We just got back from a very good 2 day quick trip down to Massachusetts. We were down to see my folks and for Diane and our friend Pat to attend an Open Heart, Swaroopa yoga workshop which was being held in my parents home town of Sherborn. We started down about 6:30 and got down there about 11Pm on Friday night…

My folks were up waiting and were very warm and welcoming. They hit it off with Pat right away..

After a little bit of talking. we all drifted off to sleep around midnight…

 Diane and Pat woke up and left about 8AM on Sat to get to their yoga workshop. The rest of us slept in.  The only plans I had for the weekend was to spend time with my folks.. and concentrate on showing Gabe and his friend Trevor a good time in Boston.. which meant skateboarding.   I gave a quick call to Hanna D. ad Dave at Talent to see what they knew about Boston skateboarding and they fixed us up..   They gave us the name of a good Skate shop and tipped us that there was going to be a skateboard movie premier at midnight that night. Hannah gave us a few people to call in town and we were off

 After a late breakfast, my mom and I drove the kids into downtown Wellesley to test their stuff on the ramps and stairways of some public buildings which were not in use on the beautiful weekend.   We spend a very nice couple of hours in the beautiful sun watching the boys not break arms, wrists or ankles on a variety of concrete structures designed to do just that.   When we’d exhausted the possibilities in Wellesley, my mom dropped Gabe. Trevor and me  at the T at the end of one of the Green Line trains.

We took the train into Copley  then back out to Bingham Circle to check out Orchard, the skate shop that Hannah had told us about..

The owner Debo told us a few places in downtown Boston where the boys could skate..   From there we got on an Orange train from  West Roxbury  and were downtown at the Aquarium a few minutes later.

We walked out to Long Warf. where the guys spent a good could of hours riding the sidewalks and terrorizing the crowds. It was fun to watch.. When it came time to head back to our train. We took the slow path along the harbor. Along the way we found some excellent skating . We got shoo-ed off a few times (since when is skateboarding a crime !?!) .

. but for the most part folks were ok.. The scenery was beautiful.. Gabe and Trevor loved it. We got back to South Station in time to catch the 4:30 train out to West Natick..   My mom met our train and took us back home.

 Diane and Pat made it back to the house just a few minutes after we did. They took Gabe. Trevor and my mom to the Sherborn park to skate some more (The park has a small but good skate park which is dedicated to some kid in town who died last year.. I’d seen it before and wondered about it.. This time when I saw it , I really felt it. .  

While the kids skated some more (7 hours of skateboarding on Saturday !) I stayed home and had a great talk with my dad.  We talked about all sorts of things.. mostly about how we were all doing after Sam’s passing. It was a good emotional talk.  

 Eventually Diane, at, my mom, Gabe and Trevor came back and everyone started cooking. We had a great dinner of red beans and rice, one of my Dad’s favorites.     Around 10:30pm  Gabe. Trevor and I got back in the car and drove 25 miles back into Cambridge to see the skateboarding movie.. I know the area well since I used to live in Cambridge.. but I know it as a walking guy..  I am not good at driving in it. I had done MapQuest.. but realized halfway there that I’d forgotten my glasses. Trevor was riding shotgun so I deputized him as navigator… Just as I did, I  took a wrong turn.. I asked Trevor if he knew how to read a map. His answer was no.. but he tried anyway. After a little bit of trial and error with Harvard Square‘s one way system.. he got us to the Brattle Theater.. We (almost) Pahked the Cah in Havad Yahd

 The scene at the theater was pretty wild. There were about 100.. studiously dressed down Kids.. some with skateboards doing some pretty amazing stuff.  Just before the movie, we met James, the film organizer.. He was really a great guy.. He told us that he’s bring the film ‘Magic Sticky Hand’ up to Talent in Burlington this week.. so check it out.

