S(pr)inging

I'm getting over a cold, or maybe the flu. It started with Calvin, whom I'm sure brought it home from one of his increasingly frequent activities and generously shared. He wouldn't want me to feel left out (his father, on the other hand, has so far remained unscathed). It was a doozy, which came on with a vengeance and has since petered out in the most uncompromising manner: a slow trickle in the nose, an annoying tickle in the throat, an unshakeable tiredness. My only real complaint about this winter rite of passage, though, is that it's just a little too springy outside for me to want to be curled up inside nursing a stubborn virus. 

It was so beautiful this weekend, in fact, that on my run I communed with robbins, squirrels, cardinals, titmice, woodpeckers, and even a few humans in the mix. They are all coming out of winter hiding. And while I know we will likely see another onslaught of snow and/or ice, I can't help but feel that some shift has taken place and that, on a whole, we have turned the corner towards a warmer season. 

After Cinderella yesterday and the delight of a day and evening spent with beloved friends, today was a day for serious performance—the first Boychoir performance of the new semester/season/year. And as Saturday saw us driving an hour east to Detroit, Sunday saw us driving an hour west to Battle Creek for a church's wine and cheese happy hour. The performance was wonderful. Calvin has grown so in his singing over the past two years. He auditioned into a spot in a small group choir that I got to hear for the first time this afternoon as well, something I hope he is proud of for the time and attention he has dedicated to it. 

I did not partake in either wine or cheese, but I can say that the afternoon performance was worth the trip. Not that I'm biased at all.

November recap

Good books, good times

We went to the Audubon lands at Waterloo to watch the migration of the Sandhill Cranes.

We voted

We did science

We tailgated, sometimes with the Boychoir

Pumpkin beers were taking over, and so were giant bears

Calvin and I ran the turkey trot

Iris learned to help with the dishes

We spent a lovely weekend with my family at a lodge in middle of nowhere. And it snowed.

It snowed even more at home

But it melted before Thanksgiving

MST3K Thanksgiving marathon

The last game of the year, the last disappointment (we hope)

Anywhere you go

Choir camp is over. We picked up our fast maturing son this afternoon from his first nights away from home and family in his entire youthful life. I will not pretend that I wasn't at least a wee bit disappointed when he wasn't overly excited to see us. Sure he was happy—all smiles and watching us from his place in the concert lineup—but he wasn't I missed you soooo much happy. He wasn't dog waiting eagerly by the front door oh my god I thought I'd never see you again happy.

This is a good thing. He had a fantastic time. He experienced no homesickness, and no panic at being in a totally unfamiliar situation. I am so very pleased with this. Really, I am. And his new tendency toward reticence, his reluctance to share details, is also a very positive sign of his self security and comfort. He is branching out and finding new worlds and they are sweet and exciting and they belong only to him, and he is reluctant to share them. It is a natural part of his growing up.

But so is that slightly poignant tug at my heart strings when he comes home in a blissful calm. He didn't need us. He barely missed us. He was stumped, in fact, as to why I had placed all those little notes in his stuff, because, after he was in bed the night before he left, I snuck sticky notes with (hopefully unembarrassingly) affectionate memos on them into a few spots in his suitcase, just in case he was lonely for home. A little "we love you" here, a little "good night!" there. And when he asked me why I had done that, in a non accusatory, simply curious way, I told him they were there to help him know that even when he is away we are thinking of him, just in case he needed that reminder.

Anywhere you go, I told him, we will always be there for you, sending you our love.

Away from home

I dropped him off at camp this morning. The real kind of camp, where he has to take a sleeping bag and pillow, and toothbrush which he will have to remind himself to use (along with the shower, let's hope he reminds himself to use the shower, too).

I didn't do very many sleep away camps when I was little. Once. I remember going to horse back riding camp when I was in elementary school. It might have been a Girl Scout camp. I remember helping in the mess hall, and mucking out stalls. I remember that of all the girls for some reason I just couldn't get the hand of the trot, or maybe it was the canter. I remember the frustration. And I remember the fun, but I also remember being very, very homesick at night. That feeling lasted for me long into high school, when spending a week at band camp was a delightfully magic time for me every summer, but with nights that left me feeling bereft of my own bed and family. I even cried sometimes when I was away for simple overnights at friends' houses.

So you'll forgive me if I was a little worried for Calvin. Logically, in my forethinking brain, I have no real concern. Calvin is more easy going than I think I was as a kid, and I think he'll take these first two nights away from home and family (ever!) like a champ. In fact, if anything he's likely to be sorry when the week is up (which is a feeling I also remember very well, especially at the close of band week every summer), but that didn't stop me from worried just a teeny tiny bit somewhere in the back of my uncontrollable reptilian brain. So we all talked about it a bit the day before I dropped him off. We told him that when I was young I suffered terribly from homesickness, but that his dad not, and I told him some of the coping mechanisms I had used when I was young to get through a long week.

Then in the car on the way to drop off, eary on Wednesday morning, Calvin told me that he was really, really going to miss me, and he asked me to take care of his animals for him. I asked him if he was starting to get worried, but he said that no, he just thought that would be a sweet thing to say so that I wouldn't feel sad. He was using my own coping mechanisms on me.

Wisdom is sometimes lost on the old.

Sweetest Heart

This morning marked Calvin's first performance with the Boychoir of Ann Arbor's Performing Choir. When he joined the choir last year, at the age of eight, he was automatically placed in their Preparatory Choir, the group meant for younger boys who have never sung in a concert, read music, or rehearsed their voices. The goal, of course, is to help them learn to do those things before they are thrust into the busier, more demanding Performing Choir with the older boys and more developed voices. Calvin had a great time all year, and learned a great deal from the director and the experience. He learned enough, in fact, that three weeks ago, at the end of the year potluck, the manager pulled us aside and asked us if he would be interested in singing with the Performing Choir for a special performance. He was thrilled, we were proud. Clearly his dedication and hard work over the year had been noticed. It was the best example I could have thought up, if I had thought it up, to show him how quiet hard work does not go unnoticed or unrewarded.

Calvin has been rehearsed two or three times weekly with the older group since then, and he has learned and developed as much in those three weeks as he did during the whole year with the prep choir. It was a humbling, but exhilarating experience for him, made more enjoyable by the warm welcome and gentle support given him by the older boys themselves. Since he hadn't been singing with them previously, he had some catching up to do worked, and he worked very hard both at rehearsals and at home with great results.

Both he and I now have songs like Ave Maria memorized.

The performance, the last of the year, was for a morning wedding that took place today. It was a small group of boys, not the whole choir, but they sang from the balcony of a beautiful, old Catholic Church in Detroit, The Sweetest Heart of Mary, and both the acoustics and the boys were astounding. During their final run through I sat in the congregation and listened to their voices drift over the whole church, filling it with an innocent depth that only a choir of young boys can create. It was beautiful. Stunning.

The rain was probably a huge disappointment to the marrying pair and their families, especially since the following brunch was held outside, where shivering guests huddled in the center of tents to avoid the rain blown in by the gusting, chilly wind. But as disappointing as the weather was, the choir did not let them down. Following the wedding, as the boys filed out of the church with the guests, and again as they joined them at the brunch, they were approached by several people who thanked them and complimented them gushingly. "Prettier even than the boys' choir at Oxford!" they were told by two separate guests.

The entire morning—it's early start at 5am, the gray, driving rain, the authentic beauty of the church, the pure, floating sound of the boys' voices—was a little dream-like, and a beautiful beginning to what we hope will be many years involvement with this wonderful choir and its wonderful people.