Brrrr.. I twas cold today. It was 21 below zero F when we woke this morning. Today was the first day back at school for Max and Gabe.. and my first day back at work after our short vacation. I ended up working at home  again. I’m finding that it’s easier for me to work at home now. I get fewer distractions and have more time to get exercise and to see my family.  I find that I’m now as busy as I ever was from a  calendar perspective. Generally every day is full of meetings.. My mind is in a completely different space, though. I’m still working at about a quarter of my old pace. I find that I need to be told things multiple times.. and that I find it hard to take initiative on my own.  I’m finding that I’m able to separate myself  from work in a way that I don’t think I’ve been able to do since… maybe elementary school. It’s really pretty weird. I’ve always been so driven and goal oriented about my work and I’ve always prided myself on being up on all the gossip and plans.. Now I have to work to stay engaged. I know it may sound strange.. but I’m more stress free now that I can ever remember being.. ever.. even as a kid. I’m pretty sad most of the time.. but just not stressed…    It’s not that I don’t care.. I still do.. it’s just that I can now detach myself so much more easily. The last two weeks or so I have  frequently found myself in a sort of ‘in between’ state between sadness and happiness. .. It’s kind of a dull feeling. .. I’m still very much engaged with people.. it’s ‘things’ I seem to be more apathetic about. I find myself wanting to allow myself to get sadder to release this dull feeling. I frequently have to go in and immerse myself in some of Sam’s stuff.. or thin about some good memory to get  this to happen. When it does I feel like a great pressure has been released and I feel at peace again.. it’s sort of like this kind of a cycle .. if that make’s sense: ——-..______****

   So.. I spent the day in that sort of dull emotional space until about 4:30 when I finally got outside. Chai and I braved the cold and did a fast snowshoe jog up through  the hill in back. When I got back. Max and I went up the hill to see Gabe’s last Wednesday  Night Rider’s competition for the season. It’s such a great family feeling up there. Everywhere you go you see Sam stickers, Sam Buttons and his bandanna’s . He’s very much a part of Bolton.

   We got back home and I spent a little time working on the SamStones.org website. It’s starting to come together. We still need to add a bunch of material. I’d like to ask folks to please take a look and make suggestions on the general format, the ‘Guestbook‘ feature (please try it out).. and the mapping feature I have  created under ‘Found a SamStone?’.  Currently folks have to mail me their ‘found a SamStone stories so I can post them on the map. I think I can eventually code a way to let folks enter their own. For now, if you have put a SamStone in an interesting place.. and you don’t yet see it on the map, please  send me a msg or comment on MySpace and Ill add it in. You can send me pictures or movies of the stones as well.  Also.. let me know any other features you think we  should have on the Website.

   Wow.. I just realized that I’m leaving for China and Australia on Sunday..  I’m going to be gone for more than a week.. not sure how ready I am for that   Sam.. I need you to watch over this place for me while I’m gone..

-jc

Here’s Sam’s name Snowshoed in the snow aver 2 weeks ago and still out there.

Just back from picking Max up at the bus stop in Glens Falls NY.. It.  It was about 2 hours each way which is about the same distance whether we pick him up from the train or the afternoon bus,.. It still beats the heck out of driving him back and forth to NYC. He had a really good and productive visit down at Pratt. He really feels at home there… We missed him very much while he was away.       I ended up having to make the drive back down to Glens Falls only about an hour and a half after we all got back from Killington. We had a really nice couple of days down there.   We woke this morning  to about zero degrees and biting winds… I hadn’t been able to sleep much because of recurring sad/confusing dreams around Sam.  No one had any motivation to go outside and brave the elements. Instead, we had a quiet morning in the house.  Diane ushered about half of us downstairs for a yoga class to loosen all of our bones after the previous days boarding, skiing and snowboarding.  In the end, we almost didn’t even get to the yoga. Instead we started showing each other our favorite party tricks.. We spent about 03 minutes doing the two finger levitation trick. We used to call it ” light as a feather, stiff as a board” The idea is to allow your body to become both relaxed and stiff enough to allow a group of 6-8 people to lift you. using only two fingers from each hand. It’s an amazing effect. The first time they tried it on me.. they couldn’t lift me.. I was too skeptical. They tried again after I closed my eyes and did a bit of meditation.. on that next try I rose right into the air.

Gabe was so in to it that we all quickly got him to the ceiling with no effort at all..

 It’s such a cool feeling.  After that we did a trust game in which a person stands in the center of a ring of people. He/she closes his/her eyes and falls in any direction. The folks in the circle bump the person back upright. You have to have total trust to let yourself fall in any direction while keeping your hands crossed at your chest. I took this movie of us doing it to Gabe…   it’s a very cool feeling.

