what feels right

Sometimes, a dinner looks like this: left over tomato soup, quickly grilled shrimp, grated Irish cheddar,  horseradish and tomato, salad with stuff you rarely imagine in a salad (like leftover broccoli). I put it on the little table and we do our own combinations. For me, the cheese belongs in the soup, for Ed it goes on the salad. The shrimp can be mixed into most anything, or they can be eaten solo.



 


Since our earliest days together, I understood this about Ed -- he can only do what his gut tells him feels right for him. In return, I knew that he would never tell me what to do with any portion of my meal, my day, let alone my life.

So I am not at all surprised that we do finally reach an agreement on our June travels. It is a simple one: we each travel on the flights we feel strong attachment to (Ed, with the Pakistani carriers, me with the Americans and French, then later in the month, both of us with the Spaniards; I still can't wrap my mind around the fact that in 2007 the Pakistani Airline was banned, for safety reasons, from flying most of their aircraft in any part of Europe) -- to meet up at our final destination.

Many would see this as a rather bizarre way to vacation together. Not us. We spend mountains of time in each others company at the farmette. Really, whole mountain ranges of time. Flights apart? I think we can handle it.

As to the destination -- well, half of it is predictable: Sorede, the village in France that keeps pulling us (me especially) back each year. The other half is less predictable, but I am running terribly ahead of myself. My thoughts right now are back with the miserable days we're having -- cold and wet. Even Isis is hunched at the shoulders as he navigates the paths between the sheep shed and the farmhouse.





I'm cheered with the prospect of spring break which, for me, starts this coming Thursday.

If you stop thinking (and talking) about the weather (a task so difficult for us right now that no one here can quite do it), there are some nice touches to the day. For example: I glanced, in passing, at my hair today. My God. I used to have a color expert paint, trim and fluff it up monthly and now it hasn't seen a haircut person since my daughter's wedding in September. So I walked in to a tiny shop where the proprietor cares that her products are made of potatoes, oats and honey and I set her loose with the scissors (no painting: I'm done with that) and I feel much better.

And of course, earlier, much earlier, there was breakfast. It's like a tickle to the day. Here's my (daily?) photo of that tickle. Today, the mad inventor's hair is freshly wet. It will be wet again as he takes out his motorbike and gets caught in a freezing rain.