I’m stealing a few minutes in late afternoon to get my entry for today written.  I’m in the tower with a towel over my head to block the bright sunlight so I can type.

 Tonight we’re having some folks over for dinner then going up to Bolton to set off some (legal) fireworks to mark the end of the Voices movie filming.   It feels  important for me  to mark the end of the movie.. the coming end of summer.. the beginning of school.. Max’s return to college. Everything seems so much more significant and weighty. Weighty is the right word.. nothing feels light anymore. It’s hard to describe.. even sitting outside n a beautiful day like  we had yesterday and today.. my heart is heavy… I can enjoy but not  in-joy..   if that makes any sense. I think that’s how it will be for a long time.. maybe forever. It’s very, very hard to get used to..  I’m hoping  this feeling will evolve into something more livable over time..

I was thinking of this a little when I saw the big caterpillar on our hike yesterday. Here he is again.

Diane did some sleuth work and discovered that she was a  Cecropia caterpillar on her way to being a giant Cecropia Moth .

 just like the one we saw on David K’s porch in the spring. . It’s the largest moth in North America. We learned something magical about caterpillars at the Deepak Chopra talk last weekend. He told us about new thinking regarding the cell workings behind the metamorphosis of caterpillars into butterflies or moths. Evidently   there are special cells called ‘imaginal’ cells in the caterpillar’s body that are ignored  until the caterpillar approaches the end of it’s caterpillar-y life. At that point the imaginal cells start to reproduce. At first they are attacked by the caterpillar’s immune system. But they soon grow so quickly that they overtake the failing immune system and start combining to form larger structures.. As the metamorphic process progresses, the new cells metabolize the old parts of the caterpillar to produce completely  new parts of the moth or butterfly.. i.e. the nervous system of the butterfly has no relation to the nervous system of the caterpillar..   Chopra (and many others) use this as an analogy for social change. I.e.  how a few people with strong ideals  can change the world.  Here’s one of those ‘social change’ analogies And here’s a scientific one if you prefer..  

I look at it as a very cool  parable for reemergence and rebirth .

I really have been feeling blue the last week. I’m finding it much harder to focus on anything but Sam and my family. I know there are many changes happening now.. and I guess I’ll work my way through them. One thing that always helps me when I’m feeling this is making things…   Last night Max, Jessie, Travis and  I started experimenting with hot air balloons. My mom saw someone launch some down at the Cape.. and I decided to try some myself. The basic idea is pretty simple.. You create a large balloon structure out of something very light such as tissue paper or a plastic garment bag.. then you suspend a  source of heat.. like an alcohol soaked cotton ball… underneath the balloon to heat the air. If the air is cool and still the balloon will slowly rise into the air carrying the flame with it.. it’s a magical effect. Supposedly, it will not come down until the fuel is exhausted.. but I still would only recommend doing this over water.. or at least after a heavy rain.   Last night the four of us experimented with different design styles.

Jessie and I made a box out of 5 pieces of tissue paper glue sticked together.

Max made a cool cylinder with a nifty aluminum foil burner suspended from it.

Travis made a nice three sided pyramid..

We went out side and tried them in the cool damp air last night.. In the end.. only the bx one worked.. the cylinder proved to be a bit too heavy.. and the pyramid caught fire (rather spectacularly) .

The box managed to lift off and slowly rose into the air until it was nearly out of sight over Robbins Mountain. We saw it start to land as the flame went out.. It was truly magical..  Here’s a movie of it rising.. but it was too dark to see much. Note at the end of the movie is another new invention of Max and mine.. this is a potatoe gun with soem steel wool attached to the potatoe.. The burning steel wool makes a trail of sparks.. Again.. do this only over water or pavement. pretty cool.

Maybe we’ll try some more tonight. We’ve been experimenting with a few new designs today.. I’ll keep you posted…

OK.. I gotta head downstairs now.. more tomorrow.

Bye all.. Bye Sam..

