New weather patterns, new season, new school year, a new school for one grandchild, new friends, new schedules, new attitude toward gardening. Same old mosquitoes, still with us. Same old unheeded warnings leading to same old tragedies that we then read about in the news, shuddering at how broken we can be, not having the imagination and perhaps the will that would allow us to move forward on a better path.
I do appreciate the idea of being stuck. The seasons change, the kids grow up, the world changes and yet we hang on for dear life to habits and inclinations that we picked up that we have to know do not serve us well, do not serve anyone well and yet, here we are, stuck. In fact, I'll admit that Ed and I can be very good at getting stuck in patterns that suit us, ones that we don't much think about until something really pushes us to find a better way. They say older people take longer to change their ways. Oh how true! Ed's rules of conduct are rock solid and if you ask him to adjust to a new reality, he'll resist change even more. Me, I'm probably no better: I couldn't imagine a year without travel when I was 20, nor when I was 40 or 60, and surely not now, when I'm 72. In the past, when I ran out of money to do it, I took on extra work, organizing tour groups, baking in a restaurant, even selling creams and lotions for L'Occitane. I'll probably be that person who breathes her final breath while sitting at a table in a cafe in some overseas destination, hard of hearing, with poor eyesight, but looking on anyway, and enjoying my glass of wine sans alcool.
Just like everyone, I'm much more in favor of getting others unstuck than getting myself out of a habit or pattern or belief system. For instance, I wish I could open Ed's eyes to the beauty of facing emotions (rather than, for example, curbing my own a little, so that we'd at least meet each other somewhere in the middle). I wish I could get Snowdrop to love brushing her long hair, and to inspire a yearning for fruits and veggies on the part of Sparrow and Sandpiper. My own rut, of loving a breakfast of treats from Madison Sourdough? Oh, I'll get around to fixing it someday! Not today.
(Ed is on a Zoom call, so initially it's just me and my Kindle)
My day, of course, did start with a walk outside, among the phloxes that are such a reliable source of color now.
It's a cool morning, but a fine day. I've designated the afternoon as "Snowdrop day." The girl has wanted time at the farmhouse and this afternoon, when her brothers are getting end of summer haircuts, seems the perfect one for it. I pick her up and we drive over to Stoneman's first. For the corn.And it is during this small errand that I see how much the girl has moved on the the next stage of her life. I take my usual photos..
("I dont see the point, gaga, but okay...")
And as we then pick out the corn, I see that look of amusement but also embarrassment cross her face, as I say something to the Stoneman people that's slightly amusing and apparently more than slightly embarrassing.
I really love this age, with one hand into adolescence and one still clutching the playbook of childhood.
And straight from that playbook, late in the afternoon she asks me -- can we go somewhere? Like to Eugster's Farm? We haven't been this year!
(... to feed the goats)
(and romp in the lavender fields)
(Boys, back at their house, after haircuts)
Ed bikes today. An old habit that is a good one to keep. I reheat chili made yesterday from our homegrown tomatoes and wait for him to join me on the couch.
with love...
