Massachusetts: Year's End

Just like that, we are at the end of yet another year - this one in some ways the biggest, most beautiful, most complicated year of my life-to-date. 2023 was a year of change and challenge. It started with us jumping into the maelstrom of parenthood, and ends with an ongoing search for soul and self, place and peace - a neverending journey, as this blog can attest to over many years. In a year’s time, Jordan has transformed from our tiny newborn babe into our much bigger babe, on the verge of toddlerhood. Already I can see the shades of his personality and temperament, especially where they so closely mirror mine: he is strong-willed but adaptable, always confident yet sometimes so insecure and in need of love. He seems thus far, like me, to be an unrepentant introvert, and his sense of balance and body control is, like mine… not particularly gifted. But he is so beautiful in every way, and I love that he is becoming his own person, that he has favorites (“Mamamamamamuh…”), that he is becoming more creative and expressive as he acquires mobility and cognitive ability, and, most of all, that I can already tell he will not be a perfect child or a perfect person, which will only make me love him more.

As I reflected a few months ago, Jordan’s existence has brought into sharp relief the contours of my life - the choices and tradeoffs I make every day passively or explicitly, and the precious fleeting quality of the time that I have. Ephemeral experiences have been the centerpiece of this blog for many years, often exemplified by the passage of seasons, faraway or familiar landscapes transformed by time, and the changing of foliage over each year’s rhythm. With Jordan, this experience is magnified and amplified; it is like I wake up (and come home) to a new shade of brilliance on my Little Leaf, every day. That, along with a new family illness (my father, who was Jordan’s primary caregiver throughout the summer months, was unexpectedly diagnosed with colon cancer earlier this month, and is beginning to undergo treatment), have led to much soul-searching as the year draws to a close. I have always been a planner, and I have always been aware of my own mortality; now, I have a bucket list, organized by year and half-decade. I have always thought of myself as organized and responsible; now, I have a roadmap for exactly how I want to spend my lifetime’s worth of time and resources. This year has tested my sense of self, shaken up my marriage and family life (not always for the better), and subjected me to a level of physical and emotional exhaustion I thought I left behind in medical training. But, I come out of it in better physical shape than I have been in years (since pre-pandemic), more resilient (so many stressors no longer matter when you haven’t budgeted the life energy to give a shit), and ever more confident of my personal priorities, and the path I want to walk in the remainder of my life. Onward, to the remainder.

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December 15-17, 2023: A joyous weekend spent in Milwaukee, where I was given the opportunity of a lifetime to officiate the wedding of Ali and Ashley, two of my best friends from the Maryland era. It was my first time visiting Wisconsin and first time really spending any significant time in the Midwest. Despite that, Milwaukee engendered a feeling of peace and belonging in me; I walked around downtown each morning before wedding-related programming, getting my meals at the holiday-bedecked public market, and perhaps this is nostalgia speaking, but I was struck by how closely the city resembles Baltimore (right down to the direction and feel of the drive in from the airport, the industrial grit, and the overly ambitious yet charmingly underwhelming waterfront). I was also struck by the genuine and kind spirit of the people I met, not the least including Ali and Ashley’s families, who so graciously welcomed me into the festivities and made this humble introvert feel like part of a big family. A truly special experience I will always be thankful for.

December 22, 2023: Jane, my mom, and Jordan, come down Brookline Avenue to “pick Daddy up” from work on Friday night. We take portraits with the lit trees outside the Shapiro Building. The night is freezing, and poor Jordan’s little fingers are icy by the time we return him to the stroller and get back home.

December 23-27, 2023: A Christmas vacation to my mom’s lakeside house in Plymouth (sans my dad, who is in California recovering from abdominal surgery). On Saturday, we arrive and set up; after I do groceries for the week, Jane and I sneak out for a lunch buffet at Rio Brazilian Steakhouse while Jordan naps with Grandma. On Sunday, we visit Plymouth Beach and Nelson Waterfront Park in the morning before I bake a Christmas ham (served with mashed potatoes, gravy/cranberry jam, and roasted vegetables). On Christmas Day, we take a brief morning walk in Morton Park, where I photograph Jordan playing with pine duff and acorns on the forest floor; in the evening, we see sunset at Plymouth Harbor and take photos with the light display at the Brewster Gardens. On Tuesday, Jordan naps in the car as we drive south to Falmouth. We visit the Nobska Point Light, Nobska Beach, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute’s public aquarium (a lifelong dream of mine since studying oceanography with Jane in high school). After saying hello to Bubba the harbor seal and showing Jordan the fish tanks, we bring Jordan to his first ever sit-down restaurant experience (at Captain Kidd in Woods Hole). My mom has a lobster roll, while Jane and I share a fried platter and clam chowder in a breadbowl; Jordan eats his jar of mashed potatoes and scrambled eggs from home while maintaining eye contact with all the other patrons in the dining room. On Wednesday morning, we return home to Brookline in fairly heavy mid-week traffic.

