January Outtakes

Grateful Friday

Today I give thanks for...

Feeling compelled to approach this day with gratitude.  I've been in a down yo for a stretch.  This rut is characterized by apathy and world weariness.  I know the malaise is lifting when I start feeling grateful without prompt or prod.  Things are looking up.

My subtle change in mood may also be in part due to how I started my day.  I read the first essay in Gratitude. Mercury was beautifully written by Oliver Sacks at the end of his life when he was still very much celebrating living. I read his inspiring words aloud so that I could take my time and feel them, and I think I also embraced them.

A working kitchen.  Our stools even arrived this week and we all love them especially Peanut and Tigger. I've been taking my time unpacking.  The essentials have been unearthed and put away, but the periphery objects are still in boxes in the basement.  This is deliberate.  I'm being conscious about what we truly need and love, and than donating or tossing things that serve no functional or joyful purpose.  It's a draining task, but the results are liberating, and every time I see my kitchen, I smile.  And I didn't even finish Marie Kondo's books yet.

Jess for offering to help pick up the stools. It would have taken Mike two trips with our van.  They both loaded up and did it in one.  Then she stayed for our first "official" dinner: meatball subs served with a killer salad.

Last night Lily took first place in all three of her events.  It must have been that new swim suit.  She was proudest of herself.

My cousin is home after two stays in the hospital.  She still needs prayers and good juju, but she is feeling and sounding better.

Dave's Killer Bread especially toasted and served with avocado and sliced tomato.

Ted sailed through his first high school exam week.

Staying warm.

Feeling hopeful.

A Cloudy Day

I didn't sleep much last night.  I fell asleep on the couch for a stretch.  When I woke, I got sucked down the Tivo rabbit hole into the wee hours.  It was a waste of time that I don't feel good about, but the good thing is that I still have some energy today and I'm only on cup of coffee #1.  

I'm almost never the last one up.  Last night I was so sure I heard someone breathing outside the closed den door that I had to go to the bottom of the stairs to make sure the rest of the family was sound asleep.  They were.  Not a peep.  I sat back down and then I heard it again.  Tigger heard it too.  His ears perked up and his eyes opened wide as saucers.  He started to rise, but instead cuddled back in to the nest of afghans that he's recently claimed.  I followed his lead.

I purchased tickets this week for a psychic reading.  I've been reading about this medium the past couple days and thinking about the event that prompted this purchase.  It's the kind of story that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up and my limbs tingle, but it's not my story to tell so I won't.  It confirms what I believe about loved ones lost.  Namely, that they're not.  Jessica suggested we do this, and for her this is a great big giant step in a long road of grief. Again...not my story.  The reason I even mention this is because I've been talking and thinking about it...I've been open, and when we are, they often come through.  I don't believe in coincidence.

Speaking of through, on the news this morning several anchors mentioned it's only 45 days until spring.  That proximity doesn't satisfy me.  The big blizzard we were supposed to get turned out to be the big one that got away.  I didn't see any snowflakes.  Only rain.  Today the world outside is a miasma.  Not the kind of white out I was hoping for.

Peanut is in the back hall caterwauling.  I think he thinks he wants to go outside. The bird chorus outside his favorite perch certainly sounds like spring too so I understand his confusion.  

Do you notice the birds singing louder at the start of day?  Do you observe the day growing longer...lighter?  Does this make you heavy?  Do you consider the thin veil between life and death, the relationship between then and now, and the possibility that we're not always that adept at noticing things?

Poof Monday becomes Friday.  Voila winter eases into spring, our toddlers are teenagers and we are looking back more than we are looking forward.  Day after week after month after year, as David Foster Wallace pointed out.  And what's the alternative? as my mom liked to opine.

two day pass

friday night i took lily and a friend ice skating.

on our way, the evening sky gifted us with the most stellar of sunsets.

i really wanted to stay home, but i quickly realized that sitting in the warming house beside the roaring fire was not asking too much.

and if i'd holed up at home, i would have missed the sky on fire.

i happily read while the girls skated circles around the rink.

i watched other parents with young children and didn't feel nostalgic over what a production gearing up can be.

i helped lace and tighten skates, but they are mostly independent and that is to be celebrated.

we cooked pizzas for dinner and i settled in under both my cats for a movie.

we watched the constant gardener.

it was not until the second to last scene of the movie that i realized i'd seen this film before.

not sure what that says about my memory or the movie.

saturday ted headed out for a long day of skiing, and mike was out of town for a funeral.

lily and i headed to brady street to stock up at our favorite italian market and bakery.

these are the kind of neighborhood stores that make shopping fun.

lily's friend came over for the afternoon and i made the girls a pesto pasta lunch inspired by our bounty.

