farmette life, for a while

Ed is delayed. He was to come home tonight, but that return trip has been cancelled. We're waiting to hear of a new date.

Am I disappointed? Let's search for a better word: crushed. Like a soda can, fizz and bubbles all gone, last drop shaken out, smashed together into a fragment of what it once was. He is, unfortunately, not in communication range and so I have no clue as to his goals, nor his return. A friend of his reminded me that he has been known to linger on those islands and indeed, some time ago, when everyone was at wits end as to where he was and what he was doing,  he had parked his boat off the coast of Cuba and was making his away across that island. He stayed there for a long time and then, just as suddenly, he reappeared. 

I'd heard those stories many times, but of course, that was about then. That was before me. That was before our common home and our shared life.

I miss him every minute he is away, even as I'm not really allowed to miss him that much. It's not part of our deal. Our agreement is that each does what her or his soul dictates, without the layers of encumbrance and constraint that most younger people necessarily have to impose on each other.

Unfortunately, as Ed well knows, our emotional ranges vary tremendously. He is steady as a rock, with very occasional tilts toward annoyance and, too, the rare tilt toward bliss. My range, on the other hand, is huge. My default is "happy," but one big swipe at me and I tumble. On the other hand, one lovely family moment at the table, or couch moment with Ed and I soar. Like Snowdrop, I frequently say, quite truthfully, that I am very happy.

All this to say that the news yesterday of the delay in his return pushed me down there to the wormy bottom of my emotional range. Daughters insisted I stay with them rather than in a farmhouse that suddenly seems even emptier without the promise of a a soon to be arriving Ed and so I packed my bag and went to the home of my geographically closer girl and her family. Snowdrop was counseled to go gently with Gaga and she did, cheering me up with a spectacular dance to the music of Frozen II.






This morning, I ate breakfast with these two sweet people...











Snowdrop did forget herself and said, excitedly -- it's Sunday! Ahah's coming home!  Everyone hushed her in the way that you do with a child who has stumbled into uncomfortable conversational territory.

And then I came back home. To this suddenly hollow empty space that I love so much insofar as it has an Ed in it and that hasn't much meaning for me now, even as it still holds the comfortable reminders of my (our?) everyday life.

I feed the animals. I clean. I do laundry. I water plants. I cook dinner for the young family.






(for the love of asparagus)






(for the love of dance)





They ask me to return home with them and I am tempted, but I cannot live out of a bag. It makes everything suddenly feel so temporary and wobbly at a time when I desperately want to feel strong and in control.

I'll leave you with song lyrics. I like the Stacey Kent version:

When the sun is high in the afternoon sky
You can always find something to do
But from dusk til dawn as the clock ticks on
Something happens to you

In the wee small hours of the morning
While the whole wide world is fast asleep
You lie awake and think about the boy
And never even think of counting sheep

When your lonely heart has learned its lesson
You'd be his if only he would call
In the wee small hours of the morning
That's the time you miss him most of all.

Perhaps you'd like to listen? Here it is.