December 28-31, 2023: A few days of re-centering while experiencing new things. We bring Jordan to do groceries, eat out again (twice - once at a Japanese market and once at an Indian buffet), visit several playgrounds, ride the T for the first time, and even attend his very first “gym” class. The poor child is exhausted and burnt-out after a week of firsts, so we ring in the new year with a very quiet day doing his favorite thing - playing with Mama at home.

Plymouth: Weekend at 阿媽's

On the second weekend of October, due to rain and slow color change in the Pioneer Valley, we jettison our original plans to take Jordan on a weekend bender to the Quabbin Reservoir, and instead drop in on my mom’s little place in Plymouth, to spend a weekend with the grandparents. After a nice drive south along 93S and Route 3 (during which Jordan naps in the car), we arrive at the lakeside house bedside the Barrington Sea, disgorging the baby and our car load of baby equipment. Jordan crawls around in the living room and my parents take him to explore the house as Jane and I set up his travel crib in the downstairs guest room. Afterward, we go out to visit the Pilgrim Monument on a hilltop overlooking Plymouth, followed by a brief visit to the Mayflower in Plymouth Harbour. Along the way, I take some portraits of Jordan and family using my tripod setup. We takeout a nice seafood lunch (lobster rolls, fried seafood, and clam cakes) at Wood’s Seafood; we enjoy this back at home, with Jordan slurping on pureed peach and chicken-and-vegetables in his booster seat. In the afternoon, with Jordan down for his second nap of the day, my mom and I head out to buy groceries for dinner, and a day-early cake for Jane’s 33rd birthday. After a brief visit to nearby Morton Park (and family portraits beneath a tupelo tree with striking red foliage), we cook up a one-pot minestrone with egg noodle pasta and sliced cod fillet. We enjoy this with Jane’s birthday cake (a flowery pink icing-covered affair of a chocolate cake, completed by a shark candle), followed by an early night and a drive back to Boston after Jordan’s breakfast the next morning.

Middlesex: Autumn in the Nashoba Valley

As the fall season enters full swing, we plan a holiday weekend getaway here in northern Massachusetts to start getting Jordan used to travel and nights away from home. Limited as we are by Jordan’s two daily naps and and limited tolerance for longer car rides, we choose to stay fairly close to home, booking two nights in Groton, just south of the New Hampshire border. Jane and I visited this little hamlet nearly three years ago for a morning of snowshoeing and winter sunrise photography, after a series of February storms blanketed the region in several feet of snow. This time, we return with baby in tow for a long weekend of relaxation, foliage spotting, and casual local strolls in the Nashoba Valley. We leave home mid-day, in between Jordan’s first and second naps, transporting what seems like half our house in the trunk of the Toyota Corolla (a travel crib, baby monitor, booster seat, baby foods and crunchy finger snacks, dishes and utensils, towels and bibs, skincare products, nighttime routines, books and toys… oh, and diapers). He falls asleep as we cruise northward along the Great Road, passing through the towns of Concord, Littleton, and Ayer. Due to an incoming rainstorm, we have very little planned for the day aside from the ride between home and destination.

We arrive in Groton in the early afternoon; unsure whether to wake the kiddo or let him sleep off-schedule, Jane and I sit awkwardly in the car for several minutes, mutely gesturing at each other with hand signals and mouthed words. At length, I decide to (carefully, oh so carefully) exit the car and begin to unload our stuff. We check into a comfy, ground floor apartment built out of a converted barnhouse; Jordan, of course, wakes up as soon as I creak open the trunk. We pop him on the ground after setting up his crib and his play area, and he begins to explore his new living space with intense curiosity. As Jane and Jordan begin to settle in, I head out on foot to pick up our dinner at Filho’s Cucina, an Italian joint just a few blocks away on the village’s Main Street. Walking through the overcast and the drizzle, I stop to photograph the Groton’s old burial ground, as well as some of our neighbors’ fall decorations. After an amazing meal at home (a crusty loaf of bread, eggplant parm for me, and linguine with grilled chicken, shrimp, and sausage for Jane; Gerber chicken/vegetable and peach purees for Jordan), we settle in for an early night. Baby does quite well in the soft, cozy confines of his travel crib.