then i got to work assembling a lasagna for sunday dinner with all the fresh herbs, cheese and pasta.

the secret ingredient was goat cheese.

at ina's suggestion, i added 4 ounces to the ricotta.

it added a creamy richness and a tangy dimension that was perfect.

lily joined me in the kitchen to help with saturday dinner only she made the entire meal.
more blossoming independence,

the only thing i was allowed to do was the dishes.

go figure.

she made roasted lemon garlic chicken with baby red potatoes and green beans.

it was a tasty one pot meal, and very much appreciated by the boys when they returned home.

sunday i was up early, but lazy to get motivated.

we all chipped in to clean the house.

then my brother and sil joined us for games and dinner.

we're still loving fish bowl and the lasagna was a hit.

after dessert of assorted tarts, the cassata cake being the stand out, we lingered planning our webb lake vacation.
even at the tail end of summer, it's only 7 months out.

On My Mind Monday

Midnight, Talking About Our Exes

The sun is still down and maybe even downer.

Two owls, one white and one large-eared,

dive into nothingness that is a field, night-beast

in the swoop-down, (the way we all have to

make a living).  Let's be owls tonight, stay up

in the branches of ourselves, wide-eyed,

perched on the edge of euphoric plummet.

All your excellences are making me mouse,

but I will shush and remain the quiet flyer,

the one warm beast still coming to you in the dark

despite all those old, cold, claustrophobic stars.

Bright Dead Things

~Ada Limon

January 30, 2016

 My alarm didn't go off again this morning.  Ted was up and getting ready (amen alleluia), but there was no spare time to make him a hot, balanced breakfast before his day on the slopes.  I gave him a bit of a hard time last night about getting up promptly, not making people nag or wait.  I let him know that getting up before dawn on Saturday morning isn't on my weekly bucket list, but then...maybe it should be.  It should be because then I'm awake to see this...

Amen.  Alleluia.  Sunrise no filters.  None.  This is the humble, honorable work of Mother Nature and I wouldn't miss witnessing a sky so showy for another second of sleep.  

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Lily is still sound asleep.  It appears we have a little sibling role reversal going on here today.  She is tuckered out after plenty of fresh air last night.  She squeezed her feet into her size too small ice skates and skated away with a friend without a complaint about frozen fingers or cramped toes.  They lasted much longer than I anticipated as I lost myself in a book beside the roaring fire.  On the way home she thanked me for taking them and then apologized that I sacrificed my walk for her fun.  It's tough, but someone's got to do it.  See proof of suffering below...

I'm motoring through Carly Simon's memoir.  She's someone that interests me because I grew up listening to her music, and I've always wanted to know just whom she is carrying on about in You're So Vain.   Is it really Warren Beatty?  The writing is not polished, but her words are compelling and raw.  I get the feeling that she really needed to tell the stories about her life in order to keep on living.  That I relate to. 

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I couldn't relate when I saw that today is the rear end of January.  The older I get...they get...the faster it goes.  And it's not like I have my head in the sand.  I'm present noticing things every day, honoring the extraordinary ordinary and living with a grateful heart.  Maybe that's the crux.  The finiteness...my finiteness...of what I can only believe to be infinite beauty, wonder, goodness, grace.

What Now?

Today I have the house entirely to myself.  It's the first Wednesday since late October that I won't have the company of contractors.  About this I am wildly jubilant.  I don't have to listen to saws, someone else's music or Spanish.  One worker who was here for over a week spoke incessantly to his mama', his tia', his hermanas, his novias all day long.  For ten days, my life was a telenovela.  It's no surprise that his work (drywall and painting) suffered as he chattered away on blue tooth. Wherever you are Jesus, know that I know Spanish.

Ah, but I digress.  It's also the first Wednesday in months that I have mostly free and clear.  Don't be silly, there are always to dos, coulds and shoulds, but there is nothing pressing. I have a day to myself, and the wealth of possibility is paralyzing.  Isn't that how it goes?  We want and yearn and desire, and then we receive and we scarcely know how to proceed.

We're so programmed for longing that satisfaction is rarely sustainable.  People like to set goals and there's nothing wrong with it except the preoccupation that comes with always needing to be, do, have something we're not, haven't, don't.  It's a surefire way to set yourself up for a life of languish. That's not what I want. You?

I'm not advocating stagnation or even complacency, but I think there's something to be said for accepting and celebrating the now.  Who we are now.  Where we are now.  What we have now.  There are any number of cliches I could insert at this point, but I won't.  We've heard them so often, they've lost their power even as they ring true.

I guess my point is that time has a way of showing us what really matters: this moment right here right now so be.here.now.