May everyday

Nothing stands out as unusual or out of the ordinary. The morning is exactly as it should be: with a repetition of all the good that comes this month, a calmness that is too often hard to come by, and a beauty that singularly belongs to this month.

Somewhere around the age of 72 you come to appreciate, nay, love ordinary days. Not the blandness of them. Ordinary days do not have to be boring or given over to chores and small tasks. If you've spent years perfecting a walk on a tightrope suspended between two skyscrapers, well then on any ordinary day you'll include a practice session for that. The point is that you're not especially looking to fill your day with novelty. Instead, you go about doing things that you know you love and that have carried you through countless days out of the 26 280 (and then some) that you've lived on this planet. Calmly, confidently, with a light smile.

I walk to the barn early, paying attention to the flower fields...

(last year's potted strawberries sprung many babies around the courtyard!)

 

... but also to the dynamic among the animals. For instance, I notice that one of the hens is running to the corner of the barn and jumping into an old box left there who knows when or by whom. Aha! She has been hiding her eggs! Sure enough, I find five.

And the cats: the three sheep shed ones are all outside, reluctant to enter, even though I'm clearly there with food. Why? I can't figure it out. Someone must have been in there disturbing their peace. Was it Pancake, our 6th feral? Or another stray cat? A racoon? I cannot tell.

I snip just a few weeds (it's been an unusually weedy spring), then come back to the farmhouse to fix breakfast. 

More weeding and lilac trimming follows. I'm not as ambitious today and that feels nice. I take pauses. I talk to a daughter. I read articles that I would normally skip over. So, no adrenaline pumping stuff. Just a wonderful day of outside work and inside leisure. All the way up until the time to pick up the kids at school.

We drive home to the farmhouse with expectations: we're in the middle of a very dramatic book (Back Home). We want to get going with it. The kids are hungry for their usual snacks. Sparrow is in a hurry to return to his Legos. But as we drive up the driveway, we hear a crash and a fall. What just happened?

A piece of farming equipment -- one extending significantly both in height and width -- drove by our roadside maple and crashed into some of the branches, bringing down a few of the heavy limbs.

(here's the truck, with at least one branch stuck in its machinery)

(Sparrow, surveying the damage)

 

 

Ed is out for the day with his machine design project and so I have to deal with the aftermath. I call the police because I think if there is an accident, then they must be summoned to file a report. Turns out that's not the case when the accident destroys property at the side of the road. I'm told that's a civil matter. Luckily the owner of all this heavy equipment drives up in his pick up and is willing to give me his name and phone number. We can sort through the damage later. For now, the driver moves the heavy limbs that fell on the road, grumbling to himself about the stupidity of trees, I'm sure.

I return to the farmhouse where the kids are waiting patiently for the afternoon to unfold along a familiar, yes, calmer path. I suppose kids, like 72 year olds, appreciate the ordinary.

(making yellow marks with a dandelion)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the evening? As normal and calm as they come. I make chili -- a standard several day supper at the farmhouse. Ed and I find our comfortable spots on the couch. We turn on Clarkson's Farm (season 4) and smile.

with love...