Independence Day, July 2025
July 5, 2025
I’ve never been much for fireworks, the Boston Pops on the esplanade, or big statements about patriotism and sacrifice for country.
My dad served; he never spoke about his time and when he did, it was shrouded in mystery and what seemed like tall tales about being dropped in Japan after World War II.
My brother in law served; many of the students are work with are veterans- I always end our conversations with “thank you for your service.” The fact that they are often surprised by my acknowledgement of their sacrifice makes me sad. We need to acknowledge our veterans, with our than appreciation, but health care and support post service.
Because of people before me, I’ve had the luxury of growing up and living in these United States. I know that I will never truly comprehend how fortunate I am to have been born here, to a family with money, white. There is so much I take for granted because I don’t know anything else.
I try to remember everyday all the easy gifts that came to me from birth; I do my best to be mindful that I won a lottery.
In the course of my life, I’ve also had a million moments where I have felt my heart swell with pride at what it means to be an American.
I’ve also experienced a half a million moments where my heart almost burst while I sat, in a comfortable chair, in a small town in New England, and celebrated visions of where our country was headed.
And now, I don’t know what to say, but this glorious nation of ours is failing. Maybe someone will fix things, or maybe we won’t get there in time.
I’ve never been one for parades or blind loyalty but I’ve always had faith, because I don’t know how to wake up in the morning without it.
I’ve been lazy, maybe. Spoiled for sure. There’s so many words- complacent, entitled, blind, hopeful, foolish….
So tonight, I won’t be watching the fireworks. To be honest, I only watched them when the kids were small. And we didn’t talk about the meaning of American’s independence, just when they were going the show was gong to start, and whether the display overhead was the finale.
But, I remember this, and I might be wrong, when I’d hear the music to “this land is your land, this land is my land”- I felt part of a land that was so much bigger than the space between “California and the New York Islands.”
Maybe I heard the song on the fourth of July. Or maybe it was a Springsteen concert, or a baseball game.
But I remember how proud I was to live in the country Arlo Guthrie wrote about.
And now, can we play that song? Can I sing along without crying?
I can not. Not tonight. Or next week.
But I find comfort and sanity knowing I am not alone.
July 4th has traditionally been a celebration of our country’s independence.
This year, we are talking about Diddy, the Big, Disgraceful Bill, holiday traffic, Alligator Alcatraz, and the weather.
But there is tomorrow.
“This land was made for you and me.”
We definitely have work to do, you and me.
Happy Fourth.
Monday March 2025 Blues.
March 25, 2025
Today, it is raining and cold here in the Boston area. I worked from home, perched on a kitchen chair whose rattan seat sags, the dogs have nibbled on the caning, and three of them are out in the trash in front of the house, (the chairs, not the pups). I could end up on the floor before I’m done writing, or my bottom could fall in, and I could end up stuck, like a sad Winnie the Pooh, with no Piglet around for rescue.
Bernadette, our tiny, weird Frenchie, was chilled after her morning walk. I took her wet collar off and promptly lost it. Or Jack stole it, and it’s now somewhere out in the back yard in the dark, in the mud.
While cooking dinner, searching for soy sauce, I grabbed the coconut aminos from tippy top shelf and dropped them. The bottle shattered, brown, sticky liquid, shards of glass, all over the floor.
I went for the mop. While mopping, I somehow managed to break the mop, the sponge piece came out of the center while I was trying to wring the damn thing out in the sink. There was a lot to ring out, and still a lot left on the tile.
I used all the dishrags, and the floor only sticks a little when I walk across it.
I can’t take the dogs for a walk; Bernadette has no collar, Chanel has already gone upstairs to bed, disgusted with having to do her business in our dark, muddy, back yard. Jack is bouncing from couch to floor, from outside, to his pillow by the pellet stove.
Dinner was good, I guess. I used too much rice vinegar, I think, but hopefully it will taste better tomorrow because I will be eating it for a week.
The world outside my door, and further beyond our own little corner of Massachusetts, is raging. People are scared. People are angry. I’ve saved all the upcoming events at my church to the calendar- the potlucks, the marches, the singalongs. It feels like nothing but it’s something. It’s something.
I had to turn off the notifications from the Times on my phone. The news has to wait until the end of the day on work days, but I work in higher education and who knows what’s going to happen.
It was a Monday, I tell myself. It is time to floss, wash, pajama, slide cool overpriced serum and then cool, overpriced moisturizer on my face. More of them same, but different products, under my eyes.
It is time to take out my lenses. After that, the house will look a bit cleaner.
