Summer Solstice

Yesterday was the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, and all day I kept thinking about how, when the kids were young I would try to celebrate both this day, the first day of summer and the last day of summer, with a picnic.

It got a little more challenging as they got older and we were often tied up with some sports event on one or both of those days, but I tried my best for as long as I could. It's been a long time now since we went on a picnic of any kind and I miss that.

I'm hoping that once I get my mother's estate settled and my own house organized and less of a jumble - I will be able to have a much less over-booked and frantic life - one that includes time to sit on the deck and write, one that includes camp fires in our backyard, and one that includes picnics!

Father's Day

Sloan & Tom
photo from Sloan's senior tennis season, spring 2008


It's been twenty-one years since my own father passed away, so it has been a long time since I celebrated the day as a daughter. But I have lived through 29 years of Father's Days with the man who is my children's father. This week, as we get ready to celebrate another, I am thinking about the men in my life who are honored on this day.

My father was a hard-working man who devoted his life to his family, although he didn't relate to his children all that much, especially me, his only daughter. I never remember just having a chat with my father. We had serious conversations about serious topics, we had offhand conversations in passing, we had disagreements which would sometimes end in shouting on his part and tears on my part - but I don't remember just sitting and talking to him about my life. And I don't remember him being particularly interested either. There was no doubt he loved me, but to this day I don't believe he understood me - or wanted to.

In many ways my Tom is like my Dad. He too works hard and devotes himself to our family. He doesn't like chicken, he doesn't pick up his laundry, he likes to watch stock car races on TV.

But, unlike my father, he is a Dad with a passionate interest in his three children - including our daughter, whom he may not always understand due to gender difference, but he sure does want to!

From the very beginning he wanted to be a part of their lives and activities, even when we had to take books out of the library to learn soccer before he had to coach our oldest son's first team! In addition to soccer - year after year, child after child - he coached baseball, softball, YMCA basketball, and one season of rocket football. When the kids got to a point where they played sports in school, he came to nearly every game, and together we were passionate boosters, with him doing the lion's share of the heavy lifting!

At home he remodeled our modest house over and over as the kids grew up, trying to give them the space they needed. He put aside the activities he loved to do, golfing, photography and travel, because they were too expensive while we had a family to raise. He took multiple trips to Disney World and Cedar Point because the kids enjoyed them more than a walk through the wilderness.

Now the kids are grown up and we are spectators to their lives, but he still stays involved and worries about them constantly. We conjure up ways to be with them.

Max & Nolan

This year he celebrates his first Father's Day as a grandfather and gets to share the day with our son Max, who has a five month old son of his own. I watch Max as a father and I know he's learned a lot of what he does from watching his own Dad.

Happy Father's Day, Tom. I'm proud and happy to have watched you with our children over the past many years, and look forward towards many more.

Full Moon Writing

Photo by Tom Tackett for "From the Desk - Writings under a Full Moon" (left to right) Ali, Emily, Sue, Denise



I have belonged to a small writing group of four women for about three years or so. In the past year we have been working on pieces of writing about the full moons, which have a different name each month. The challenge was to come to the group with a piece of writing about the moon.

During this year we all faced trying times and sometimes did not get our assignments done in the exact month they were due - but eventually we all finished our work and will be publishing this book of writing in the next few weeks.

We'll introduce the book to the public at the gallery opening reception of Ali's retrospective of a lifetime of her art work - which includes these written pieces in the "moon" book. The reception takes place at the Box Factory for the Arts in St. Joseph, Michigan on July 30.

It has been so much fun working on this project with these creative women and I'm so looking forward to seeing it in the printed form. (Ali is creating special artwork for both the cover and the title pages for each of our sections in the book.)

We've recently added a fifth member to the group, Judy, and we've decided to begin another year-long group project - this one with the theme of "birds." We can write anything we want - but a bird has to appear in it somewhere. Sounds like a challenge (not so much for Sue, who is an avid birder) and we begin next month when we meet at Ali's for our July session. (And no, I won't be tweeting!)

I'll write more about this as we progress. Bye, bye birdie!