Sylvia's Journal

I gave Sita for her 38^thbirthday a bag full of daffodil bulbs. I added the planting of the bulbs as an additional gift. The bulbs have to go in before the ground is hardened by frost. Since we already had two nights of frost – killing off the last reminders of summer – and next week we are in New York, this was the weekend. The weather forecast was rain, but hey, I am from Holland, rain does not have to interfere with yard work.

After two hours of hard work I was done: first there was the digging of soil full of roots, then putting in the fertilizer, placing the bulbs in neat round circles for special effect, shoveling compost on the other side of the house, trying first one and then another wheelbarrow with flat tires, carrying the compost in small buckets, and finally covering the bulbs with the compost. With that the last part of the bulb present was provided. All this happened under rain that started as a drizzle and then became a downpour. I was as wet and muddy as the kids, leaving a mess behind in the mud room..a kin mud room I wished we had in Manchester.

Tonight is the last part of the present: babysitting while Sita and Jim have a night out on the town, a dinner and a music show.

Sita whisked me away quickly to the piece of land she has had her eye on for some time. It is 70 acres that used to be a summer camp – remnants of it still visible here and there; cabins slowly rotting back into earth, some pipes, street lamps, an asphalt parking place, cement basement walls caving in foot by foot. And all the rest is back to the wilds, overgrown trees and bushes, brush everywhere.

Sita wants to buy it and turn it into a kind of retreat center, with cabins for her parents and her sister. It’s a wonderful vison I have already fully bought into but the owner of the land doesn’t want to sell – holding out for ever rising real estate prices in this part of Massachusetts. Although I can see what Sita sees, I also see a money pit and a project that will outlast us by decades, maybe even outlast Sita.

Sita gathers the most amazing people around her, far and wide, like burs on a fall walk jumping on one’s furry coat.  They traipsed along through the woods (the friends, not the burs), sharing her vision, even picking out the place where her parents will be living.

The friends are creators, inventors, optimists, go-getters, driven by a strong passion to make the world a better place for everyone, especially those having few chances now. Social maps, Future Scouts…all very exciting. If anyone from my generation is worried about the millennials they are completely wrong.