-me

Worked at home today… A morning’s  worth of contentious phone conferences.. then an afternoon of helping Max get his school arrangements in order.  I’ve been on the road so much, it was nice just spending the day in the house.   I notive that Max must have grabbed my camera last night while I was sleeping and took this shot of himself eating some of Granpa’s birthday cake.. funny boy !

I did take a break around 10 when Katherine came by to interview us about the Voices project. Katherine is interviewing all the cast, crew and hangers-on (that’s us) associate with the project as part of a ‘making of… ” feature for the DVD release of the movie. It was fun being interviewed.

She asked how the movie had effected all of us…   We were able to gush about how much we loved having all of these kids as part of our lives for a big chunk of the summer.

 The afternoon passed pretty quickly and quietly. The major even was when Gabe accidentally ‘weed wacked’ his ankle while dragging  the weed wacker behind him. It’s a nasty mix of cuts and bruises.. but pretty cool looking nonetheless. He was pretty brave about it..

Before dinner we dipped into the back of Hocksett fireworks again and set of a few. I tried taking a few shots with my camera filming right next to the firework.. It was pretty cool.. and my camera survived it fine.  

Here’s a hot air baloon I made tonight.. but it was too wet an windy to try it.. I’ll keep you posted on it’s launch.

Before I knew it, it was dark and time for dinner. Diane and I took Gabe, Dylan and Dylan’s friend Steve to Bridge Street for a meat fix.. I just sat and watched.. and stole some of their French fries. It was great seeing folks like Marvin and Lori at the retsurant.    

While we were out eating, Debora, Justin an Aimee were redoing our downstairs for some more filming tomorrow. Diane and I will be doing cameo roles as the character Naomi’s parents. I’m supposed to be an old hippy scientist..    It will be a stretch for me .. I know…

It’s late now and a few of the voices kids have filtered in. This is the last night for some of them… and you can feel a little of the bitter sweetness of an ending..

These kids all worked so closely (and so well) together for the last 5 weeks.. it’s bound to be a little hard for them to go back to their normal lives.. it’s going to be hard for us, too , I suspect…   It’s all hard now… really… Sam

-jc

Finally a quiet moment in a busy day.   My day began down on the Cape. I am so glad that I made the choice to go to my Dad’s birthday last night.. I could tell that it meant so much to him and my mom. It was great seeing them and my baby seeeeeeeeester and her little squids. 

Dad in the mirror

I woke this morning at about 8 after over sleeping my alarm for an hour.. After a quick breakfast and some more pictures, I got on the rode. I had a full day of meetings scheduled around my drive back.. Unfortunately, I hadn’t figured in some of the areas of bad cell coverage. I had to stop several places fro and hour or so to keep from dropping my meetings .  In the end it took me almost 9 hours to drive the 265 miles home  And I was on the phone for work all but about 20 minutes of it. !. The mornings meeting were continuations of the meetings I’d been attending in Minnesota.. it was tough doing it remotely.. I think it would have been much  easier and maybe even have gone better if I’d stayed in Minnesota.. but again.. I really made the life choice.

I did have a 15 min break in a meeting that let me dash into Hooksett Fireworks (http://www.nhfireworks.com/)  again and saw my friends there. I just love  that place. Christina helped me pick out some good stuff for Gabe.. She even gave me some tomatoes to take home ! 

We had a blast this afternoon. I love making my own.. but nothing beats professionally made stuff.  Gabe and I had great time setting some off  before dinner.

Gabe wears an octopus on their face 

I got back to Burlington around 6 and Max picked me up at the airport after dropping my car.   We got back to find the house full of Voices kids, Gabe and Will. By the end of the night I think we had 16 kids come thorough and visit/eat.  Around 6:30 my friends Kim and Kathy showed up .