I feel like a failure because I broke a bottle and lost a collar. I feel like a failure I’m sitting in a chair that should have been tossed weeks ago. I feel like a failure because usually, when I feel like a failure, I take the dogs for a walk; the night sky, and the stars put things in perspective.
I guess I can look out the window.
The gift of tomorrow, for those of us blessed enough to have tomorrows to look forward to, is inestimable. I can’t find it in my heart to feel anticipation, or believe in it’s promise.
But I haven’t looked out the window yet. Or curled up on the sofa, with three, noisy, damp, dogs, who have already forgiven me for not taking them out for their walk.
And the chair didn’t collapse, so that’s something.
I hadn’t had time to read the Sunday paper this morning; we got to church late and slipped in the back door. We didn’t even have time to glance at the order of worship when the choir stood up and went to the piano.
Our music director began the first chords of “The Star Spangled Banner” and a soloist soprano sang out the first words- “Oh, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light…”
The choir joined in. The arrangement was slow, and thoughtful. I heard each word of our national anthem liked I had never listened before. There were moments my shoulders shook, and my throat choked- how has our proud nation with our flag, “whose bright stripes and bright stars/Through the perilous fight/O’er the ramparts we watched/Were so gallantly streaming’ come to where we are today, Sunday, October 27th, 2024?
(In case you’re wondering, as I just was, a rampart is defined as the wall of a city or a castle. I’m not sure which in this context, but I’m really not that well versed in history, American or otherwise.)
The Star Spangled Banner is a joyful, victorious, slightly boastful song, of unity, victory, and hope.
We are not there right now. We are fractured.
I hope we are on the way.
I pray Kamala wins and, I believe if that happens, the healing will begin, (after the inevitable whining, recounts, and I don’t even want to go there, here,).
But if she does not, and this is a possibility, we can not simply bow our heads and walk away. If Trump becomes President, we have to fight harder. I know the face of Project 2025 scares the hell out of me, but we are not a nation of people that wrings our hands and gives up. We’ve faltered, as a nation before. We have faced worthy adversaries, internal and external adversaries, and we are still, I believe, contenders, a nation capable of striving towards greatness, and maybe, someday, achieving it.
Either way, we have a lot of work to do. Our country is broken in more ways Democrat versus MAGA Republican. It was built on the blood of native Americans and slavery. I could go on, but I won’t. This is not about looking backwards.
For the past fifty years, some amazing men and women have been working to build a nation where the lyrics of – “This Land Is Your Land, This Land is Our Land” ring true.
We are a country of amazing resources and strength. We are a country that is part of a world in crisis. The biggest thing we have going for our future is us. All of us.
Regardless, of who wins on Election Day, there is a lot of work to be done.
I don’t think Canada has room for us anyway.
Small Moments
November 27, 2022
It is the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
It just started to rain and I’m wondering where to begin.
Our family feels different than the others I know in our town; no family members live anywhere nearby, that we speak to often, anyway. Our unit is my husband, my 22 year old son, whose been on house arrest since last October, (weed, my friends, just too much damn weed in a closet,) me, who works at a local college helping students navigate financial aid, and my daughter, 19 years old, in her first year of college in Amherst, Massachusetts, two hours from home.
I just noticed I didn’t say much about my husband; for work, he is content to drive people to the airport, walk dogs, and detail cars, he’s been a member of the gig economy before that was a thing. While I’m at work, I send him recipes almost every day in hopes that he’ll figure out he should start cooking dinner each night. Often, he’ll go to the store for the ingredients, and half the time they go bad before one of us tackles whatever dish I’d discovered on the NY Times cooking app.
When we are in the same house, an observer might think we were boarders who had been sharing the same space for a while. Colin will text Kate, her room is across the hall, his door maybe 18 inches from his door, to ask her to go downtown and pick up his dinner or to Hanover to buy a dozen over priced cookies the size of tea plates. When she said goodbye to him on her way back to school, she tossed the words over her shoulder, at my prompting, as she walked out the door. I don’t think he heard her, I think he believed she’d left hours ago. She is quiet, behind her door.
My husband watches tv in bed downstairs at night, I watch shows on my phone from the sofa in the living room.
We’ve drifted; we weren’t always this way. Christmas will be awkward; all of us standing around in the same room. Probably I’m the only one who will see it as awkward. Or maybe, Colin will be off house arrest and we’ll share dinner in the city at a noisy restaurant and things will feel normal again.
God, my life sounds grim, our life sounds grim. It’s not. My husband and I have friends, we go out to dinner. Katy loves school and invited me to have a glass of wine with her when she had friends over this weekend. Colin bought a puppy last November, and we spend a lot of time sitting around on the run in the living room, watching Chanel wriggle and roll, chase a toy or a bottle of plastic, try to hump my left leg. Actually when she does that, Colin gets disgusted and goes back upstairs. (I wonder why she finds my left leg more appealing than the right.)
