or result in an embarrassing near-shore rescue by a lifeguard who looks young enough to be your grandchild. An undertow’s more dangerous cousin is the riptide—a current on the surface of the ocean that can sweep even an experienced swimmer far enough out to sea to make it impossible to get back to shore, as well as to make rescue by that buff young lifeguard much more difficult. Undertows are subtle; riptides are as apparent as they are dangerous.

Now it turns out that one of the 41 family members gathered in our circle in the sand actually was a trained lifeguard on this beach for six seasons. I asked him about riptides and undertows: were they common phenomena? How was he trained in the art of rescue? And what was the purpose of that ubiquitous little buoy that trails behind a guard on a rescue mission. His answers were precise: assess the situation and the ability of the swimmer caught in a current; if indeed a rescue is required, swim parallel to the current and only enter it at an angle; use the buoy to encircle an exhausted or panicked swimmer and give him/her something to hold onto other than the lifeguard’s head. That all seemed like good advice to me and gave me even more metaphoric food for thought: when encountering some poor soul’s problem, assess the situation; enter the danger zone cautiously; and have all the tools you need when you decide to tackle someone else’s sticky situation.

In The World According To Garp, John Irving’s masterpiece, one of Garp’s children is frightened of the beach because he has heard there is an “undertoad” living under the waves. As if a strong ocean current weren’t frightful enough; now it has the warty, scary face of a huge frog lurking in the shallows, waiting to pull you under.

I think I’ll go back to thinking about ice cream. Nothing metaphoric about ice cream.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown, MD. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

 

“Day is done. Gone the sun. From the hills, from the lake, from the sky. All is well, safely rest; God is nigh.” These are the words to the languid, melancholy tune we now know as “Taps.” Most commonly played on a bugle, it was introduced into the military manual by General Daniel Butterfield during the Civil War and was officially known as “Extinguish Lights,” the gentle call that ended the day and told the troops it was time to sleep. Years later, the melody became known as “Taps” because the original call ended with three taps on a snare drum. Those beats are now gone but their resonance live on. There are only twenty-four notes in the haunting bugle call; these days, all too sadly, we hear them played most often at military funerals as they float over the graves of the fallen, one last call before eternal sleep.

Our days are incredibly busy. We lurch from task to task, chore to chore, moment to moment. It’s hard to find any peaceful respite from all the hurly-burly surrounding us. That’s nothing new. More than two centuries ago, William Wordsworth penned the sad truth of this, writing of a world revolutionized by industry, one that “is too much with us; late and soon, getting and spending we lay waste our powers… for this, for everything, we are out of tune.” Maybe Taps is the antidote to this addled state of mind: a calming, reflective, lyrical routine at day’s end to ease our tired brains and lull us to sleep.

I first heard Taps when I was a boy—a summer Indian—at Camp Iroquois, out in the wilds of Western Pennsylvania, not far from Lake Pymatuning. Every evening at nightfall, campers and counselors would gather around the flagpole and wait for the familiar first three notes of Taps to come over the loudspeaker, the signal to lower the camp’s flag. Day was done. Before Taps was played, there was still something running through our veins, some residue of energy that needed to be dispelled into the universe. But as soon as the last three notes sounded—God is nigh—all the air went out of the balloon and the camp quieted in an instant. The sound and fury of a hundred little boys just seemed to dissipate into the cool night air and we headed off to our cabins, tired, happy, and ready for bed. I imagine the banged-up Grumman canoes that lined the waterfront, the half-finished lanyards in the arts and crafts cabin, the tired canvas bases out on the softball field, even the scratched tables and chairs in the dining hall all breathed a sigh of relief, not to mention the weary counselors and staff who had shepherded us throughout the day.

That was a long time ago. But like so much lately, those scenes and sounds came back to me on a flood tide of memory while I was walking across the Eastport Bridge in Annapolis a few weeks ago. I was looking out on a peaceful evening scene: a sky aglow with color, the spire of St. Mary’s piercing the clouds, the reflection of the day’s fading glory rippling across the surface of Spa Creek. I thought I heard someone playing Taps but it was very faint, probably just a passing breeze. For an instant—just an intake of breath, really—I had the impression that maybe we really will find our way through this morass and everything will be alright again, the way it was back at Camp Iroquois when those last three notes sounded.

For that one fleeting moment, God was truly nigh.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown, MD. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

It’s funny how much we forget. I spent countless happy summer hours in my pajamas, chasing fireflies on the lawn in front of our house in Pittsburgh. When it came time to go to bed, my twinkling little friends would accompany me, housed in a mason jar, tiny holes poked in the top, a handful of dry grass on the bottom. I’d fall asleep watching their faint illuminations, then in the morning, I’d let them go so I could capture them all over again.