 

The movie itself was pretty wild.. It opened with a scene involving a clogged toilet.. I won’t give away any more of the plot.. but it involved some pretty amazing  skateboarding and some.. uh.. interesting … movie clips interspaced. It was wonderfully weird..   What made it even weirder was that I was easily twice as old as anyone else in the room. In fact.. the last time I was in the Brattle theater was over 26 years ago.. before most of the other folks had even been born… (eeeeek) I  suspect Gabe was just over half as old as most of the folks there.. so ..in a room of freaks.. we were the uber-freaks. They were still nice to us, though.

 At the end.. we wandered down to the car.. Just as we got there.. the street light over the car went out.. Sam was there too.  The trip home uneventful.. We stopped long enough to put a SamStone in the courtyard of Bexeley Hall, my dorm at MIT. We got home around 2 and went straight to sleep.. what a day

 When I woke today, it was nearly 10..  Had a nice long talk with my Mom outside.. Talked about how we were all doing since Sam’s passing..  it’s good  for me to here about my folks path through grieving and healing

  I then went  for a beautiful 4 mile run up through Sherborn woods and lanes .. hoping to catch a glimpse of Diane at lunch.. She was still in class.. so I made a  heart out of gardening mulch next to her car  in keeping with the ‘open heart’ theme of her workshop. 

On the way home I stopped at the Sherborn Peace Abbey.  The Abbey was founded in 1995 when Emily, a cow, escaped a nearby slaughterhouse.. and wandered to that spot. Several folks hid Emily until a family purchased her freedom. She lived at the peace Abbey until her natural demise in 2001.. During her life, Emily had visits from Mother Theresa and the Dali Lama plus thousand of pilgrims for peace and animal rights.

The Peace Abbey had several parts. First was the peace garden.. it had a large sculpture of  Mahatmas Gandhi… surrounded by brick walls arraigned as spokes.

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(Note.. i’ve tried 6 times to get this image of Gandhi pasted in and it’s resisted.. I get them message Gandhi-Gee !)

The spokes were covered with a 100 or so bronze places with quotes of famous peace activists  such as Margaret Mead. John Lennon, Francis of Assisi and Albert Einstein..  They also had peace prayers from many religions.. What struck me is how similar the peace prayers were.. even though the faiths had fought so much throughout the ages.. There was a great Gandhi quote that said something like ‘there are as many religions as there are people on the earth. All religions speak of the same truth, what difference if people find different ways to get to that truth’ I certainly believe that.. The Abbey also had an area devoted to the remembrance of Emily the cow including a large bronze statue of her that rests on top of her grave.

This was surrounded by quotes of many famous vegetarians  (I’ve been an un-famous vegetarian now for 30 years.. though I do now eat fish) . Behind that there’s a small area where the remains of several contentious objectors  are buried.. Inside the Abbey, there is a wonderful chapel to all faiths.   Inside there was the Quran, the Bible, , Jesus, Ganesh, Vishnu, Buddah, Moses, African prayer sculptures, Native American , Mahavira all in the same room.. and all seemed to be getting along very well.   I was very moved by the place… 

I left the Abbey and started running home to my folks . I decided to take a detour long  the railroad track.. I thought of all the times that Sam, Gabe. Max and I walked the railroad tracks here in Jonesville looking for railroad spikes.  Our yard is still full of them.. every year we hit a few with the lawn mower.. ‘Clank !’.  I was looking for a spike to bring home for Sam’s collection.. but no luck. Instead, I picked up a piece of scrap metal that looked a little like a phone and started talking to Sam. I often do stuff like that.  I don’t usually say anything special. I was just telling him that I loved him. I finished my ‘call’ and dropped the scrap metal.. An there where it hit the ground between my legs was a railroad spike. Thanks again Sam.

When I got home, the boys were up and around..   My mom and I got in the car and took them into Natick to find places to skateboard.. it was a gorgeous day.. We spent the afternoon looking for slanting cement for the boys to ride while my mom and I talked… It was a really relaxing afternoon…

 Eventually we ended up having a late lunch then walking the boys up to the Peace Abbey.. We had another quick walk through.  Diane had put an SamStone on Gandhi’s  foot earlier in the day which Gabe was surprised to find. 

