Wednesday - 264th

Morning walk thoughts:

I have the sense that we came around full circle from our starting point back in March, when Ed and I announced that we were isolating and the young family assessed their options and decided to join us in an isolation bubble. Because as of this evening, we are in that bubble with them once again. For the next five weeks.

Except it's not the same, because all this time has passed, all these months of such utter caution on my part, on Ed's part, of needing to mask up and stay distant and outside with the kids, months where I couldn't enter their house, and in the meantime one season morphed into the next and now we are in December and the holidays are upon us. In other words we are back where we were, even though we're not at all where we once were. And it feels very strange to jump from a yes world with the kids to a no, no, keep your distance!, and now back to that yes world once more.

Then there are the cats: six of them now here, at the farmette. All sibs and half sibs, all more or less getting along, all eating together in the sheep shed, so that I don't have to worry about feeding one but not the other, or about having the cheepers go after their food (which has a lot of ground chicken in it so ugh! Not good for cheeper snacking!).

Except that this morning, I see someone new loitering by the writers shed. As if waiting. White with big black patches, matching none of the litter here. Quite beautiful actually. Silent. Watchful. I want to give her some food, but to do so, I must distract the other cats and also the cheepers and -- wait a minute, wasn't I in this place already once? With two little kittens who tried so hard to stay here even as the rest of the cats chased them to high heaven until I had to isolate the kittens to keep them safe and fed? Please, let this not be a rerun of that dynamic! Cats do come and go and you always wonder -- where from? where to? How kind will fate be to them?

Breakfast. With sunshine.

Little tree in the corner, now decorated.

 

A little later: 

The passage of time. Never is it more evident than on the day you pull up to the Christmas tree store and ask for the fattest tree on the planet because you want the kids and grandkids to be happy, and so you really want a fat balsam or fraser, with branches spilling out to the other side of the room!

Except that this year, I do a curbside pick up, which means that I don't actually go into the tree lot but stand to the side while the young store staff members hunt around for fat trees. Finally satisfied, I let them tie it to the roof of the car and I drive over to my daughter's house and they all take it inside.

And in the late afternoon:

I return to my daughter's house and here we are, all bubbled up again, safe, without masks, without worry. Well, part of me will always wistfully look south toward Chicago, where my younger girl lives. Still distant for a few more months, still with masks, outside, etc etc.

 

The plan for tonight is that we trim that fat tree. And we do!

(how fat is it?)

 

And yes, Snowdrop is totally set on appearing in her same-old leisurewear option, nothing else will do (can't I wear my most special shirt on this special day??), but she graciously agrees to wear it underneath her lovely matching-with-brother sweater dress. Sparrow, in the meantime, looks like your Christmas poster child in his sweet holiday pullover.

 

I do try for a classic photo that would document this Christmas, at this moment, for these two kids, but you know how it is: first one child looks great while the other moves...

Then the other looks joyous while the first one wiggles...

 

Still, there's a lot of love and good will in those two...

 

Pretty soon to be these three. Did I tell you that my older girl is pregnant? An end of May baby. Smart wee one: hiding at a time where the world is rough!

I stay for dinner. Not that I'm hungry: tree trimming came with an abundance of delicious snacks.

 

So strange to have had to be close, then far, and now close again. (For a while anyway.)

I'll take that strangeness, oh so gratefully. With precious hugs that have been withheld from so many of us even as we all need them. A lot.