retreating: day three

Didn't take as many photos on Saturday... just a few from my evening walk:

me!  (old-school "selfie")

retreating: day two

When I woke up on Friday morning and opened my blinds, this was the view that greeted me!  Not bad!

morning view from my desk

one of the cards Josephine made me

I had perfect weather during my stay; the days were comfortable in jeans and short sleeves.  These pictures are from a walk I took along the winding road that goes down the mountain:

one snapshot from chapel where I joined the monks for lauds, eucharist, and vespers each day.

my private hermitage, Kairos.  up the hill behind it is the chapel.

The bush in the foreground of this picture had some purple blossoms on it that swarms of bees and other flying bugs seemed to love.  They weren't a nuisance at all, except for the fact that I got SO GREEDY with the silence at the monastery, that I could not sit on my porch for long before the buzzing got under my skin!!

evening view from my desk

Also, it turned out that the view of the stars out there was spectacular!  I wish there'd been a good way to capture that.  It had been a long time since I'd seen THAT many.   Nights were pretty brisk and chilly, so I didn't get to spend a ton of time soaking up that view.  All the more reason to go back next month perhaps? 

shhhh... don't disturb them!

Clement going, "cheeeeese!"  (I didn't even know he knew that word)

When Clement loads the car:  dinosaur in the back, baby boy (on his head), dog in the front seat.  Couldn't talk him into any other combination of passengers.  Asked him who would drive the car, and he reached in and started turning the steering wheel himself.   He was far more concerned with the dog staying upright as he pushed the van than he was about the baby, who at one point was hanging halfway out the door while Clement adjusted the dog for the umpteenth time.

In addition to the "cheese" he gave me earlier, I was also surprised to learn that he can execute quite a fierce dinosaur roar.  His dog bark is excellent-- he says "woof woof" with gusto only matched by the canines themselves.  I have even witnessed barking exchanges wherein he seemed to establish himself as the alpha, sending the other little dog scampering behind its owner.

I always wonder whether animal sounds count as "words" when I make notes about his vocabulary.
For the blogging record, (and because I'm sure I'm going to misplace the list I wrote out), here are some words he can say as of 19 months...

Hi

bye

Mama, Mommy, "AMMMEEEE" is the distressed version (I like to pretend he speaks French, and is calling me "loved" [aimé].  Personally, I think being delusional helps quite a bit with parenting.)

Da

Jos (for Josephine)

BEEEE!!!  (for Begonia.  He also had a "Nonia" for a little while, but that phased out.)

brush  (this was one of his first, because I'd hand it to him on the changing table to keep him occupied)

wall   (another ridiculous first, because there is a wall next to the changing table, which he would point to and ask about, and then proceed to point to other walls around the house and say "wall!")

door  (same word also used for drawer.)

doorbell

fan  (Noticing a theme?  Let's just say he's mechanically minded.)

NANA!  (banana.  there is only one way to discuss bananas and that is with great excitement.)

something that sounds like apple

this  (as happened with Josephine, upon acquiring this pronoun there has been very little motivation to learn the nouns themselves)

wash  (accompanied always by these little squeezing hand motions as though he already had all the foamy soap to squish)

boo!  (when he is playing peek-a-boo or hide and seek)

eyes  (he knows where his body parts are fairly well, but eye is the only one he says)

quack quack

moooo (sometimes cows say boooo around here though)

knock-knock

geez...  (seriously.  When he's disgusted or finally gets situated after some hassle, he very adeptly breathes out a "geez!"  I never get disgusted or feel hassled so I have no idea where he might have picked this up.)

book

ball!

bok (block)

buzzz (buttons)

no  (he's a big head shaker.  sometimes he does actually say the word though.)

Yes and uh-huh  (usually said with great drama.  When you ask him "Do you want X?  Can I help you get Y?  What is it?  Z?"  He says YES, underwritten with a tone that says "Thank you for fiiiiinally understanding my needs."  It can be pretty pitiful and sad, or pretty keyed up and high pitched, but always there is GREAT meaning behind this word.)

mine!  (usually followed by AAAMMMMEEEE!!)

off

on  (really this is more of an "uh" and a point to a fan when it is off.  the mechanically minded can be a bit particular about the functioning of items.  fans should be on.  doors should be shut or knock-knocked upon and then opened and then shut again.)

hat

bay (that's some kind of cross between baby and boy-- it's what he calls his little stuffed boy doll or the lego boy or any sort of small boy figure)

When he's feeling chatty, he mimics words well.  But he's not really the chatty type, nor is he much on performing, so saying "Tell dad what the dinosaur says!!!" gets you looks like, "Uh, or not."

However doing things like building a fire in the fireplace, which elicits tremendous glee, is a certain way to find out if he knows a word.  And yes, "fire" is a word he was delighted to say.

Clement cares a lot about getting dressed, does say some sort of word for "shirt" and is very enthusiastic about selecting his clothes.  He's extremely obsessed with socks; he chews on them and talks about them and you can tell he takes them very seriously (you have NOT finished dressing him in the morning until he has at least one pair of socks on his feet), but I'm not sure he has a word for them.