I hadn’t thought of those twilight summer evenings in years. But when our grandson came to visit last week and saw fireflies twinkling in the gloaming, it all came rushing back to me on a flood tide. At first, I just watched him stalk his prey, swipe the air, then slowly open his hand to see if he had captured one. Absorbed in the moment, time stood still for Gavin, but it my mind, it hurtled back to one of my childhood’s most magical moments—safe, carefree, sublimely happy. I couldn’t help myself: I joined the party.

Fireflies or lightning bugs? Apparently, the answer depends on where you live. In New England and out in the West, the term of choice is firefly, while in the South and in the Midwest, people tend to call those little flying lanterns lightning bugs. Theories abound on this difference of nomenclature, but to a kid, it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. All they know and see is that tiny dot of yellow light, hanging on a puff of air, winking a signal to attract a prospective mate. They hardly care that it’s the males who tend to twinkle while they fly; the females wait in the grass or on the leaves of a tree and when they see a signal they like, they respond with a blink of their own—nature’s way of saying, “Here I am. C’mon over” And so it goes…

I did a little more research. The life cycle of the firefly lasts about a year. As summer wanes, females lay their eggs in sheltered spots. It takes about three weeks for the eggs to incubate before they hatch as larvae. Believe it or not, the larvae are carnivorous, feeding on spiders, snails, or other insects. They spend the winter months underground in a protected environment, their pupal form slowly developing wings. By late spring or early summer, they emerge as adult fireflies. Up, up, and away they go; the cycle begins anew.

But all that is mostly grown-up gobbledygook to a kid out chasing fireflies on a summer evening. The magic is in the moment and the science behind it is something to put away ’til later. How sad that sense of wonder fades as we grow older; what a blessing it was to trip over it again after all these years.

Memory unlocks, a door on rusty hinges. One of the great joys of being a grandparent is that occasionally we get to vicariously experience a moment of childhood all over again. We watch the grandkids at play and suddenly we’re transported back to a time when there was nothing more important than a bedside jar of fireflies. All those memories are still down there, biding their time, waiting to glow on a warm summer evening.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown, MD. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine.

Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

 

 

Billionaires are floating around in space while down here on Planet Earth the temperature hit 130 degrees in Death Valley the other day. The pandemic refuses to leave us alone and the political scene is as corrosive as ever. Should we think critically about race or not think at all? There are plenty of serious questions to ponder out there, but when you’re eight years old, it’s summer, and sailing school starts in the morning, maybe it’s ok to get a little giddy.

How I envy these two: grandson and grand niece to us, cousins to each other. For a week, they’re here visiting us while learning how to tie some sailors’ knots or how to rig their own boat. They’ll practice man-overboard drills and learn how to bail out a swamped boat. Perhaps most importantly, they’ll discover for themselves the ancient and magical alchemy that turns something as elusive as wind into practical forward motion.

When I was their age, I was a paddler, not a sailor. My vessel of choice was an old aluminum Grumman canoe, not a rigged Opti. I relied on strokes, not sheets. I dreamed of rivers and lakes, not bays and oceans. And, like these two, I was happy!

It’s sad, but true: we unlearn happiness. Silliness and joy give away to seriousness and purpose. It’s as though the more we learn, the heavier the burdens become. Year by year, the toll mounts and suddenly the full weight of our adult responsibilities sits on our shoulders like Merlin’s ravens, drowning out the laughter of children with their raucous cawing.

Maybe that’s too harsh. There are some people who manage to retain the glow and promise of youth even as they age. I should know; I’m married to one. Even though she’s now Kiki—her grandmother name—she still manages to impart a whole host of life lessons with a light touch; “Shake his hand; look him in the eye; introduce yourself.” I bet the kids probably don’t even realize they’re learning skills that will carry them into the grown-up world with something akin to social grace. They love her for all-the-more for that because she hasn’t forgotten how to make learning fun.

Maybe sailing school will be like that, too. Our young sailors will learn how to navigate choppy water; how to sail into a headwind; how to right their own ship when things really go south. And it will be fun. Maybe, if they’re really lucky and really good, they’ll even grow up with an appreciation for the power and beauty of things unseen, like the wind.

A few days ago, I made a new friend, an artful sailor who has spent many years on the water. “Why do you like to sail?” I asked him.

“Because it makes me slow down. Sailing isn’t about a timeline or about going from point A to point B in a straight line. You’ve got to figure out the wind and how to make it your friend.” That seemed to like pretty good advice to me and if the kids come away from sailing school with no other lesson than this, the experience will have been well worth the price.

In the meantime, they’re still eight, still silly, still full of giggles. There’s plenty of wind ahead.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown, MD. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine.
Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com