a new week

And wouldn't you know it -- our school district is starting in on just the third week of classes, only to have a day off for the kids today. My help with this is needed but on a somewhat different schedule and with a different list of assignments. 

But first, the morning walk, which shows off those red crab apples -- such a beautiful image of fall!

 

(I coaxed this new Clematis all spring and summer long... so it decided to take this moment to throw out a bloom... Clematis vines are like that...)

We have one more warm and sunny week before us and I am so going to ignore the drying garden and take in the last warmth of the year. It's shorts weather! 

And breakfast on the porch weather.

Now comes the schedule change. I have a doc appointment in the late morning, and it happens to be in the vicinity of the young family's home. I dont want to drive back and forth many times and so I take my laptop and go to a coffee shop afterwards and sit and wait there until it's time for me to claim a child who is my responsibility for a big chunk of the day.

I will always love cafe moments. With a book, or my computer, my milky coffee. With an eye out to who else is there, puzzling over what might be the story behind their own coffee moment, what brought them here, alone or with a compadre, to share space in this way.

Five days ago, I came to this same coffee shop in need of quiet time, in need of relief. Today, I realized I need absolutely nothing. Not a rest, not an escape, not a vacation, not alone time, not more time, not less time. Nothing. I remember when my grandpa died, my mom was so distressed by his final days (in a Polish hospital) that after his death, she checked herself into a sanatorium for a month. In Poland, sanatoria were the way to luxuriate and regain a balance, a physical or mental acuity. Europe had plenty of sanatoria, mineral soaks and therapies, and vacation rest homes that offered healing remedies to traumatized souls and bodies. I believe my dad went to one as well when his mom or dad (or both?) died. And here I am, not needing anything at all -- just more of life as usual, the same old Ed, kids, grandkids, friends, mornings on the porch, evenings on the couch.

Speaking of kids, I am charged with taking Snowdrop to the mall on a shopping errand (something she needs for school) today. But when I pick her up, she wants a rewrite of the day: can we shop on line and go instead to the farmhouse?

 

 

I love how everyone loves the farmhouse. How no one minds that the stove top could use a good wipe-down and the flowers are already dry and the playroom isn't exactly in ship shape order and Ed's pile of who knows what is forever there, by the couch and yet, the farmhouse is heaven. Maybe because it imposes no burdens or expectations, no work, really nothing at all. Here's where you come to do whatever it is that you want to do, and you can be quiet or loud (though not too loud!), by yourself or with others and no one will care. 

With Snowdrop, I read of course. We finish Number the Stars and that just chokes me up. The courage of a nation under siege. Children taken from parents, losing family members left and right. What do we, most of us, know of courage here, in our comfy homes with warm water and internet access? I have always remembered this, growing up when I did in Poland: I was born after that war. An incredible piece of good fortune. 

We finish the book, she eats lunch, goofs around with Ed. She never laughs with me as much as she does with him. She provokes him, he fights back, just enough to let her understand her own limitations. (Sometimes, but not very often, I have to remind him to go easy on her, but she never minds when he is full steam ahead Ed. All the kids know that he would never hurt a fly, certainly not a spider or a cat or a tree or them.)

It's almost time for me to return her home, but she asks for one more thing. She thinks I wont say yes, so she puts it out there for me -- can we go to Eugsters Farm?

Whatever for? We'd have like literally 25 minutes there!

For the goats, the kittens, the flowers...

I just manage to get her home at the appointed time. 

How did the day go by so quickly? I need to grocery shop -- the kids have cleaned out the fruits, we have no salad fixings -- things are pretty dire! And yet, I dont immediately head to the store. I come back to the same coffee shop (Barriques) and get a full milky cup, and I finish the scone I started in on this morning and I take out my laptop and it feels soooo good!

The goal is to write, but I lose myself for a good many minutes in reading an essay from the New Yorker. It's about Monet and if you know Ocean even modestly well, you'll know that I am drawn to a Monet canvas like any young person is drawn to her smart phone. The article is a review of the soon to come out book on him -- Monet, the Restless Vision. It's one of those reviews that is a total treasure, because it explains myself to me! It brings me closer to understanding why I love Monet's paintings so damn much. I should read the book it reviews. I will read the book it reviews, but this afternoon, I am just lost in this piece of exceptional New Yorker writing and if you yourself have wondered why looking at a Monet isn't at all like looking at any other canvas in a museum, you, too, should read it. Perhaps this link will lead you to it.

Groceries, home, supper, Ed. One leads to the next, leads to the next, leads to the next, until the day just has to end because I am soooo spent. 

with love...