It's a Monday morning in central Pennsylvania, not a misty moisty morning today but a glorious spring morning. The air is clear, there's only a slight breeze so Ron has gone flying, and I already took my exercise walk for today (a scant twenty minutes -- maybe more later). Lynn returned safely (and worn out) late yesterday afternoon from her trip to Cape May, New Jersey with her school's concert band, diligently began her homework, and left promptly this morning with just a bit of fatigue showing in her eyes.

A discussion of the term "soccer mom" came up on a list I read frequented by copy editors and other wordsmith types. The membership is international and has representatives from all kinds of life situations -- freelancers who work out of their homes (many of them women), editors at well-known journals, people like me who aren't making a living at editing (or writing) but who are fascinated by the nuances of language and have a desire to give their writing elegance and precision. These people live in big cities, villages in the English countryside or the Chilean mountains, towns in the Middle East we see on the television news, and, like me, an American suburb.

I didn't know until this discussion that "soccer mom" has a faintly derisive connotation. I thought it meant a woman who structures her day around the needs of her family. This would not necessarily be someone who does not hold a paying job outside the home, but someone whose use of time and resources is dictated by the need to get kids and equipment to and from various activities. To most of this listmemembers, however, "soccer mom" connotes a woman whose affluence (whether earned by one or two family paychecks) allows her to hire household help while she shops, grooms, and attends her children's activities.

And I also didn't know how much disdain there was for the "suburban lifestyle," described as life lived in a housing development of single family homes carved out of what might have once been a family farm, beyond the reach of public transportation and neighborhood shops so that the kids have to bused or driven to school, food is procured in quantities too burdensome to carry even if the supermarket were within walking distance and thus you have to drive there too, where the residents write checks to environmental do-gooder groups and mail them on their way to pick up insecticide for their lawns and gas up the SUV again.

For some time I've wanted this journal to be the foundation for a book of personal essays called The Gestures of Trees: A Suburban Year. All of the "year in the life" books I know are about something exotic or unusual -- a year spent as a beekeeper, or a lay resident of a monastery, or sailing around the world in a cabin cruiser, or restoring a historic home.

I want to write about life in a typical (if anything is typical) American subdivision in a suburb of a medium-sized city. I want to write about being a "field hockey mom" whose daughter is growing up and way from her much too fast. I want to write about trying to learn a little bit about what this land was before it was sculpted into a neighborhood. I want to write about community, and family, and roots, and wings.

So, here's a Monday morning dispatch. In another suburb almost due west across the river from mine, they're coping with the sixth death of a teenager since November. The first three were very sad but expected -- a teenager with ovarian cancer, a younger child with congenital lung problems who died after complications of a double transplant, and a young man who had battled a rare cancer for more than two years. 

The young man died several months ago. Within the past month or so, however, three apparently healthy youngsters have just keeled over. A girl collapsed and died while walking to class. A track team member had a heart attack during a warm-up drill and died a few days later. Yesterday another boy became ill at his  home and was dead before the paramedics arrived.

My intellect tells me that these are all a terrible coincidence. My heart tells me that if that were my kid's school, she'd be at home today.

The cable tv truck just did a turnaround in my neighbor's driveway. We've had terrible reception on our downstairs television only on one channel only. (Why yes, we are typical suburbanites -- three people live here but we have four televisions. Three VCRs. Only two DVDs. Gee -- maybe I am pathetic!). The channel happens to be that of ABC-TV. I love my ten o'clock dramas, and watching The Practice last night was difficult, as the snowy picture got worse and worse. (Fortunately, the episode wasn't very entertaining and so I didn't much care. But NYPD is tomorrow. That's important.)

And I've taken an hour now in which I've written something, but not fiction. More later.