How cold is it? So cold... Well, not that cold. Tell me it's in the 50sF (so maybe 12C) in January and I'll do a victory dance around the farmhouse. But that same reading, my friends, is too cold for a leisurely breakfast out on the porch. So, after the walk to the barn...
... I take my foods, my flowers, my candle (last day of it!) to the kitchen table.
In the spring and summer I think about my flower fields. In the fall and winter, I think about how to spice up a short and cold day. I float many travel ideas, I consider starting new movement programs (remember last year's ballet? I mean, it did last for a few months before it sputtered to a spring-time halt, to be resurrected, maybe, this winter). I give a lot of attention on creating warmth, whether it be physical or mental. And so over breakfast, I imagined trips, I thought about beefing up my movement (never realizing, for instance, until the NYTimes blasted it all over its front page, that I could be allowing my rear end to develop dead butt syndrome, or gluteal amnesia if I spend too little time in the winter prompting it into action). These are pleasant thoughts (well, maybe not butt movement, which is one of those many things that we ought to attend to but seems so terribly dull as to be easily forgettable). Eventually though, I proceed with the day.
When it warms up just a tad, I bike over to Steffi's house to help keep the plantings there alive, given that we have had no rain in the past week and the forecast calls for no rain and plenty of sunshine for today and then next day and the next week and the one after. Normally, a dry September is like a gift of continued summer sunshine, but I've committed to keeping that place green and so there I am, standing with a hose for several hours, because I refuse to set up sprinkler systems for a lawn that I can't stand by definition.
And that's how a Friday morning slipped right through my fingers. Kid pick up time came all too quickly, though not without joy. I can count on at least one of them being in a great mood at the end of the week, and quite often the both of them are bubbly and spirited.
And wet!
Guess what happened as I drove to their school? A sudden cloud cover took hold and there was rain! From 5% chance we leapt to 100% certainty. Not a lot of rain, but it would have been enough to save the grasses of Steffi's House. In other words -- I wasted several hours doing something that wasn't needed. Ah well. When I water, I meditate. That's never a waste!
This was to be the day when I promised we could pick at least one of the many melons ripening out back. True, it is raining (briefly, but exactly at the moment we drive up to the farmette). So what. I have umbrellas!
An at once funny and beautiful ending to the first week of back to school.
And here's another beautiful ending -- I get a call from Ed: they've sailed the boat to its proper destination and he is on his way home tonight. For once I'm not the one coming home from a trip. He is. Hi Ed...
with so much love...
