middle of everything

Are we at the beginning of a string of flyover days (sort of a calendar analogue to a flyover state -- the one you pass on your way to, say, California)? Too cool, to gray, too suspended between work and a great desire to have easy sleep nights (as opposed to Isis nights)? I hope not. I hope I don't merely check off calendar days as if they were somehow disposable. May I never forget that flyover also means uncomplicated, uncrowded, calm. A time (or place) when you don't have to spend a lot of money to reap the benefits of life. Good things within eyesight: a bird, a lasting flower, a corner of a room.




farmhouse


Still, it is a cold and dreary morning, so I never even give Rosie a thought. Donkey car for me. And I have the many classes of a Tuesday and, too, suddenly, after today, fifty-five exams to grade at home. And, even though I really do not want commotion in my work spaces, I have the announcement that some office furniture is being installed tomorrow and so I have to be prepared for chaos, which is a shame.




campus


On the upside, Ed's college friends are in town and because it's midweek, Ed takes us out for dinner rather than having me cook. This is perhaps a run of the mill event for any other person, but Ed and I so rarely go out for dinner, that I have to say, the novelty itself was worth a mouthful. I ate a fishy dinner at Sardine and for a brief second I thought about how curious it is that in some weeks - weeks spent away from Madison -- we would regard this as a normal event. Go out, order food, eat. But at the farmette, I get into the routine of cooking and it never even enters my imagination that we should eat anywhere but home.



farmette


Home. How is it that it has such a hold on us -- this idea of home? I've moved so often and to such different homes... how is it that the farmette feels now like home for life?