 After that we did  some partner yoga including Diane’s favorite cascading downward dog.. It was a perfect start to the morning

After yoga we spent an hour or so cleaning the house.. It was amazing how fast.. and how much fun it is to clean a house with 15 sets of hands…Check out time was 12 noon. At11:50 the last crumb of food was cleaned away. and we were ready to leave.. We grabbed one last picture of the group..

thought you can’t see it here.. Sam was in the picture too. I boosted Gabe up the stone wall to place a SamStone in plain sight up in the rock facing.. We like to leave a little bit of Sam wherever we go

At 12 sharp we all left for home I ended up driving Kevin and Nate back to Richmond.. On the way back I got a lecture on ‘Steez’ which is snowboardeeze for something like style… as in ‘that guy has steez’ it’s some blend of talent, attitude and fashion style, I think. I got an hours worth of who had steez.. and how didn’t.. I also learned that there are different kind of steez..   It seemed to me that everyone had some sort of steez. I was told that  had ‘science steez’..   Jen said I had ‘immature guy in grownup’s body steez‘  

   One thing we all agreed on .. Sam.. you have major steez….

-jc

ps it’s about 16 below zero Farenheit.. right now  pretty intense for March !

We’re still at the house in Killington.. the internet here is pretty shaky… I’m doing it over my cellphone.. so I’ll be brief. We’re staying in a huge house just off the trails. It’s a great place for the kids.. they can ski or board right from here. What’s more, it has a cool macot:

Sam would have dug this place.

   Yesterday everyone was pretty tired. I think we were all asleep by midnight which is unusual for this crowd. . I woke this morning around 8ish  and there was already a big breakfast going

After breakfast, the kids and some of the adults went out to ski/board, but Matt had to stay in the house because of his broken leg.. poor guy. Tim, Diane and I went out snowshoeing.. We hacked around in the woods for awhile but we kept running into houses. . We eventually found a direction that took us away from people . The woods and the snow were beautiful. At one point I got tuck by a fallen tree and fell in to my waist.   As we hiked a weird thing happened to me .. I started seeing an intense red and blue glowing aura (for lack of a better word) over the snow as I walked.  It looked like licks of flame…  It stuck around for several minutes despite blinking, looking away, etc.. Diane couldn’t see it either. Not sure what it was. But  it sure  was pretty..( also pretty freaky). We also found a tree with some great bark scars that looked like eyes:

 Just as we were lcoming out of the woods, we happened to run into Gabe, Sumner and Brittany on a small side trail.. which is a pretty funny coincidence given that there’s 80 mies of trail here.  I realized that I kept looking around for Sam..   again, he would love it here..

    We got back around 12 and everyone started showing up for lunch.. Another big spontaneous meal;  Diane made grilled cheeses and Deb had made some Clam chowder… Delicious  The food had lots of personality !

 

  After lunch everyone went on their own ways. Diane went skiing with Jen and I stayed behind and slept and read.. It was really peaceful This house has a big TV with cable.. I know that most houses have cable.. but I just couldn’t live with it. It’s not that I hate it .. it’s that I love it. When it’s on, I’m drawn to it.. and can’t do anything else. If we had cable in our house, I’d be useless. I wonder how people who do have TV get anything done…. But they seem to. I kept having to make myself walk away…  

    Luckily this is a big house with lots to look at. I spent some time going through the book shelves.. I really think you can understand a lot about people by looking at what’s on their bookshelves (or Ipods – Ivy J ).. By their books, these folks are in their 70’s, highly educated., politically liberal, have a good sense of humor and are probably Jewish (mom ? dad ? ) ..   Here’s a book I particularly liked seeing.

It’s quieting down now.. Deb was reading us dumb jokes from a book. Now Tim’s teaching folks how to play poker. I Figured I’d write now.. because I’m not sure if I’ll be able to upload tonight..   We’re heading back to Richmond tomorrow.. then coming back to Rutland to pick Max up from the train..  Time to go help with dinner….. Fajitas.. one of Sam’s  favorites,  We’ll hold hands and welcome you in  before we eat, Sam.

-jc

 Ps. Tomorrow’s town meeting.. please remember to vote !

Once again… Not sure I’ll be able to get to a computer tonight so I’m posting from my blackberry. Gabe Tim and I just got to Killington. S couple of families are renting a house here for a couple of nights so the kids can board. Gabe and I hung out in Richmond today because gabe was still so sick. I ended up sleeping on the floor in the room with him last night because he was having trouble sleeping. He was up every hour or so getting sick. I think he finally fell into a deep sleep around 5 just as Diane was waking up to leave. She needed to come down with the first wave of folks. Gabe and I managed to get back to sleep and slept till 9. He stayed in bed all day with chills abs fever… But he was intent on coming down to Killington tonight. He didn’t want to miss another day on the hill.
Were now at darkside, a snowboarding shop, trying to find a board to rolace the one that was stolen last night. All things considered gabe is in pretty good spirits. I, on the other hand, am best from lack of sleep last night. In a few minutes were heading over to the house to meet up with our friends. It’ll be fun hanging out with folks… If I can stay awake :-).
   We just got to the house.. very limited bandwidth, .. This wll have to be short. I got stuck trying to get up ther driveway. We  couldn’t get the car togo up the hill.. or down the hill…. so I just locked it and left it there. The end of a kind of yucky day.  I got into the house as dinner was nearly ready.. We’re cooking for about 15 folks.. so dinner was a pretty big (and fun) production.. Here’s the under 30 part of our group digging in..

.Sam, you’d love it here.   See you in the woods tomorrow.

-jc