I am, this second, tucked up in bed with a coffee in hand. Wordle and Connections and Strands done (Wordle is my least favorite these days. I still do it. Connections my fav), and I am sufficiently recovered from travel to be capable of stringing words together, here.
I won’t say all is right in the world, but this corner… there is enough right to be found.
We’re just back from Maryland- stayed at a beach house/farm. I was apprehensive about it all, so soon after the funeral exhaustion, but it ended up being the reset I needed. The children too. It was good.
I swear to god other people were there, though I know most of my camera roll doesn’t reflect that. I had plenty of opportunity to wander the farm and the marsh and their private bay and beach. I had many thoughts and ruminations. I had much to let sort, with no effort involved, in the weird reaches of the brain that want to categorize everything.
But no. Not this time, brain. This time it gets to shift and move on its own, and find it’s own place to fold and tuck into. Let’s watch it instead of folding the mental laundry ourselves, mmkay?
It did that thing. And it all worked out. And it felt very 1880s, the place and all the wandering about and thinking, that I did.
I’ll take it.
I also got out on the water again, which was amazing, frankly.
It is my middle daughter’s boyfriend’s family beach house/farm (that’s a mouthful of a description)- and his dad helped me get the boat out to the beach and launched- very nice. He also, in spite of my assurance that I have THOUSANDS of HOURS on the water, and did the Water Marathon river race that one time… and in spite of the fact that the bay doesn’t even get deeper than 5 and a half feet… sat down on the picnic table on their beach and watched me… to chaperone, I guess?
So like… this would not hold. I wanted privacy and solitude and being able to experience a kayak again after the death of my husband who introduced me to it and did this thing with me for decades.
This was for me alone, this moment.
I kept looking back to see if he’d left yet… nope. So what did I do? I just busted out some river race level paddling, got up some serious speed, and booked it around the point where he couldn’t see me till he gave up and packed it in.
I very clearly told him not to wait for me. I guess he’s not used to non-helpless women or people? Worried about liability insurance? Thought I’d only be out for 5 minutes? Something.
Whatever.
I solved it. I was the one with the boat and the paddle, you know?
And then I was able to be alone on the water. With the wind and the waves and the bald eagles wheeling around. I sat back and I meditated some, or prayed (who even knows which to call it) and then tooled around the bay /world on my own for the next hour/rest of my life.
I am capable of finding beauty and being in the world and going out and grabbing it while I still can. This is a good reminder- to still do the things. To do the things.
So I did the things. It felt so good to hold a paddle again. And to be alive in the world.
Very Mary Oliver.
It was good.
I also, almost the second we got out there, wanted to paint again. So, while in town, I got a watercolor set and turns out all the kids/teenagers also wanted to paint… so it became this great little evening activity we all did together.
Eh. Not how I make my living so it’s fine.
Fun was had by all though, so that’s the important part. Also fun to see how different everyone’s subject matter and style was.
Was it fun? Wait. Is that the right word? Let me think about this.
It’s so weird. I remember how after Lucas died I lost all my ability to read body signals. Hunger? Thirst? They just didn’t even register. Emotions too- I lost, for a long time, the ability to know what exactly I was feeling.
So now I’m like, hyper-analyzing and struggling a bit still to recognize if the right word to use here is “fun” or if the word is “enjoyable”.
Hmmm.
Enjoyable wins.
Also enjoyable was when we went into town and we had amazing ice-cream, popped in some interesting shops, and met many cute puppies.
Everybody out there had puppies, seems like. But holy hell was the miniature Australian cattle dog a high point.
Not one braincell, though. Look at that loading screen of a face.
Sure was cute though.
Bought myself an early birthday gift too. As I told my cousin later- you can still be a badass while dressed like Ms. Frizzle, I swear.
It’s good to be back though.
In spite of the laundry.
Let’s get disjointed here. And hop around- as I always do.
Here in Texas (same everywhere?) It’s gladiolus season. So I bought flowers when we got back.
Too big! Too garish! Too bright! Weirdly associated pretty exclusively with funeral flowers and the 80s!
I loooove them.
They’re also only $4 a bundle for that whole bunch right now.
Enjoy them while you can I say! For soon the season is over! ~ominous~
I’m second guessing my own writing lately. Sigh… ’tis a phase.