In the morning (all of us are awake before sunrise thanks to Jordan’s early starts), we bundle baby up in flannel, hat, and socks, and drive a few minutes away to the restaurant and barnhouse at the foot of Gibbet Hill, where Jane and I snowshoed several years ago. With Jordan in his hiking carrier, we set off across the farm fields, which are slushy underfoot after a night of heavy rain). Finding the packed dirt trail that skirts the fields, we walk through the trees and climb the short distance up the hill to Bancroft Castle, where we are greeted by a magnificent morning view of the village below, with the tall steeples of its several churches, the old brick buildings of Lawrence Academy, and pockets of color stretching to the distant hills of southern New Hampshire. I set the tripod up for a quick family photo here on the hillside before we retreat to the car; Jordan nearly loses a sock along the way and although he does well with his very first official sunrise in the field, he will need to be a little older and hardier before he can hang around in the cold during one of Dad’s photography escapades.

Back in the car, we grab a breakfast-to-go at Dunkin’s (going, hilariously enough, to the wrong Dunkin out of two stores located half a mile apart from one another on Main Street) before returning to the apartment. Jane has her coffee as Jordan munches on a delicious apple-banana oatmeal puree. All three of being on baby’s schedule, we go down for first nap of the day around 9:30 AM.

When we awaken an hour later, Jordan gets a diaper change before we return to the car, driving 15 minutes south to take a tour of the alpaca farm in Harvard, MA. With Jordan in Jane’s sling carrier, we join a motley crew of other sightseers in touring the grounds and meeting the female and male alpacas in their separate enclosures. The friendliest alpacas approach Jordan with mild curiosity, sniffing the strange little fleshing hanging off his mother’s front; Jordan, meanwhile, regards the beautiful animals with thorough disinterest, making it clear through his glares and plaints that he would much rather be crawling around on the ground at home than doing almost anything anywhere else. Embarrassingly, we somewhat end the tour early (everyone else returning with us when Jane excuses herself to the car); I buy each of us a pair of woolen alpaca socks (red for me, brown for Jane, and a tiny grey pair for baby) as well as a trip magnet: our second alpaca farm magnet after last year’s visit to Cape Newagen (Summer Rain joins Zara on our fridge). On the way home, Jordan gets increasingly frustrated by being back in the car seat, so Jane takes him out in the backseat to nurse and cradle him. We pay a quick visit to Groton’s cemetery before deciding that both the photographic opportunities and ease of parking there are limited. At home, we settle in for our second family nap of the day.

In the afternoon, I walk back to the Italian restaurant to get takeoout (so good we went twice in two days: eggplant parm again, lasagna to share, and gnocchi for Jane). I take a different route to Main Street, photographing the local church as well as a beautiful hawthorn tree on the sidewalk. We join Jordan in having a routine early dinner before we head out for a quick sunset shoot. A few minutes south of town, on the border of Groton and Ayer, we stop at the General Field Conservation Area, a hillside meadow that opens up onto expansive views to the south and west. Wearing our matching flannel outfits, we set up for family portraits before retreating hastily to the car; the mosquitoes are out in full force at dusk for a final feeding frenzy before the winter. After a quiet night playing at home with Jordan (who gets his first glimpse of television - but only for a minute!) we head to bed early.

The next day, I sneak out of the apartment ahead of baby’s wake-up time, with my cold weather gear and camera equipment in tow. It’s a chilly morning, and the car’s tire pressure check light is on for the first time this year - an assured sign that fall has indeed arrived. Returning to Gibbet Hill and parking at the roadside trailhead, I head up the hill past Bancroft Castle, to another view of Groton which I have not photographed before. The dairy cows, woken up from their slumber by my footsteps, complain and low to each other as I march past on the other side of their wire fence. On the hillside overlooking the village, I am alone on this fine Monday morning as the sun creeps up from beyond the trees behind me; its rays gradually unveil like a curtain of light across the forested landscape below me. I set up my tripod to shoot across the open farm field to my west, a mist-covered glade of maple trees at its far end, and the Union Congregational Church and village beyond. To the north, low-lying fog creeps along in the valleys between me and the mountains of southern New Hampshire. I experiment with my circular polarizing filter, taking a combination of landscape and vertical handheld scouting shots while leaving my tripod in place to capture the classic village scene as the light changes on the landscape.

Back down the hill, I bypass the car and walk down the road to a small pond beside Lowell Road, where I spotted a line of maples in full crimson foliage on the previous morning. I set up on the lawn here and shoot a series of wide and tight compositions, along with a panorama to really capture the beautiful rainbow of fall colours in high resolution. Back at the apartment, I join Jane and Jordan as they eat a breakfast of leftovers and peach puree; we pack the place back into our trunk and return to Brookline, stopping along the way at a gas station in Acton to air up the tires while Jordan naps in the backseat.