Sunday

Sunday morning. When I think that last week at this time I was breathing deep sighs of relief, knowing that my daughter had just survived (with great joy and merriment) her wedding ceremonies, I want to say -- my, how time changes things. Today, by comparison, was so placid. Like a day with only a muted breeze and no fires raging. A fall day, where you had to look hard to find blooms that are still going strong.







Sunday afternoon. I know that you sign up for yoga to practice the exercise of yoga (and I did sign up -- after a trial month, for a whole year of it), but I have to say, I do like this about my new yoga studio: the woman who owns and runs it strives for community. In the same way that her neighbor down the block -- Paul at the Oasis Cafe -- strives for the same. And I like that. Oh, go ahead and tell me that I'm a sap for community because I do not belong to a church and that I'm merely looking for ways to fill a void.  Yes, tell me that we all function in a spiritless world and it's our own fault.

Eh, I won't agree. for the most part, I like my world of quiet at the farmette. I like interrupting it occasionally with people, but if that doesn't happen for a period of time (daughters excepted), I'll be okay with it. But, whatever my own needs are in this regard, I do like it when people try to create a space for the local souls to crawl to, a space where someone will at the very least remember their name. 

So, after the usual house cleaning and garden admiration and adoration spell…






…I go to my Sunday yoga class and I sink deeply into the idea that I am not just stretching this way and that, but I am also reaching out to some form of humanity that is there for all of us to share.


After class, a fellow classmate says -- I wish I had had yoga when my kids were younger… I would have been a calmer parent… I nod in what I hope is a supportive gesture, but I don't really think she  is correct. We are who we are. Impatience does not erase itself in yoga classes.

Nonetheless, it surely feels good to stretch, strain and balance and think about something other than the tasks that await you in the week ahead.


In other news, Ed is truly almost healed. Not only did he join me for a modicum of breakfast…





…but, too, we went out to play tennis together: nothing grand, just twenty minutes of back and forth at the local park, but we hadn't done it since before he was stricken with the Mystery Fever and it was grand to hear him making fun of my game again.


Sunday evening. When I return from yoga, I find him up on the ladder, working bravely to replace the rotted wood over the dormer window. This project has been excruciatingly difficult -- he hasn't the equipment nor the neck muscles to do it quickly and to his satisfaction. But, he is back at it. If he doesn't topple and crack his spine then I will truly believe that he is with us again, well and moving forward -- though in a somewhat thinner frame.






Supper? Well now, if you had the last tomatoes ripening still on your mudroom floor, what would you do? Of course! Cook up more chili, add it to the old chili and serve it again and again and again. Including, in a fortified version, tonight.