  As we left the abbey I walked by a group of kids looking at the sculpture of Gandhi.. One of them found the SamStone, picked it up and said,, “what’s this ? Who’s  Sam” Then I listened as they speculated about who Sam is/was. .. It was just like I imagined it to be when someone found a SamStone.  It was good to see..   I told them about Sam.. then we we left

 

I dropped my Mom, Gabe and Trevor at the park for one last skate while I zoomed back to my folks house to pack.. Diane and Pat picked us up a few minutes later .. and  we all went back to the park to pick up the kids and say goodbye to my folks.  It had been so good seeing them,

 

The drive home was uneventful.. Diane and Pat told me about their Yoga Seminar.. I told them about our Skateboarding adventures.. and we talked about life for about 204 miles.. It was really nice. We got home around 11:30..  And Max had cleaned up the house and made us a welcome home pie…   He’d also booby trapped the door so it dropped confetti on our heads.. I love that kid… !

So here I am totally exhausted.. and typing in your room Sam.. time for me to go to bed… Namaste my sons !

-jc

 

Five months today, Sam, that’s when you left us.… We’re at my parents on this fine spring weekend.. and it’s unbelievable to me that you’re not here with us. Simply unbelievable.   The flowers are up, the birds are chirping.. the mosquitoes are even biting and you’re not here. I know it sounds like a cliché.. but it only seems like yesterday I was talking to you on the phone in Florida. It really does feel like yesterday. I can’t figure out how we’ve gotten through these past 150 days… but we have.   We’re getting stronger.. we are sad yet we laugh often.. We all still feel you near.. we speak of you and speak to you all the time. I have a habit of touching the picture of your I carry on my button over my heart every time I consciously think of you.. I paid attention today and realized my hand goes to my heart every couple of minutes throughout the day. It’s comforting to me. I wonder if you know. I dreamed about you last night… that happens often.. not every night like it used to.. but every few days. You were talking to me and smiling. I woke feeling happy. I hope you’re happy wherever you are /whatever you have become..  I love you forever my son…  We all love you. Peace out.

-jc

 

ps. I have lots of stories and pictures from our day in Boston today.. I’ll share them tomorrow,

I slept like a rock last night. I think the jetlag from this week’s travel had finally caught up with me. I woke late to a beautiful, bright morning. I walked outside and it seemed it had transitioned from Winter directly to Summer.. there were flowers in the yard

I had intended to make this a vacation day because of this weeks travel. I ended up being in work calls all morning Interesting stuff.. but emotions are running high and I needed to chill out.. so around noon I walked away from the laptop. I had a few errands to run to help Max recover from a laptop crash… Those kind of things always happen at the worst times.. in his case, right before his Pratt work is due and his Champlain finals. ‘Luckily’, it seems to  be a motherboard problem and not a disk crash.. we were able to get his school files off safely. After I got that squared away, I drove out to New Haven to see Homer. I spent the drive out talking to Sam.. which I needed to do.. Car travel is my best thinking time now.

   I got to Homer’s around 2. He is just an amazing guy.. he’s a very cool blend of artist, inventor and philosopher. I hardly knew him before Sam died.. now he’s a good friend. One thing I really admire about him is his ability to follow through on any vision he comes up with. He’s able take that  vision and use it to  quickly transform piles of scrap metal, motors and gears into working creations. Where others would see junk he sees possibilities. For example.. last weekend he was describing a new 3axis robotic camera arm that he hopes to mount a camcorder and a blowtorch  to film the melting of his wax states.. Today he demonstrated the thing to me in his shop.  Homer and I are still trying to figure out if/how/when to buy that shopbot 3D robotic milling machine we found in the classifieds. One of our hopes is to make a system that will let kids take a design idea on the computer and turn it into an object made of wood, plastic or other soft material.   Today we went and visited Homer’s friend Randy to see his shopbot in action. Randy spent a good hour or so showing us his machine. It was very, very impressive. Here it is.. isn’t it cute ?

