A story about renewal and change

Oh, Easter. You really take me back. Also: Don't sleep on this dinner.

The evening sky in Avon as vibrant as the very best Easter egg.

Hello Midlifers,

Happy Easter to all who are partaking this year — Catholic or otherwise.

There was a time when I’d be up at dawn stuffing jellybeans and foil-wrapped chocolate eggs into plastic eggs to hide in the yard. For a number of years, I’d have everyone over for brunch after mass and we’d have a big Easter egg hunt with the cousins. Somewhere in this beach rental I have old photo albums stuffed with pictures of the kids in their finery holding up baskets or reaching for an egg hidden high up in a bird feeder or tucked under the budding leaves of a hosta in our old yard.

As the kids got older, we’d sometimes find ourselves away over the holiday on spring break, but the kids’ grandparents would step up and stage a hunt around their condo in Florida. Once we were at a resort in the Dominican and I’d stayed behind when everyone went down to breakfast to put chocolate out on the beds for the kids to find when we got back from the lavish buffet. Upon our return, all the candy had disappeared as the housekeeping staff thought it was for them. Awkward.

But then, I got divorced and everything changed. That first Easter, I didn’t have the kids and a college friend suggested we go to South Beach for the weekend. We stayed at a lovely hotel and I remember sitting on the wraparound porch eating a $25 bowl of fruit and weeping that I wasn’t stuffing jellybeans into eggs.

Since then, I’ve had a prickly relationship with the holiday. Often, I found myself without the kids when they went away for spring break with their dad and his girlfriend, which was nice for them but sad for me. I’ve done a few Easter dinners with my family and with other kids and that always made me depressed. Somewhere along the way I also became estranged from my own family of origin, which brought a dark shadow to holidays in general.

Easter in Hong Kong swimming in the South China Sea.

Then the kids started going to college and couldn’t get home just for the weekend. And I started taking younger kids on spring break. Once, we spent Easter in Jamaica with another extended family and another time, with dear friends in Hong Kong jumping off a boat into the South China Sea. In 2018, we spent Easter morning traveling on a bus from Sienna, Italy to Florence and spent the day sipping wine on our hotel rooftop and roaming around the city.

Easter in Florence.

Slowly, Easter just wasn’t a holiday I celebrated or looked forward to any more.

And then, out of the blue, this year I am back on the Easter bandwagon. Later this morning, my two sisters + family will come over for Easter brunch and my youngest is home for the weekend. I’m making a frittata and a chocolate cake and bought my nephews fancy chocolate.

In fact, it’s turning out to be a weekend of family. Yesterday, my sons and DIL-to-be had lunch with me and the kids’ dad and later, the future newlyweds came over to watch the Mets win and I made them a sheetpan dinner.

After, my son and daughter-in-law-to-be and I took the dog for a walk up to the boardwalk, a little more than a half mile away, around sunset. It was hot here in New Jersey yesterday. Like, stupid hot and over 80 degrees. I don’t have my AC window units in yet so after cooking dinner it was pretty warm sitting around the table, even with all the windows open and ceiling fan going.

I was wearing loose khakis and an oversized button down that I’d been wearing all day for the walk but the kids were in shorts and tank tops and had brought sweatshirts and I thought, “It’s cooling off, but they’ll never need those.”

We walked and talked and commented on all the beautiful houses that we passed. It’s an old-timey seashore town, with many original Victorian and seashore colonials with Gilded Age vibes still standing amongst newer monster homes that arose after Hurricane Sandy wiped out a chunk of homes.

About two blocks from the beach, the temperature must have dropped 20 degrees. It felt like we’d stepped into a walk-in freezer and we kept marveling at the sudden change and the kids slipped their sweatshirts on and I unrolled the sleeves of my shirt and buttoned my top collar to try to stay warm and we walked onto the boardwalk.

But the cold air had not sent the early evening beachgoers packing. I could see all the way down to the end of our town’s run of sand pockets of walkers and folks sitting and watching the last bits of daylight drain from the sky. Off in the distance, a big group of young people was playing an enthusiastic round of spike ball.

We stood and watched all the activity and then I turned to look off to the west and saw the spectacular sunset quietly taking place. The sky was lit up pink and orange, like an Easter egg come to life.

We could only last about two blocks on the boardwalk before we had to turn right and head west back toward home as the sky really started to darken and the streetlights lit our way. A few blocks off the beach, the temperature did its dramatic shift and we suddenly wished for the cold air as we felt the stickiness of the day return. When we arrived home, I immediately went upstairs to peel off my pants and long sleeved shirt that were damp with sweat.

It’s funny how things change. How the rhythms of our lives shift over the years. Sometimes it’s slow, like kids growing up and not believing in the Easter Bunny or going off to college. And other times, it comes at you out of the blue, like when you finally decide that you need to end a relationship that no longer works. Suddenly, your life looks nothing like it used to. You can feel yourself swallowed by the freezing cold air of reality.

What I’ve learned is that that reality will change, too, over time. It will shift and rearrange itself and what’s important is just to keep moving forward and not settle into those pockets of fear, which for me can be really hard to do.

I might not be celebrating Easter from a “religious” point of view, but it is a great story about rebirth. And change. In my life, the holiday has been an excellent milestone to gauge where I’ve been and where I am right now. And who knows where I’ll be next year.

But for now, I’m going to make my former mother-in-law’s famous chocolate cake for us to eat later today. It’s one of those box recipes that you add some other fixins’ to a Devils food cake mix and throw in some chocolate chips and then put a big scoop of fresh whipped cream on the side. It will taste like so many good and happy memories of the past. And maybe some day will remind me of just how good this year tasted.

Julia Gartland for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.

Oldie but goodie

I pulled this chestnut out of the dinner archives to have on hand when my son arrived home from college on Friday night. Even during a super crazy work day, this could not be an easier meal to throw in the crockpot and then let it do its thing until dinnertime. I will echo the advice given in the recipe, don’t sleep on the pickled red onions. They make the meal and then you have them in your frig to throw on all your meals for a couple of weeks (NOTE: I am not a health professional and eat old things out of my frig and am relatively fine. lol)

Come spy on Jackie's month in Nice with me

Pretend you’re in the South of France

Do you guys follow my friend and sorority sister Jackie on Instagram. Gah. Please do. She owns a couple of home and gift shops in Connecticut and her style and social media game is *chef’s kiss* She’s also documented the renovation of their older home and that’s been really fun to see, too. Here’s the stores’ Instagram.

Right now, she and her husband (Mike!) are spending the month in the South of France and I’m dying over the content. I never knew I needed to visit but now, it’s added to the bucket list. Please enjoy.

The tea

On this week’s The Weekend Log — our weekly installment for paying subscribers — I spilled the proverbial tea on my son’s wedding in Paris. What I’m wearing. Some of our itinerary. I’ll be sharing what I’m (thinking of) packing in the next few weeks so if you like your tea piping hot, consider upgrading your subscription (button below). Also, some great advice in there on how to pack a fancy dress and whether high heels are gonna cut it in the City of Lights.

So random but also, awesome

Well, you guys continue to amaze me. I was sitting around the (hot) TV room with the kids yesterday, scrolling through my phone like the rest of them, and saw a notification that The Midlife Diaries had hit the #39 spot in Rising Parenting on Substack. What does this mean? What are the metrics. Me not know. What I do know is that it is super cool and I am super grateful for the support and love.

As always, if you have a second to click the little heart below or even comment to say hi, I would be so grateful. The algorithm gods will gobble it up and (perhaps) keep pushing me up into Substack heaven. lol

See you next Sunday,

xoAmy