Usually, the Sunday night after a holiday weekend, I’m overwhelmed by what I didn’t do and what I need to do. It’s only 5:43 pm, and all that’s left on my list is to find a clean pair of pants and pick out some shoes for tomorrow.
Tonight, things seem lovely, not even a little bit grim.
Katy asked me to get matching tatoos. I am not sure I want to get matching tatoos, or any tatoo, but if I am going to have inkspots carved into my skin, it will be because Katy asked. I was surprised; I know we’re close, but lately I’ve been feeling like she regards me as just-a-mum, who needs to tolerated and offered the ocassional compliment or cookie.
Sheldon and I cooked a Thanksgiving meal to share with our son and his friend, since Colin couldn’t join us on Thursday when we went to Salem to see Shel’s sister. We didn’t fight about dishes. We didn’t squabble about celery in the stuffing, (I gave in, I put celery in the damned stuffing, and to be honest, couldn’t tell the difference). I didn’t snap when he left the table early to watch football, or when Colin neglected to put his dish in the sink.
Sheldon always leaves the table early for football, and Colin gets his dish to the sink about twice a week. I do not know why, once or twice, this has made me so mad, I’ve broken a bowl or glass by angrily flinging them into the dishwasher. Take that, cup!
I turned up the radio and sorted out the kitchen cabinets that store the tupperwae, the chinese food takeout containers, the old yogurt cups. I threw out the things without tops, I threw out the tops without things. I rearranged our bowls, I scoured our cookie sheets that were, to be honest, disgusting. I almost snapped a photo for Instagram but images of stacked plasticware are not what I want to see when I’m scrolling.
When I went upstairs, after dinner, Colin invited me into his room. “Check this out!” On his big screen tv, we watched some divers almost get eaten by a cluster of five huge whales, feeding on sardines by leaping into the air, jaws open wide, and scooping massive mouthfuls of water, fish, and seaweed, then gulping the whole mouthful down. The narrator pointed out it was luck that one of the divers wasn’t part the dinner; someone could have easily been caught up in the maelstrom. I’m going to keep an eye out for shows like that; explorers or hunters having near death experiences, with lions or sharks or the really big bears that have been on the news so much. Colin and I used to watch television together all the time- we loved “How I Met My Mother” and when he was older, it was all “Law and Order”. Maybe we can be brought together by violent nature shows that remind us we are lucky to be alive in front of huge flat screen tv. I’ll try anything that isn’t illegal or involve staying up after ten pm to connect with my first born, Collie.
Maybe my family feels odd, or maybe everybody’s family feels odd, from the inside.
Tonight, I am a little bit closer to mine. I am insanely proud of my cabinet, the stacks of leftovers in the fridge, my lunch already tucked away in a bag where I’lll find it. It’s been a good day, and a lovely weekend.
I am thankful that I have more time with the people I love, more than anything, and more time to figure out how to get things right.
Belated Notes from Super Bowl Sunday 2021- What Comes Next. (This isn’t about Brady, the game, or the upcoming baseball season.)
February 13, 2021
I cooked on Superbowl Sunday. I made a stew with chicken thighs, artichoke hearts, spinach, chicken stock, mushrooms, sour cream, and dill.
I ate at the kitchen table while I read the Sunday paper, and thought about work the next day.
Katy and I watched the halftime show, and then another episode of Designated Survivor.
I cleaned something, I don’t remember what, and read a novel that brought me to the world that was when “Friends” was on tv.
I’m used to the day being noisy, wherever I landed for the game and before. This year, it was quiet. I turned up the radio, and blasted my workout playlist through a speaker instead of headphones.
This is the year of quiet. I am learning to listen to my own thoughts and to others- my daughter, family, friends, colleagues, and members for the company where I work.
Sometimes what I’m thinking makes me uncomfortable. Getting older is weighing heavy; I am confronted with my face every day on Teams or Zoom meetings. I was laid off last year, and count myself lucky to have a job, but it’s an entry level position or an amazing company. This means that ninety percent of my colleagues are abbot twenty years younger than I am.
We spend a lot time looking at each other on screens. When I catch a glimpse of myself, the woman looking back is far older than I am ready to be. I am in a digital room with people who are worried about turning thirty and if they’ll be able to get married this summer, or buy their first house. I adore every one of them.
They love it when I forget to put my settings on mute when I talk to my dog, which means they are kind of laughing at me, but people are desperate to laugh at anything. Maybe I should leave my camera on next time I try to convince Sophie The Best Dog Ever to eat barbecued chicken for breakfast.