 

Now we have to decide what to do about ours.. stay tuned.   

 I headed home around 4:30  so that we could get ready to leave for Boston. Diane and our friend Pat are taking  a yoga training seminar in my parents home town of Sherborn, MA. Around 6:30 Diane. Pat,  Gabe, Gabe’s friend Trevor and I piled in the van and headed down to Boston. We made good time.. with an emphasis on good (isn’t that from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance  ? ) on the way down: 4 hours including a leisurely stop for dinner. The kids played video games (Guitar Hero) in the back while Diane, Pat and I talked.. it was great having Pat with us.

   We got to my parents house around 10:30. It was really nice to see them. We haven’t been here since Sam died.. so it was pretty emotional for me to come into their house. We got settled pretty quickly though. They’re very good hosts..

Tomorrow Diane and Pat are off to Yoga and Gabe Trevor and my folks and I are going to find some urban skateboarding for the boys. More from Boston tomorrow. Sam, I feel you here. Have a peaceful 420.

-jc

Home again.. I was so happy to land in Burlington this morning.

The trip last night was surprisingly easy. The planes had all been on time and I’d slept miraculously well. Scott picked me up at the airport which I really appreciated.. it’s always nice to have someone waiting for you. .

Walking into the house is always strange now. It feels so good to see everyone.. It still feels like Sam is here.. I feel him strongly in our home. It’s like he’s just in another room. Diane has said its like he’s just behind some curtain, ready to come out.. but he can’t come out. I know he’s here and it feels good to be around his stuff.. It’s a funny thing.. I miss him always.. I like to miss him here the most.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day.. I feel asleep several times as the red-eye and jet lag caught up with me. Around 5:30 I went for a run because Chai was giving me that look that made me feel so guilty for not having run. We got out on the trail and the snow was almost all gone.. I had to find a place in deep shadow to find enough snow left to write Sam’s name. I got back just in time for men’s’ yoga night. This was our second.. 5 guys from our father’s group came. Diane is so great with the class.. She knows how far to push us without making us feel like inflexible klutzes. Yoga is the best thing to cure a back that’s been on airplanes all day.

Tonight was pretty uneventful.. Scott helped Gabe with his homework while Max worked on his school work. He’s heading back to Pratt this weekend to finish up his coursework from last semester. He’s working very hard… Tonight he showed us his film project. It had to be done in 8mm film.. like we used when I was a kid. Max filmed his project in 8mm then digitized it then worked some digital magic using AfterEffects and Motion.. the result is amazing. He is just so creative. Speaking of which.. he just came into Sam’s room where I’m typing looking like this:

I guess that’s some strange form of study break… Stranger still.. he just came in again with a piece of paper he used to take the black goop off his face.. It looks like the paper towel of Turin ..

What a goofy and wonderful kid…

Gabe was also very funny tonight to.. Diane was lying down to go to sleep and I was in saying good night when Gabe burst in with a wooden club and started thrashing around with it and screaming like he was in some sort of epic battle.. I wasn’t in the mood for violence… so I pointed a pretend remote control at him and told him I was changing the channel. Gabe started doing lightening quick improv.. his sword changed to a baseball bat (sports channel), then into a sausage (cooking channel), a clarinet (MTV), a hunting rifle (animal planet), a murder weapon (CSI).. etc.(not bad for a family without cable) He was very funny We were all laughing hard which felt good..

I took a look at the sky a little earlier .. Venus and the crescent moon are very close in the western sky. It looks like my heart/mind diagram from several months back.. Take a look to the west tomorrow after sunset.. it’s really beautiful.

It’s even cooler when the wind blows your camera a little…

OK.. time for sleep.. my internal clock is still all screwed up, but I think I should be tired now.. G’nite everyone.. g’nite Sam.

-jc