Another fascination of his which I am surprised he doesn't have a name for yet is music.  He does have some elaborate dance moves, so perhaps he is like the ballet dancer who, when asked how they felt about the music, replied, "If I could discuss it I wouldn't have had to dance it."
(I'm serious about delusional parenting being the way to go.  In case I haven't made it clear, this child is a polylingual prodigy destined for the papacy.)

retreating: day one

As many of y'all know, a little over a month ago, Sean dropped on my unsuspecting lap an "early Valentine's Day" gift.  It was an envelope containing the details of a pre-purchased, pre-arranged trip for four nights out to California, 3 nights of which would be a silent retreat at a monastery, replete with a private hermitage, food, chanting monks, and a two mile road down to the coast... 

When I regained consciousness, I warned him that I might not ever come BACK, it sounded so dreamy!  (... and I also said thank you a lot and then stumbled about in a stupor with a dopey grin on my face for several hours...)

So what follows comes out of a camera-happy, child-free, four days worth of independent travel.  The next 46 pictures are only from day one.   (You don't need to actually feel pressure to let 46 pictures load to your computer; I won't be hurt if you don't dwell on this experience of mine.  [I took the kids to the zoo today and will try to upload pictures of them soon!]  I simply love revisiting these photos, and so I'm putting many of them on here for my own remembering.)

I flew Southwest Airlines to San Jose on a Wednesday night, walked across the little street to the rental car center, and drove 30 minutes or so out to Santa Cruz.  The flight got in late; it wasn't really sensible to drive 2.5 hours and try to find the monastery that night.  So Sean had booked a hotel, which happened to be right near a Whole Foods (hello, Dr. Zevia and chocolate hazelnut butter!) and oh, you know, an ocean...

The next morning, traffic was a little hairy so I didn't meander over to downtown Santa Cruz.  Just stopped at a little park on the edge of it before starting down Hwy 1 towards Big Sur.

That journey, of course, required LOTS of stop offs.  Check-in at the monastery wasn't until 4 PM, so I had plenty of time for the 2 hour journey.  It turned into many, many blissful hours-- I didn't get to my hermitage until sometime between 6 and 7 PM.

a little fishing village

When I got out of the car, I was like "WOW it smells like a zoo in this harbor."
Then I heard barking and realized why.

By the time I got down to Monterrey Peninsula, I didn't have enough time to make the aquarium ticket price worth it, especially considering that I wanted to see the Basilica at the Carmel Mission before it closed.  I did find a route called The 17 Mile Drive, which was lovely.  You pay $10, wind around slowly on this well-marked route, with lots of lovely vistas to stop off at.    Traffic was low and I LOVED this experience.  It helped me feel like I'd really gotten to see lots of beautiful snippets, even though most of my time in California was going to be cloistered away.

an animal!  swimming around!

After soaking in the 17 Mile Drive, it was easy enough to find the Carmel Mission.

A note on navigation:  I had printed off some Google maps ahead of time, knowing that I basically just had a few highways to keep track off, nothing complicated.  I don't know how to use GPS machines anyway, which amused the rental car lady.  She seemed unaccustomed to having clients who have never been there before, don't know anyone, and don't want any navigational devices.  (It is a little sad, though, that saying, "oh, I printed off some maps" gets you smirks.  What?  Maps aren't useful?  Don't they show you the roads more readily, even, than some gadget that has to load and refresh information?)  Sean sent his personal iphone with me just in case, but am proud that I never had to turn it on, not once.  I loved being disconnected!

At the Mission:

Some old priest vestments in a room off the basilica

The most elaborate nativity I've ever seen.
It was three times this wide, but in a hallway, so I couldn't get a full photo.

in the quadrangle (courtyard) of the mission

You can't really see it in the photo below, but the Jesus figure at the top of this crucifix had his eyes open, light blue, and set in such a way a to look glazed over and very, very dead.
Made me catch my breath, almost like it was shocking to consider that he was ever that dead.  (I guess in my head I usually skip from considering his suffering and the process of dying, straight to the resurrection.)

More coastline, south of Monterrey, winding and winding and winding about 30 miles past Big Sur.

I arrived too late to be greeted by anyone, but found a map to my hermitage, which had a stack of sheets and towels on the unmade bed, waiting for me.  It was clean and cozy and I fell in love immediately!

Note:  in the center of my desk are envelopes.  I made Josephine and Clement individual cards with a photo of me with them or Begonia (Clement really loves Begonia) in each envelope, one for each day.  They are used to being with me all day every day, and with no connectivity at the monastery, I thought the visuals would make my absence easier, especially for Clement.  Knowing I'd done this, Josephine, in turn, fashioned envelopes for ME for each day, and in each one put a sticker and a neon notecard on which she wrote her name, Clement's name, and the word "love".  And each morning I opened one eagerly and TOTALLY MELTED.