February 2011

Sunday evening, following three days of celebrating my youngest son’s eighteenth birthday, we were sleepy and tired and remembered that tomorrow was Valentines Day. We quickly gave each other permission to let go of our usual traditions.

…and my husband gave me the beautiful Valentine of a tender kiss just before he left for an early band rehearsal and I lingered in bed another hour…

….and I gave my newly-eighteen-year-old the Valentine of respectful restraint and, therefore, none of the usual lists and reminders before I left for a day in town…

…and I gave myself the Valentine of an errand-free afternoon with a long walk, a picnic lunch on a sunny bench and leisurely hours in the library…

…and the day gave me a Valentine of gentle afternoon breezes and sunshine and lavender and pink clouds at sunset….

Now it is close to midnight and I await the return of my deario. He says he has two dark beers he is bringing home with him, to be enjoyed with some leftover birthday cake, and the company of our son as we all watch Jon Stewart together.

It was a very good Valentines Day.

P.S. And I hope that yours was, too. As I was driving home today,
surrounded by those pastel skies, I thought about what I would write here tonight…and then I thought about the loveliness of comments and what pleasure they bring to me…and then I remembered the anticipation and pleasure of Valentines Days of long ago, in those sweet early years of grade school, when we would fashion those shoe-boxes decorated with construction paper and with the slit cut into the top to receive the valentines…do you remember those? There it would sit, at the edge of the desk, while the whole class wandered the room pushing the little paper envelopes satisfyingly into the slots and you would hope that when you returned to your shoebox it would be gratifyingly filled with those simple, silly Valentines (sorry for the dreadful mix of tenses and such….deario and porter and cake are quickly approaching!).

Anyway…that is what it feels like to me every time I make
a post and wait for comments. And I like to think that when we visit each blogs and leave a little something in the comment box, it is like those days of meandering around the classroom with our papery missives in hand…..xo

…about the year past as the present one continues to falter and flow.
I can say with gladness that my mom is safe and happy, that we all continue
to love and appreciate each other, and that we have enormous amounts of
things to be thankful for (and are!). And tho’ I continue to feel unsettled,
I am settling into that feeling and trying to go with it.

Yesterday I had a day at home to myself (well, myself and two crews of

workman-one outside the front door and the other under the kitchen floor)

because my deario took mom and boy into town. When I wasn’t setting my

studio back to rights, I spent some time with my calendar and notebooks.

I didn’t make much progress, but it felt good just to have them spread

about me…and to have my thoughts spread about me, too, all to myself

for a little while.

I found myself sitting in my old, cosy high-backed chair by the kitchen

window with the bird feeder just outside. This chair used to be my perch,

my place, the Queen’s chair, but now it is my mom’s kitchen seat and I am

truly glad for her to have it…but I do miss it sometimes, and will try to

spend more time there when Mom is napping or otherwise engaged.

I did rather alot of wandering about the house, sitting in our old bedroom

for a bit (which also became my mom’s when she moved in last Christmas),

standing in my newly tidy studio and picturing what it will be like when I

can get to it through the house and won’t need to walk outside, looking

around our current tiny upstairs bedroom and wondering if I will be ready

to leave it when my mom’s little wing is finished in a few weeks and our

rooms and spots shift around again.

There’s been quite a Goldilocks feel to the past year…trying out new

chairs and beds and routines and mental spaces and so much more…

looking for the ones that are “just right”. Sometimes even finding them…

tho’ not always for long. But I am learning to go with that. And when

I needed to find a new place for my beloved notebooks yesterday, and

couldn’t find a shelf or drawer that sufficed, I noticed the empty basket

that I had brought in from my studio (an empty basket! A wonder!)

and knew it to be the perfect home. Wherever my bedroom might be,

whichever seat I curl up in in the kitchen, wherever my mom’s needs

might take me, my basket of books can go with me.

Who knows? I might even get some planning done…I might even

finish all the little details and corners here are that are patiently

awaiting my attention (my laptop could fit nicely in my basket, too).

Life has been a bit rocky lately, but seems to be smoothing out for

the moment. I want to find more time to write here and at my other

blogs…oh for a container for our hours as easily

found as my basket, yes?

A Happy February to you….