Friday writing nights haven’t been going great for a couple of weeks now. So that’s not fun at ALL.
I let it lie fallow for a couple weeks and then picked it back up and god it all feels like bullshit now. I’m not sure what happened, but I do know pushing through is the solve. I am trying. I’ll get it back. But it is frustrating.
Is it the subject matter? Why does it feel untruthful all of the sudden? I think, maybe, I became too aware of some nebulous potential audience, and I have GOT to get back to just writing for me. I think that’s it.
It’s a struggle though- and perhaps, it’s indicative on if I’m doing that with my life as well. It has been very much a few weeks of putting myself aside, working towards the greater good, having grace when I want to tell someone they’re being an asshole… and not crying when I want to cry. I may have locked myself away to make it through countless small dramas and that funeral receiving line shaking hands to Lucas singing. I bet I need to unlock myself. That’s probably just it.
The damage we do to ourselves being polite, sometimes.
There was a cost. There always is.
I’ll work on it.
Anyway.
In other less heavy news, the covers on a couple of things I have around the house was starting to bother me.
The cover of an eyeshadow pallet I really like started to bubble and peel and flake off. And the box for a set of oracle cards I’d gotten recently had THE LAMEST COVER- omg. Both interfered with the enjoyment I had for the inside of both products.
Alright. I own these things, I can do what I want with them- no need to be annoyed every time I look at them.
Do I paint them? No. Not this time. No I decided on stickers.
So I got this sticker book on a whim.
That cat loves a book, lemme tell you- mostly for biting corner purposes.
Sticker book found here.
They did turn out great, if I do say so!
So much better. I like the eyeshadow pallet (left) much more. But the other is much improved as well.
The rest of the stickers in the book got passed off to the 9 year old.
I have sung the praises of these journals before, but let me do it again.
The glide of a pen over the paper is my fav, and the covers are quality.
I have one I use as my dream journal. One I write out findings from various meditations and tarot readings in. (WHAT.) And one I use as my nightly writing to Lucas.
The one in that picture is now the third one I’ve gotten for that last purpose. It helps me prepare to sleep, and is not filled with howling pain (some of that first one though. Woof.) so I don’t worry about leaving them around and the girls finding them- should I get hit by a bus tomorrow. BUT. What the hell do I DO with them?!?
I don’t ever want to reread these. I don’t want the girls to read them even though I know they won’t be scarred or anything by them… but like damn! That’s a lot of words, you know?
I kept a diary though high school- both my brother and Mom read it regularly, I know, from things they said. When I found this out I took it on a walk (tucked into the back of my shorts so they wouldn’t see) and threw it away in a random trash can downtown to keep it away from them. I hope they both kept looking for it and thinking I’d finally gotten the upper hand, I really do. And in a way I guess I did. Not one tiny corner of existence I could carve out as mine and have privacy in? FINE.
Is that what I should do now? Discard them? Or burn them?
I just don’t know. That seems unappreciative to the journals themselves as I found so much healing in the writing, but good god keeping them on a shelf seems so weird to me.
What do you do with your journals? I am legitimately interested in how others handle this.
In other, other news- my oldest turned 19 this past week. And she did so far away from us, on a trip again to New York City.
She was somewhere out in all of that, earlier this week.
I, in fact, loved this. For her and to stand on this side of it and watch it as her mother.
We don’t raise children to be glued to our sides, after all. We raise them to go out and be people in the world- and that’s exactly what she was doing out there. Forming her own bonds with people I love, seeing new things, and falling in love with new places all on her own.
It made me happy.
And the only sadness was realizing this was the second birthday she’d done without her dad with her. Near on 1/10 of her birthdays now had been without him- which seems an impossibility… and yet the math doesn’t lie. And that percentage will just keep getting smaller and smaller as she gets older. How sad. How truly sad for both of them and all of us.
Anyway.
That thought hit me while she was out there, and it made me sad for a couple of days. But that’s okay. Some things are sad.
I picked her up from the airport late at night, a few days ago, and she was tired and so full of life she was glowing, and you love to see it, as a parent. And especially as a parent to grieving kids.
And we had her birthday dinner a day after she got back and it was good.
And now she’s 19- that little baby with the bobcat ears who made us parents, way back in the day.
Look at that, will ya? Life does find a way.
the something garden 