"For the first time in my life then, and just for a few seconds, I was able to see Doc Homer as someone I felt sorry for. It was a turning point for me, one of those instants of freakishly clear sight when you understand that your parent might have taken entirely the wrong road in life, even if that road includes your own existence. I pitied Doc Homer for his slavish self-sufficiency. For standing Hallie and me in the kitchen and inspecting us like a general, not for crooked hems so much as for signs of the weakness of our age: the lipstick hidden in a book satchel, the smoldering wish to be like everyone else. Being like no one else, being alone, was the central ethic of his life. Mine too, to some extent, not by choice but by default. My father, the only real candidate for center of my universe, was content to sail his private sea and leave me on my own. I still held that against him. I hadn't thought before about how self-sufficiency could turn on you in old age or sickness. The captain was going down with his ship. He was just a man, becoming a child."

Wednesday

green tea with honey
wishing on dandelion fluff
thinking about Michelle Obama's fantastic speech (and fantastic biceps)
thinking bubble baths should be a daily thing
rereading e. e. cumming's
marveling at the shady characters visiting the DMV
eating dark chocolate with almonds and sea salt
wearing my hair in this style
managing a little boy's first-grade-anxiety tears
thinking of camping but settling for porch sitting and s'mores
running the thought of college through my brain
realizing i am stranger than most others i know

lately, in pictures.

growing boy, growing mother.

Hayden has started first grade. For the first time in six years there is this vast expanse of time in my days, a little over 6 hours stretched out before me, blank. I'd been looking forward to this all summer, in desperate need of space and quiet, but I now find that there is almost too much space, too much quiet.

What I just expressed is obviously ridiculous in some sense. There are busy mother's out there, far busier than I, who'd kill for just one day a week that's like mine. I am a young woman with no job or career strapping me down, freshly childless for almost half the day. I can fill these hours any way I please. And maybe therein lies the source of my discontent, not really knowing what to fill these hours with.

It's not as if I lack things to do--there is so much cleaning, and after the cleaning it's time to consider what we're having for dinner, and after that there is running or yoga, and the garden to tend because the tomato plants are falling over, and phone calls to return that I've ignored for days, mounds of laundry and letters to send out and errands to run. I have chores, to be sure. But I wonder if perhaps my days lack any real purpose.

I remember reading something somewhere, about the Buddhists and how they believe that if you are doing what you are doing with beauty and intention, with all of your heart, then are you are living with purpose, whether it's shelving library books or cashiering at the gas station or being President of the United States. Maybe that's true. I know I'd really like to think it is. Maybe scrubbing the goop off a plate is a sort of Zen exercise.

I've prayed about my place in life for a long time now. I haven't received any bits of great wisdom, at least, none that I'm aware of. Maybe God is helping me by not helping me. Maybe I am exactly where I belong, right now, today.

I guess you just do your best with what you have, where you are. Wash the pan. Study. Drink your coffee. Do the laundry. Run in the woods. Hold your son. Lather, rinse, repeat. And if an opportunity does present itself, waving its arms at me, trying to get me to notice it, I have to be aware, I can't forget that opportunity wears many, many costumes.

in recent days.

Hayden has been "helping" a lot around the house, most especially when copious amounts of dish soap bubbles are involved. He started his first day of first grade today, and came out the doors a mixture of proud and relieved.

There are tomatoes coming out of the garden every single day. Right now I'm a bit obsessed with toasted homemade bread, spread with butter and topped with ripe tomatoes, sea salt, and pepper.

I've been playing around with watercolors and acrylics again, but I can't seem to get into any project enough to finish it. The motivation is definitely lacking. Right now, my pace is more "let's embroider lazy daisies on our clothes while we watch Sideways for the 50,000 time".

Also in the news (and not photographed):

- I've been, with a great amount of caution, dancing again. Slowly, hesitantly, but I am trying. I can't seem to ever truly live without it. It is what makes up such a big part of me.

- There are at least a dozen mosquito bites on my legs. Those fuckers suck. *harharhar*

- I have been up to my elbows in housework lately, mostly by choice. I feel this urge to push all unnecessary things out the door. Possibly to make room for more found paper and fabric. Maybe.

- Dark chocolate with raspberries, people. Square after square. In my belly.

This is what I found this morning, stuck to my computer monitor:

I had to sit down and cry a little bit over that. Husband has definitely not been around much lately--work, travel, then more work and more travel. And while I like the routine that Hayden and I are able to get into when Daddy isn't around, I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss his help or even just his masculine presence around the house. But time apart is good, right? Yes. At least, some and not too much. Maybe it helps us to take each other less for granted, but that's probably debatable.

I am so excited for fall, preparing for it in small ways. I've been harvesting my lavender every week or so, and drying it out. I have almost a whole mason jar full of the tiny, dark purple buds. I've also put up a jar each of rosemary and basil vinegar, which I like to use not only in the kitchen, but as a toner for the skin. The jars make me happy, as I line them up on the pantry shelf, full of wonderfully mysterious contents. I want to blend some of my own tea's this year, and stitch up some little mesh bags for my mints, roses, and fruit peels.

I also dumped out my scrap box on my studio floor this past week, and took stock of what I've collected. I cut out all sorts of odd squares and rectangles and now I'm slowly piecing them together when I can find the time, usually late at night after Hayden has gone to bed. I'm hoping I have enough to make up a quilt, maybe something I can surprise V. with by Christmas (at the latest).

I've really been craving a church recently. It isn't religion that I want so much as a community, and others that I can talk quietly about God with, without it seeming odd. I also think that Hayden might benefit from it, from being around other children year-round, rather then only during the school year. I have to laugh at myself...I've grown into such a hermit. I hardly have the confidence to just walk into a church where I don't know a single person. And to think I used to do things like that all the time.

Tonight: green tea and cookies, a late-evening walk with the boy, maybe a little ballet or yoga in the quiet.

8 a.m.

We like to dork it up early around here.