I’ve been married for twenty years and have a house.
Before class time on camera, I spend extra time on my hair and add mascara, but then I just look like a slightly better groomed woman of a certain age or someone who is trying too hard. Once the weekend comes, I avoid mirrors and spend too much money on moisturizer.
I think about what I miss. Hugs, mostly, and all that came with them.
I think about what I”ll miss when this over.
Katy and I hopped on a zoom meeting tonight, she kept scolding me because I wasn’t following the rules of virtual etiquette. This made me giggle, so she turned the camera off. She explained the rules, and scolded me some more, probably because I’ve been nagging her a lot about keeping her room clean. At the end of the day, does it really matter if she climbs into a bed that was made in the morning?
I know to mute my microphone, and to try to remember to mute my microphone, and that will have to be enough.
I’m going to try to make this a year to listen and learn, and make it less about the line that just appeared in the middle of my forehead.
I’m going to make time to laugh with the people I love, because not much is the end of the world, until it is.
Until then…
Who or what do you want to make time for?
jules
Forty-one days- Not the best of them. (My daughter’s flute recital, which should have been mentioned, was not. It was amazing.)
April 24, 2020
Today, I was part of a conversation with some amazing women who do amazing things. My mom even said, when I told her about them, “you’re lucky they have chosen you to be part of their lives.”
I am blessed to know so many amazing people, and that these amazing people return my calls, laugh at my jokes, include me to their zoom meetings, and will invite me into their homes, for holidays, dinners, games, and just because. They have good wine, better snacks, and we get each other, in a way I haven’t felt in a long time.
But, sometimes, it’s hard to know where I fit in.
I’m currently not working at Quincy College, currently unsure what my next steps are going to be, or where I want them to take me.
I bring to the table funny stories about life with Colin, and heartwarming anecdotes about Katy still letting me into her room, even flop on her bed, and sometimes, talk to me, (this morning, she told me I needed a shower. I’d just hiked the Blue Hills.) I bring to the table good table manners, excellent taste in music, a sometimes irritating and occasionally helpful cheerful demeanor, muted first thing in the morning for most of my friends, and I’m willing to be the one who decides which restaurant and what time- Not critical skills at the moment.
I know it’s not good to compare yourself to others, the doors that have closed will open to amazing opportunities, I have a house, a husband, beautiful kids and the very best dog.
I know all of us have been pretty close to where I am now, at one point or another.
I know this, in my head.
But in my heart, I feel like I”m running the Boston Marathon and, somehow, find myself alone, lost in Cleveland. Everyone’s talking about Boston, and I’m wandering around Cleveland hoping to get home for the
byForty-One Days- and not the best of them.
(The flute recital, not mentioned, which should have been mentioned, was amazing.)
Today, I was part of a conversation with some amazing women who do amazing things. My mom even said, when I told her about them, “you’re lucky they have chosen you to be part of their lives.”
I am blessed to know so many amazing people, and that these amazing people return my calls, laugh at my jokes, include me to their zoom meetings, and will invite me into their homes, for holidays, dinners, games, and just because. They have good wine, better snacks, and we get each other, in a way I haven’t felt in a long time.
But, sometimes, it’s hard to know where I fit in.
I’m currently not working at Quincy College, currently unsure what my next steps are going to be, or where I want them to take me.
I bring to the table funny stories about life with Colin, and heartwarming anecdotes about Katy still letting me into her room, even flop on her bed, and sometimes, talk to me, (this morning, she told me I needed a shower. I’d just hiked the Blue Hills.) I bring to the table good table manners, excellent taste in music, a sometimes irritating and occasionally helpful cheerful demeanor, muted first thing in the morning for most of my friends, and I’m willing to be the one who decides which restaurant and what time- Not critical skills at the moment.
I know it’s not good to compare yourself to others, the doors that have closed will open to amazing opportunities, I have a house, a husband, beautiful kids and the very best dog.
I know all of us have been pretty close to where I am now, at one point or another.
I know this, in my head.
But in my heart, I feel like I”m running the Boston Marathon and, somehow, find myself alone, lost in Cleveland. Everyone’s talking about Boston, and I’m wandering around Cleveland hoping to get home for the afterparty.
I have the sense of direction of a ninety year old drunk from Medford, waking up alone in Los Angeles, who lost his glasses on the flight.
But I am determined as hell, so I’ll get there.
And if I don’t, I’ll jump on Katy’s bed until she makes me laugh or figures out how to throw me off.
Love,
Jules
Day 33- All I can tell you for sure is it’s Wednesday.
