Owens Family Update 2009
Corry Owens and family
Happy Holidays! Grab a cup of eggnog, or better yet, a grande half-caf skinny two-pump peppermint latte, and I’ll give you the lowdown on the highlights of our year:
It’s been a busy year for me, but not in an Oprah Winfrey, “I’m Every Woman” kind of way. More like an “I’m chasing my tail, my kids are playing in traffic and how long can my dry-cleaning sit there before the dry-cleaner throws it away?” kind of way. In September, I auditioned for and was accepted into the Bach Festival Society Choir at Rollins College. It’s been a huge time commitment, but my family has been wonderful about picking up the slack, if not the toys, at home and not complaining when I serve them Chick-Fil-A for dinner again. Sightreading Bach’s Mass in B-Minor, which we will perform in February, surrounded by much more experienced choristers, is clearing the cobwebs out of my 43-year-old brain. I still love my job, though rental revenues at Casa Feliz have suffered with the economy, making 2009 a challenging year. At the same time, we were recently named to the National Register of Historic Places, which was a nice affirmation of all the good work that has gone into preserving the house.
This year, Paul has alternated between lamenting the decline of the newspaper industry and rejoicing that he still has a paycheck. We’re hopeful that there will be changes to report in next year’s Christmas letter. In the meantime, he’s found fulfillment in family pursuits: playing sports and following the Orlando Magic with Jack, watching scary movies with Meg, teaching Sunday School with me, and accompanying the three of us on family adventures. In February, we enjoyed our annual ski trip to Utah, spent a long weekend in New Smyrna Beach in October, and gathered with far-flung cousins in Amelia Island over Thanksgiving. Sad news to report: in March Paul’s beloved father, Gwinn, died at age 87 from complications with dementia. The six grandchildren sang a beautiful arrangement of “Amazing Grace” at the memorial in Baltimore, and Gwinn’s four children and Meg, in their tributes, spoke of the profound influence that “Pappou” had on their lives. Paul’s mother misses Gwinn terribly, but we are all grateful for her situation living with Paul’s sister and family, and are looking forward to her visiting us after the holidays.
One cannot talk to Meg for more than 5 minutes without hearing the term “CTY” approximately googleplex times. CTY is an acronym for the obnoxiously-named “Center for Talented Youth,” the summer camp she attends through Johns Hopkins University. It is called the “Center for Talented Youth” so that parents can casually drop in their holiday letters that their youth are indeed talented, probably moreso than yours. Anyhow, Meg absolutely lives for the three weeks she spends there each summer, surrounded by other kids who like to talk about vaporizing themselves into other dimensions and cryptology, or code-breaking, which is the course she took there this summer. This whole concept of doing something purposeful during summer break is new to me (I spent my middle school summers watching Love Boat reruns and making up pompon routines to Styx’s Paradise Theater LP), but we are very proud of her curiosity and desire to learn. Meg is in 8th grade at Lake Highland Preparatory School, which implies that they are preparing her for something. Although the school has an excellent reputation locally, Meg would argue that they are preparing her for success in the 4th grade, as they reviewed the definition of a noun in her Honors English class, and had her read “No More Dead Dogs” for her summer reading assignment, while her compatriots at “brain camp” were diving into Proust. In her spare time, Meg enjoys martial arts, photography, creative writing, and spending entirely too much time on Facebook.
Third-grade Jack enjoys life as Meg’s happy-go-lucky foil. He loves Park Maitland School, and prods me out the door in the morning so that he has time to socialize with his friends before class. He is on the go from sunup to sundown, and we keep him enrolled in some sort of sport (basketball, baseball, flag football and soccer) to burn up energy. Jack also has a lovely singing voice, and reluctantly sings in the church children’s choir, for which I am a parent volunteer. He will play Joseph in the upcoming Christmas pageant. I am in search of some leather sandals since his preferred gangsta-rapper-style hightops clash with his flaxen tunic. Getting glasses this summer initially cramped his style, but when he returned to school he discovered that three of eight boys in his class were also newly bespectacled. Jack became a cub scout this year, and he and Paul are looking forward to an upcoming “camp out” on a battleship in Charleston, South Carolina. Heaven for Jack (and for me, as well) is 50 miles north of nowhere in Northeast Georgia, where we spend six weeks each summer at the family farmhouse. Stomping through forests and streams with the trusty Corry by his side, shooting the rifle with Grandaddy, swimming in the “cement pond” (our pond-sized spring-fed pool that we share with a gazillion tadpoles) and watering the newly-planted fruit trees for money to spend at the toy store in town—this is a welcome contrast to his Wii-playing lifestyle during the school year.
Our holiday wish for you, and for ourselves, is that we are able to slow down over the holidays and savor time with loved ones, to start 2010 with a fresh perspective on what is precious in life, and to love one another as the one whose birth we celebrate this season loved us.
Xmas 2009
