Chicago week

Good Morning, Chicagoland! So, you're promising storms today? I can't be surprised. First comes the hot air, then come the winds and with them storms.

I'm off to a late start because I am moving: from the lovely pied a terre, to the beautiful home of my daughter. Too, Juniper has a morning date with her working dad (who is taking her to a meeting -- she is much in demand) so that I don't quite have to be there before the school bell rings. We make complicated plans, don't you think?

Other changes, or rather additions to note here: you can still preorder my book, Like a Swallow,  directly from Little Creek Press, following my link at the side bar. Or, if you prefer to stay with Amazon, you can now order it there. I will write a tiny bit more about the book on its official release date (June 3rd), but of course, the best way to understand what went into the writing of it is to pick it up and dig in! (Insert cartoon here of girl digging a whole into which she drops book with a smug smile.)

Okay, I'm out of my pied a terre, out of the interesting Lincoln Park/Sheffield neighborhood...

... and back with little Juniper. Hello, Juniper!

As I bathe her, play with her, feed her (we eat breakfast together, albeit it is my first and her second), I think back to an awful dream I had last night. It was so bad that I asked all those around me (dream people, all of them) if maybe this could please be a dream from which I could wake up. Pinch me! Nothing happened. Dream continued. For however long dreams last. And I thought -- my reality is so wonderful, but the dream, too felt real. I suppose the only perceived difference was in the length of time it took to bring an end to it. The greatest luck belongs to those of us whose reality is so good that we don't want to switch it with whatever dreams come our way. Ever. Of course, there are people like Ed who rarely have bad dreams. His reality may be better, but his dreams are not so bad either. How fair is that?! Still, you need only imagine how many people have nightmares that are the real deal. That's tough to accept. Everyone should have the joy of waking up to the promise of something good.

Okay, Juniper: splash, read, bounce.

Eat, play, nap. A baby's good life.

And I get my last selfie of the trip. I'm returning to the farmette tomorrow and this is my last solo day with Juniper. Happy break for me: she loves our camera games!

In the late afternoon, Juniper and I take a short walk to the small grocery store that happens to also sell flowers. The young family has been feeding me and attending to my whims and needs -- surely I should leave some bunches of blooms behind. Tulips and sweet peas! 

Flowers are my balm -- perfection, even with all their rough edges, bent stalks and faded petals. I suppose it's trendy to discover your own thirst for a connection to the natural world. Me -- I've been lucky to have been immersed in that world before I could even walk. Sure, I had some city years -- rough going for me! -- but good parks were always within walking distance. And my daughters -- both are lucky that their homes, even though near urban centers, have plenty of sprouting things and leafy trees everywhere. Just from my brief walk with Juniper, I could admire this:

(Juniper loves looking up at trees! I can't blame her -- they're all magnificent.)

The Chicago neighborhood where the young family lives is mixed -- some very old and very modest homes, some apartments, new condos, old condos (theirs is that), and then of course, the expensive homes that belong on the Netflix series I've been watching -- The World's Most Extraordinary Homes.  One can only hope that these blocks will retain a mix, so that these trees -- some of them quite ancient -- can always provide shade for you and me and that old lady sitting on her porch in her plastic chair, taking sips from a chipped cup that must be as ancient as the trees towering above her.

Toward evening, we pick up Primrose from school: it's a super windy day! Can you tell?

So here I am, siting at the dinner table with this wonderful young family and thinking -- I hope my life isn't one big dream. It's nothing I would want to wake up from. 

(Primrose works on her art, parents cook up a fantastic dinner, we eat.)

How good it is to spend this time with all of them!

Don't you just find yourself wishing that good fortune, as measured by the peace in your community and the deliciousness of fresh meals eaten with those we love wouldn't be so concentrated in so few pockets in this beautiful yet complicated world? 

With love...