April 15, 2020
Waves of grief pass thru me at the strangest times- driving the car, walking the dog, cooking a meal- during mundane day to day activities that are as familiar as the freckly on my thigh, or the sound of my mom’s voice.
What I am grieving?
I’m not a traveller, so I can’t say I miss getting on a plane. I’d like to get on a plane, but that can’t be it.
I don’t go to many parties, just enough so that when I’m invited, I usually say yes, and try to bring something nice so I’ll be invited again. But it’s April, not exactly party season, and there’s Zoom. I can drink what I like to drink, in my living room, with my friends, in their living rooms. It’s not ideal, but…
I love my job and I’m working from home.
I’ve probably seen more live music online than I have in the past five years.
There is my deep and abiding appreciation for food other people make, and ordering takeout is considered community service, so I’m doing my part.
I miss anticipation.
I miss going thru Monday knowing I had plans to meet Maggie for CardioBoxing and cocktails on Wednesday night, preparing for high school students to tour the campus at QC, and trying on clothes the night before, in an effort to be relatable, professional, and weather appropriate.
I miss checking the menu on High School lunch on Tuesday, and deciding to skip out of the office on Thursday for an hour to eat chicken or meatballs.
I miss helping Katy get ready for a recital, and looking forward to seeing friends I only see at recitals, school plays, football games, or the Fruit Center.
All I look forward to now is this being over.
There is no date.
No one knows what over will look like.
I haven’t been able to tap into eager anticipation for some vague time in the distant future.
Tonight, before I go to bed, and after I walk the dog, I’m going to plan something for tomorrow.
I haven’t figured out what, but it will have to be more significant than making bread or trying a new workout online.
I’d love suggestions.
I need to look forward to more than coffee in the morning, and getting thru another day.
I’ll let you know how it works out.
Love,
Julie
I woke up happy this morning, a feeling I didn’t recognize at first.
I ate yogurt for breakfast, with blueberries and granola. I emptied the dishwasher. It felt like a Saturday, a normal Saturday. I hadn’t looked at the news, and I hadn’t been on Facebook. I did know it is going to rain tomorrow, so I asked Katy and her friend to take a ride to Nantasket with me. (Katy’s friend has been staying with us since the shelter in place.) I was surprised when they said yes before I resorted to bribery, (Wahlberger’s) or begging, (I’m not proud).
We arrived at about 3 pm. The girls wanted to walk on the rocks. Sophie did not.
We decided to stay close, (I decided, they acquiesced).
I would stroll the sidewalk, they would run around in the sand.
Within five minutes, I lost sight of them.
I called. Katy was going to meet me outside a restaurant a few blocks down.
Long story short, I didn’t see her again until we met at the car 45 minutes later.
So Katy chose to hang out with her friend, instead of her friend and her mom. Oh. My. God.
She tried to apologize. I insisted she needed to be quiet or talk to her friend, (snarky emphasis on the word friend).
At one point, when my sixteen year old wouldn’t stop pleading for forgiveness, I pulled the car over and put on my over the ear I’m-not-a-fan-of-humans headphones.
When we got home, I dropped her and her friend off, and snarled at her to clean her closet.
I took Sophie for a walk at Cunningham. Sophie didn’t want to walk at Cunningham. She’d already walked the boardwalk for forty-five minutes, and it was about to rain.
I came home. Katy asked me if I wanted to bake bread. They promise to watch tv with me tonight and aren’t going to insist on Criminal Minds or The British Baking Show.
It was kind of nice, having something to yell about and having someone to yell at.
My social life revolves around Katy, her friend, and my dog. That’s a lot to ask of all parties.
But we’ve survived Colin, learning to drive, and the interminable battle of the clothes on the stairs.
We’ve got this.
Love,
Julie
Bedtime story
March 19, 2018
Before bed, there used to be requests for water, stories, searching for tomorrow’s outfit, digging under the bed for dirty clothes, I would collapse in a chair at the end of it all, and just sit long enough to hear a voice from above call out “Mooooommmm”.
Tonight, I climbed the stairs, uninvited. I knocked on doors, and waited. i went in and leaned over for a kiss on the cheek, a kiss on the hair. I looked around their bedrooms, and thought about saying something about the dirty clothes, the half full cups of water, the nail polish smudge on the rug.
I told them both, in the same voice I used ten years ago- “tomorrow’s going to be a big day. Get some sleep.”
I did not tell them how much I loved them, or to clean up their rooms or else.
After all this time, they know dirty clothes go in the wash and that they own my heart always and forever.
But i still feel the need to remind them, and myself, of all of possibilities that will be waiting in the morning.
julierichmond 