I came home and then mostly finished the wrapping. There are only a few small items left to do. The sibling presents (minus the 15-year-old’s since he ordered online for delivery today or tomorrow) are under the real, more informal tree (my kids call this the “tree of the people.”). The family presents for Christmas day are under the “fancy tree”  (the fake one with all white/silver/gold lighting and ornaments). My extended family’s presents are in my office, to be taken out when they show up this weekend.

I’m thinking maybe next year a goal could be to finish more of the shopping earlier. I start to feel more relaxed about Christmas when everything is procured and wrapped. So if this was done at Thanksgiving, December could mostly be about experiences.

Easier said than done of course, as people change their minds about their Christmas lists, and there are more gift-oriented items on sale by December. But something to think about.

In the meantime, here is a currently-unnamed sonnet. Looking for something catchy as a title!

Before the stars, before the planets set
into their orbits, which define a day
and year, then what was time? The alphabet
came after words, one could still chance to say

“I love you” never knowing what was “v”
or “l” or what it meant to write a thought.
These constructs come after the thing, we see
our rules imposed on things existing not

because of rules — and yet, how good to know
that if we say we’ll meet at 3 p.m.
at the appointed point of spin we’ll go
to our shared spot on earth and on a whim

we’ll write each other notes, sweet nothings, such —
these lines that mean so little and so much.

*Getting together with friends for breakfast and coffee and hearing from more far-flung people.

*Going out for Mexican food (a margarita! guacamole!) with my family. They gave me miniature accessories for my miniature kitchen, and some puzzles.

*Hearing my church choir sing Happy Birthday at rehearsal — pitched very very high as part of the warm-up. I will never hear it sung that high at a birthday party!

* The birthday thread on our Patreon page! SHU asked people to post something they’d learned from me and it is making me feel many warm fuzzies to know my catchphrases are going through people’s heads!

* I’m headed to Longwood Gardens with my husband this weekend to see the lights and Christmas displays.

So, lots of good stuff. As for content, the Before Breakfast podcast suggested people “Plan a Monday adventure” and “Go in search of lost time.” As the longer episode, I did a time makeover of a Before Breakfast listener named Haley, talking about some various things she tried in her life and how they worked.

Over at Vanderhacks, my Substack newsletter, I discussed how to make time for speculative projects in a post called “Put big dreams first.” Behind the paywall I had tips on “How to make virtual events more engaging,” and ideas on “How to enjoy your birthday as an adult.”

Finally, here’s a sonnet, called “Bus stop.”

Four weeks before the solstice, and the sky
is full of shadows, lengthened on the street.
The school bus stops, the children shout and try
to stop the boy from racing off. His feet

are pushing out his shoes, his elbows taut,
his eyelashes are tangled and his hair
is rumpled. See, he reaches — soon he’s caught
a single yellow leaf. The autumn air

is chilled with wind, then warm in setting sun,
this moment in between when all is light.
So why should we be sad? The boy will run,
and any thoughts of darkness take to flight

like squawking birds, against the golden gleam
of afternoon, of joy that’s like a dream.

Yesterday we had a crew here installing lights on the trees. I’d decided to do  professional Christmas lights installation this year, and so it will be festive to look out the window and see the trees all wrapped in lights. I forgot to take a picture last night so unfortunately that isn’t an accompanying photo for this post, but hey. We’ve started working on scheduling in parts of the holiday fun list. It’s going to be a tight year because Thanksgiving is so late. We did buy 7 tickets to the Rockettes! And the breakfast-with-Santa tickets are purchased. Still trying to figure out when the Nutcracker and Longwood Gardens are happening…

(I’ll probably publish that list next week.)

In the meantime, here’s this week’s content round-up.

The Before Breakfast podcast interview featured Charles Duhigg, author of Supercommunicators, and The Power of Habit. We talked having better conversations and his own productivity tips. In the shorter episodes, I suggested that we “Don’t consent and resent” (it might be better to just say no!) and I asked “What’s on your holiday fun list?”

The Vanderhacks newsletter suggested that people “Set relationship goals” and “Reduce chores, don’t reschedule them.” I suggested that we can serve the people around us by being a calming force — “Be the eye of the storm.” Behind the paywall, I suggested “A little way to take your reading up a notch.” The Vanderhacks newsletter turns one later this month. I’ve had a lot of fun doing it, and hope to grow this newsletter over the next year. Please consider a free or paid subscription!

The Best of Both Worlds podcast featured an interview with Gabrielle Blair (the Design Mom). Over at our Patreon community, we’ve been discussing suggestions for filling the time from 5-8 p.m. when it’s dark and cold outside. We also — believe it or not — had a camp question already. Is it better to put kids in one day camp for the whole summer, or to curate different camps on different topics? There are arguments for both. Please come join the discussion! Membership is $9/month. We’ll have our next Zoom meet-up on November 26th to discuss holiday planning.

Finally, a sonnet, called “The coat.”

