…then second daughter’s new home and I think what every parent must think when the stars are looking bright: man, they are doing okay! Soon, they can take care of me!
I asked one of them if she would, indeed look after me were I penniless and destitute in my old age. She smiled benevolently and said -- yes, even if you are penniless and destitute because you travel so much…
In the afternoon I clean the apartment that one daughter is vacating so that nothing is taken away from her security deposit. It is an old and creaky place and there is a lot of cleaning to do. I am reminded how awful it was to clean the house that I was vacating exactly a year ago. A house that overwhelmed me. A house that had dust in corners I never knew existed.
That was one of the worst moments of my days – that godawful first half of last September, as I packed to leave a house which had overwhelmed me in all ways. (Again, thank you to all those who helped me get through that move. Thank you especially Susanne and Sarah and Sep.)
I remember last year so well. On September 1st I bottomed out. I was passing through New Haven on my way back from Boston and I crashed. I sat in a bar, just under the apartment my daughter is now moving into and I flirted outrageously with some local attorney and I wont even say how outrageous I was, but it was definitely the low point of all low points.
But time passes and new things happen. And here I am, in New Haven again, looking around the spaces inhabited by my daughters and thinking – man, you two are doing alright…
And ahead of me, just a few weeks ahead, I have some returns – to places that gave me such a beautiful fresh perspective on everything – to Languedoc, to the vineyards that allowed me to let go of so much tension, to the little wineries that I grew to love, to all those places, now beginning their fall harvest, a harvest I want to see with my own eyes.
Sorry for being so wordy. I just was remembering September 1st last year and thinking how quickly a bad string of days can flip their noodle and become a good string of days.
You're going back to Languedoc for the crush?!?! Fan-f*ckin'-tastic! That'll be fabulous. I am on the edge of my seat.
ReplyDeleteYou're seriously cleaning your kid's apt..? okay, now you're a cooler mom than Tonya. Can you please be my mom too?
chuck b. (I like your new photo id): I could not stay away. I arranged my work so that I could do one long week-end at a vineyard, where I have been given a room and the permission to write and photograph all I want. I timed it for the middle of the harvest -- three weeks from now.
ReplyDeleteI am cooler than cool: the cleaning was heavy duty, though my daughter pointed out that I did not have to over-achieve there and turn it over in a better state than when she got it three years back.
Today -- I help unpack the other daughter. Tonya can't even compete. She only has one kid.
great post, as always. I do love the way you write.
ReplyDeleteBut, I've got to ask: "a bad string of days flip their noodle"? Do strings have noodles, do days have noodles, or is the string (or the days) the noodle? How does a noodle flip, anyway?
Is this a midwest phrase that somehow escaped me in my admittedly brief 2 years in the pseudo-midwest (Chicago)? A Polish phrase? Or a brand-new Nina invention? (If so, you really ought to trademark it.)
This is an awesome post and, baby, you have come a LONG WAY from last year . . . in so many ways and many of which I'm sure will never be revealed on this blog. ;-)
ReplyDeleteAnd, just to show what a good sport I am, I'm gonna just let slide the remark made by Chuck (and agreed to by you) that you are a cooler mom than me. For today, you can have that. But just for today.
Hugs to Little S and Little C.
kim: sometimes, words arrange themselves in ways that seem perfectly fitting to me and weird to others. This may be one of tose times.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe it was a year ago! To accept an offer of help from a friend is the greatest gift that can be given. Thanks for letting me make even the tinest things easier then. I'm probably moving in December, from my pied de terre in Chicago.... just in case you get the itch to clean an old, musty apt. again :)
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Nina;
ReplyDeletevery pretty your blog:)
Nice to meet you:)