The Boys and Their Beards: A Short Tale

Plus 5 things: A cookie, a lemon tree, a little book, new zinnia seeds, and a favorite quote.

My two stepsons and my husband currently all have beards. Last night I sat at our dining room table, with the candles lit and the little fairy lights in green Ball glass mason jars glowing and the plate of chocolate brownie cookies I’d just made that afternoon going around, and listened to them talking about the nuances of shaping and trimming a beard.

There are apparently different attachments – combs of varying lengths – that you can put on your electric “personal groomer” to trim your beard to the exact length you want it. But first you have to live through growing it out for a bit – and then you must decide how you want to shape it, using a razor to form a base line on your neck and a top line on your cheek. And that’s just the start. There are dozens of beard styles, from Mutton Chops to Goatees, Verdis to Dalis, Shenandoahs to Chevrons. Who knew?

My fair-haired stepson and my grey-haired husband were advising my dark-haired stepson about what shape his new beard might take. My eyes followed the conversation, bouncing between them, and I leaned back in my chair and smiled to myself.

I did not grow up with brothers. My father never had a beard. I’d have to say this was the first time in my life I’d listened to a conversation on this particular subject. I loved it.

The boys also have mustaches; my husband does not. He had a mustache for 42 years, and shaved it off a year after his wife, the boys’ mother, announced that she wanted a divorce. Something about new beginnings.

The particular look my husband is currently sporting – beard, but no mustache – is very Abe Lincoln. (In fact, there is an official style called the Lincoln beard, which is also known as a thin chin strap beard. The story of how an 11-year-old girl got the clean-shaven Lincoln to grow his first beard is heartwarming, by the way.) Or if you are an Islander, think of old Everett Poole with his pipe. (This fantastic photo of him by Jeanna Shepard was an award-winner.) The beard runs very close-cropped mostly along the jawline and across the chin.

I think my husband likes it because it is unconventional and old-fashioned. I like it because it emphasizes his handsome jawline — a family trait he shares with his brothers, one of whom is disarmingly handsome and was an actor on Ryan’s Hope! This particular beard does make him look older, which matters not to me. It is just a fact. He was clean-shaven when he was courting me, doing his very best to pretend like he was not 12 years older than me. (Spoiler alert: I fell for it.)

As the cookies went round again, the phones came out to scroll for old photos, since there was some disagreement about how long my younger stepson (the fair-haired one) has had his beard. He claimed he started growing it in college (true); but there was photographic proof of at least intermittent clean-shaven faces (once in the year I met him) since then.

And for a while it seemed to me his beard was mostly in between, with that three or four-day grow-out (variously called scruff or permastubble) being a thing with millennials for a while. Millennials, of course, are credited with the resurgent popularity of beards.

The boys (I call them boys but they are 32 and 35, just so you know – adults!) stood up to go. Their father hugged them. I hugged them. One slung a guitar over his shoulder, rescuing it from his Dad’s closet to take back to Boston; the other warmed up his newly-purchased used Island truck with a surfboard sticking out the rear window, taking his brother back to his place for the night.

Seeing these three humans together – two brothers and their father, each so different from each other and yet alike in many ways – is a secret pleasure of mine. Of course, I am glad that the boys are comfortable around me, comfortable in the home I share with their father. And I love talking to each of them one on one – they are both interesting, thoughtful, smart humans. But most of all I know how important these two are to my husband. I know it means a lot to him to have them together, and to have the relationships he does with them at this stage in life. I love witnessing that and participating in it.

And just for the record, I love the beards, too. All three of them.

🧔🏼‍♂️🧔🏻🧔‍♂️

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🍪 🍋 📚 🌸 🧹 Five Things For December

1. The recipe for those brownie cookies

Another winner from

abigail dodge

, this recipe for Chocolate Rocky Road Cookies is really quick to make. Like brownies, it is a melted butter/sugar/flour/egg mixture combined right in the saucepan. Best of all, you can customize the “add-ins” with any number of goodies — even chips, mini pretzels, and Teddy Grahams! This time around I kept things simple with semi-sweet chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and dried cranberries. You can be serving these warm in under an hour from start to finish.

2. A Meyer lemon tree gift

Today, I was watering the motley collection of potted plants (mostly scented geranium) that I have cluttering the breakfast room for the winter when I stopped to admire the Meyer lemons ripening on our “tree” (more like a small shrub in a large pot). Our friend Louisa Hufstader gave us the tree as a wedding gift three years ago and while it took a while to get going, it does yield fruit, which is pretty thrilling for a cold climate-dweller. (The flowers smell heavenly, too.)

Small enough to tote outside in summer and bring inside in winter, the high quality fruit trees are available by mail from Logee’s, a family nursery business in Danielson, Conn. They also have a selection of other citrus plants (key lime, kumquat, red finger lime, and more) suitable for growing in pots. Any one of these would be a great gift for a gardener-cook.

3. What I’ve been reading

The Serviceberry – Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer. This little volume by the acclaimed author of Braiding Sweetgrass is a gentle argument for an economic system and a way of life that more closely resembles the community interdependence of the natural world.

The book resonates with me deeply – not just because serviceberries, or what we call shadbush, are abundant here on the Island, punctuating the woodland boundaries with the first tree blossoms of spring. But also because Kimmerer’s idea of a “gift economy” reminds me of the “old” Vineyard, the place I came to many years ago and found myself surprised and then comforted by a common habit of gifting excess food – from freshly dug clams to a dozen eggs – and of offering tools, skills, trucks – whatever was needed at the time – without expecting remuneration. (The Island is still a place where this kind of thing flourishes — the robust Island Grown Gleaning program is just one example.)

There’s so much more packed into this little book – please read it and give it to your nature-loving friends as well.

4. New zinnias for 2025:

The seed catalogues are here already. Honestly, I don’t remember them ever coming before Thanksgiving, but here we are. Their arrival gets earlier and earlier every year. It’s wise to check out new offerings quickly as these days, seeds sell out fast, and I have a feeling there will be another surge in home gardens this year. Right away I spotted some new zinnia varieties in Johnny’s Seeds. Top of my list: these pretty pink Ballerina zinnias (above, left). The new Auroras (above, right) look fun, too.

5. Biggest accomplishment this week:

Hoop house cleanup! I finished dividing and packing up the dahlias, we got rid of all the dead tomato plants and lots of other detritus, swept piles of dirt and sand out both doors, stacked trays and buckets, organized the potted plants that will spend the winter there, and patted ourselves on the back! Work on breaking down the small vegetable garden continues; our guy Matt delivered two more loads of horse manure to the big garden this morning, and the perennials are still awaiting (some) trimming. But – progress.

“Remember when you wanted what you currently have.”

💚

My Vineyard

The Angels Have Left the Building

Skipping Generations – Or Not