A Year In Mill Valley

I find the hardest part of writing a blog to be the process of starting it.  

First there’s all the technical stuff that has to be done to make it work…create dns entries, install the blog software, choose a theme, modify the theme, decide what to do about photos, etc. Then there’s the larger question of can I actually write something interesting to anyone but myself, like, say, my wife and children.   

But two things happened recently to make me reconsider my two years of non-blogging. First, Rachel and the boys went off to the UK for 3 1/2 weeks, and second, while they were away I re-read a couple of the pieces I’d written in my A Year In Cornwall blog.

We started our summer vacation this year in Cape Cod, where my family has a beach house, and I have been going since I was four years old. We stopped there for a week, at the same time as my brother and sister and their families, after which Rachel and the boys continued on to London while I flew back to Mill Valley (I started a new job recently and taking a month off after I’d only been there for two months wasn’t really in the cards).

Having them away for that long was interesting. I don’t think Rachel and I have been apart for more than a week since we’ve had the boys, and their being away made me realize not only how much I missed them, but how empty the house and several great parts of my life are without them. They’re at that age — Nathaniel’s 8, and Sebastian’s 4 — where I still call them my “scrunchy munchy men”. They really are that, and more. They’re fun to be around. They want to hang out with Mom and Dad. They’re learning new stuff by leaps and bounds. And not seeing them for 3 1/2 weeks seemed like an awfully long time (never mind the fact that they seemed to have each grown an inch while I wasn’t looking).

While they were away I re-read a couple of pieces from A Year In Cornwall, and what struck me was how quickly the emotions of that time returned. Reading about taking Sebastian to see the doctor for a gunky eye, taking Nathaniel to see the bees at Portreath, or visiting Port Isaac for the first time. All those experiences are there for me to recall, and savor, and remember.

So with a renewed interest in writing about the boys before they get any older, I have decided to keep a diary of this, our third year back in the States. As with my last blog, I want to match words with photos, and this time maybe even with sound and video. While I was scrolling back through photos from the Cape, I kept coming back to a series of photographs of Sebastian and Elizabeth diving into the lake, over and over and over again. I particularly love this photograph, where he is literally throwing himself into the air with every inch of his being. Like him, I want to throw myself into this blog…here’s to hoping it makes a most pleasing splash.