A London park, October, and the leaves
are bright amid the city’s settled gray.
Two people walk, our narrator perceives
that they are lovers, new ones, as they stray

from sidewalks we take notice of her coat:
a brilliant white, as shiny as their bond.
Would travel mar its luster? She might float
that thought, but then her roommate might respond

that no, you need to wear it — on this trip.
This is the girl that fell short on the rent.
Another mindset, but, my friends, we skip
two decades forward, care cannot prevent

a coat from turning beige. But memory’s true —
that coat is London, all still bright and new.

Aurora

The air turns cool, the dark descending fast
on this October evening, Thursday night.
I huddle in my coat, this is the last
of several happy outings, all is bright

beneath the street lamps, feel the bustle, buzz.
Two hundred people line up for a show.
They’ve stood all day, and now crowd, as one does,
to be the first inside, first standing row.

We hustle past — then “look up!” In the chill,
a streak of red makes brush strokes in the sky,
and through the camera lens more colors still.
We shout and join the faces pointed high.

The northern lights have come to play around
this autumn night, like music without sound…

—-
Bar Harbor, 4:45 p.m.

Now rocking on the porch, I see the light
turn golden, all the maple leaves aglow
on this cold island, all the aspens bright,
as even parking lots put on a show.

Some nineteen years ago we ran a race
to mark one year. A thought — did that seem long?
I only once had thought about this place.
Somewhere a book is written, we belong

to larger narratives, the great unknown.
We travel many years, if glad we can.
Tomorrow, I must wake before the dawn
with many miles waiting, per the plan.

Just always moving, here this tree still stands
a hundred autumns, chilling many hands.

It was a good two weeks. I’m feeling reasonably relaxed before the whirlwind of the next two weeks! A few highlights:

Boardwalk runs. I did some very speedy runs (for me) with my little brother (who came to visit with his wife during the middle weekend) and with my 14-year-old, who is going to be running with the high school cross-country team this fall. I did two long runs, which were complete opposites from each other. On the first Friday, I struggled through 8 miles. It never felt good — I just ground it out. Then a week later I did another run that felt marvelous. Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t even notice mile 6.5-7.5, until I saw where I was. That’s saying something! I went 9.5 miles, and I could have gone farther for sure. Like I still had a pep in my step at 9.5 miles. I don’t know why the runs felt so different, but I hope all future long runs will resemble the second one!

Town walks. I decided to explore a little more of the town, which has incredibly cute Victorian architecture (and unlike my neighborhood at home, sidewalks). I’d take off with my phone and one ear plug in, listening to my daily Bach (St. Matthew’s Passion, and the Magnificat, among other masterpieces), and see the sights. Because the lots are so small, none of the houses are huge, but it’s such a mix of homes that have been renovated and extensively landscaped and those that are a bit more worn. I also find it fascinating that there are homes two blocks from the beach, less than two hours from NYC (really, more like 90 minutes), that have not been bid up/gentrified. A little different from the Hamptons! I also went on several boardwalk walks at night with my 17-year-old.

Days Ice Cream. Of course. I decided to just go for it and get the smallest possible scoop of real ice cream (chocolate peanut butter). I had some reactions to it but by limiting it to every few days I minimized that as much as possible and truly enjoyed this treat.

Other culinary adventures. We had brunch at Toast twice (my big kids are definitely getting into brunch), had lobster rolls from Cousins Maine Lobster twice, and my husband and I did a date night at Klein’s Fish Market on the water, which was lovely and summery. We liked it so much we took our big kids back the next night (while our nanny was visiting to watch the little kids). So I guess we did all of those places twice!

Reading on the porch. The house we rent has a lovely, huge porch. So we ate most of our meals out there and I took advantage of it to sit and read. I made it through several books (though nothing as ambitious as 2017, when I finished Kristin Lavransdatter in the same house).

A Vanderkam family reunion. As mentioned, my little brother and his wife came down from upstate NY to visit. My parents and my other brother and sister-in-law came to visit for the day, as did their three adult children, two with significant others. We grilled steak and lobster. My husband always tries to have way more than enough food and we barely made it with this crew.

The beach with mostly big kids. The 4-year-old can watch videos and be entertained for a while, which means that it is possible to relax even with him around and no other adults. We had this situation in 2019 (the youngest being 4.5), but the older kids weren’t old enough to leave home alone then, and now they are, which means they can choose to go to the beach or not on any given excursion so there’s just less arguing. We take other more adventurous vacations, but the beach is my relaxing one, with a lot of flexibility (my husband and the older two boys wound up going back and forth a couple times since it’s only 90 minutes from home). I really enjoyed it this year! I’m planning to be back in August 2025.

Of course, I kept writing sonnets while at the beach, so here’s one I’m calling “Beach House.”

Some seven years ago I watched the flash
of lightning from this porch, the slant of rain
a gust of wind and, drifting, someone’s trash
turned cartwheels and we tried to entertain

each other — well-worn tales of summers past,
unsure of all the summers yet to come.
But here I sit and feel the wind blow, fast —
another storm. The sand is biting from

the beach — the same — and yet it cannot be
the same for we are changed, the children grow,
the sand and waves change over and we see
that new things catch the eye, and others go,

not sudden, like the lightning, but a drift.
The old reborn as even oceans shift.