Both of them teach at MIT. They have a summer house in Rochester Vermont and  were up for a week. It was great seeing them again. Kathy is a biochemist who taught school for 16 years.. Now she’s helping develop clever ways of teaching kids and teachers about biochemistry. She’s worked with Lego to develop a set of magnetic lego pieces that let kids explore how protein synthesis works (DNA, mRNA, all that !). I’s the coolest stuff. Kim is the Dean for Undergraduate Research and the Director of the Edgerton Center. The Edgerton center (http://web.mit.edu/edgerton/main.html)  is a laboratory at MIT which is open to anyone who needs a machine/electronic shop for research projects. They have some fantastic outreach programs where they get students to invent to help people all over the world. For example, their students have helped invent bicycle powered ambulances  for crowded 3^rd world streets. It’s one of the most innovative innovation centers that I know of on the planet…   I would love to find a way to work with Kim and Kathy on outreach projects… I’m going to find  way to make it happen.   It was really great seeing those guys

In honor of our friends, Diane had made a real Mediterranean   feast: pita,  roasted brie , home made hummus, tomatoes and fresh mozzarella,   spanikopita, tzatziki, fresh feta, roasted veggies and fruit strudel. It was really, really, really wonderful … Gven all the folks eating, we made a huge pile of dirty dishes.

I just finished an hour and a half o dish washing… It was still worth it…

 
So… it’s now about 1 AM and I’m about to go to bed.. The interesting thing is when I read what I’ve written here.. and look at the pictures, I see how it only shows what I’m doing.. not what I’m feeling.. The truth is .. I’ve been really missing Sam all this week. It might be the prospect of school starting that has me  blue.. not sure.   When my friends were here I reached in my backpack and pulled out some pictures.. and came across thee two from my birthday last year…  

When everyone left I pulled them out again and looked at them.. and finally managed to find the good cry I had been needing  all week. Sometimes you just have to dive in… don’t you Sam ?

-me

I made a good call today. I had been going back and forth on whether I should leave Minnesota and fly to Cape Cod for my father’s 77^th birthday. I’d made reservations.. but I’d also made plans to stay in the meeting I was having in Rochester. This morning I walked into the meeting room and polled some of  the folks there on whether I should stay.. or should go see my dad.. 100 % voted for me to go .. It was nice to know that I was not needed there 🙂 … but I’d already made my decision to go. I caught a 1 PM flight from Minneapolis to Providence and drove the rest of the way.   I was dialed in to my Minnesota meeting the whole way… The meeting ended just as  I drove up to my folks rental house in  North Falmouth. I came in just as my father’s birthday party was starting. He had no idea that I was going to show up. The look on his face made the whole trip worthwhile.  

Sam’s passing has been so hard on all of our family.. It’s really important for us to get with our extended families like this now.

    Dinner was a typical Cohn affair.. late, loud and delicious. My dad made his signature (and I believe only) dish.. Batchelor Spaghetti.. I think the Bachelor part means that you use whatever’s in the fridge to make it. The main ritual of its preparation is throwing the spaghetti against the outside of the fridge to see if it’s done.. if it slides off.. it needs more cooking. If it sticks:.. perfecto !

    Several of my sister Mary’s friends from up the street were there for the party… Mary’s college roommates Caroline  and Amy were there as well as Caroline’s kids and her parents Zippy (cool name ) and Barbara  and their friend Judy, her daughter Heather and Heather’s son.   It was very festive and chaotic. We ended with a big cake cutting ceremony. I could tell that my dad was happy to have us all around…

In the course of dinner I found out that Heather’s husband had passed away 6 weeks ago. I also learned that Zippy and Barbara lost a son to cancer 25 years ago.. Judy had recently lost her husband  and that one of the sons of the  owners of this rental had died 2-3 years ago of liver disease .  I’m reminded of the parable of Buddha and the mustard seed.. Who hasn’t tasted grief ?   As tough as that sounds.. we all had a great conversation about loss and healing.. It’s so easy to talk to people who have had similar.. (how can I even say similar ? ) experiences . It was interesting.. funny and lie affirming to talk about how each of us was doing at our different stages of grief. From there I went and roughhoused  on the floor with my niece Ellery. ..

and held my new nephew Jake .

Life is funny and good.

OK… bandwidth here is terrible. I’m going to try to post this now.. If I doesn’t work.. I’ll try tomorrow morning.   Talk to you all later.. G’nite all.. G’nite Sam.  

-me