It has been sooooo humid the last few days and it evidently got cool-ish enough overnight that it was foggy when I went for a walk this morning. At first I thought that a breeze had blown litter all over the lawn but when I got closer I saw that it was spiderwebs covered with dew. I thought it looked like tiny trampolines scattered over the grass. Cool.
As I was leaving to meet ACJ to write for a while the Hummingbird zoomed to the feeder and I managed to snap one decent shot. She moves so fast and barely stops so I have to be speedy too.
This is the other basket of lantana, blooming all pink and yellow. My grandma planted lantana and I always loved the colors and the way the blossoms look like Barbie bouquets. In fact, I'm certain that I picked one (with permission, of course) for that purpose more than once.
Speaking of writing, I kept working on the outline/timeline this afternoon and discovered another hole in the story. Arrrgh. When I realized the problem my well-ordered outline broke down completely and I started making notes and drawing arrows all over my pages. It was great to have ACJ to talk things out with, to bounce ideas off of. It made me glad that I hadn't tried to pitch the manuscript to an agent in Madison in April.
This evening, after I made the slaw for tomorrow, I finished the June Seaman's Cowl. I just need to weave in the tails. Even though I fell off track yesterday and knitted that dishcloth, I'm determined to get the Afterthought Everything Socks done before I plunge into another project. Really. I mean it. Well, maybe.
03 July--Barbara Malcolm, Horizon.
Canned carols
drooled from the overhead speakers as I stood in Merricks’ grocery store
looking at the baking supplies, not at all motivated to buy what I needed to
make my traditional gingerbread houses.
It felt too early to start thinking about Christmas. We’d had a warm autumn; I hadn’t pulled out
my winter clothes and I was still wearing my corduroy jacket. It hadn’t even snowed but Frosty the
Snowman was playing in the aisles.
I have always
liked Christmas. Every year, I spent
days planning, baking, decorating, wrapping, and mailing. The holiday season passed in a blur of
activities. Then New Year’s Day arrived
and I would feel like I had just emerged from a coma. The season had come and gone, and I had
missed it. Missed it in the swirl of
preparations and expectations—my family’s and mine. On second thought, maybe I didn’t like
Christmas all that much.
Standing in the
baking aisle, sweating in my jacket, I thought about changing how I celebrated
Christmas. Not exhaust myself baking and
skip dragging all the old, bedraggled ornaments out of the attic and putting
them in the same tired places. Maybe I’d
find myself one of those aluminum trees and twist lights around the branches or
make strings of beads to drape over it or maybe feathers. Maybe I’d buy cookies already decorated and
pre-made candy and ship them off to the kids.
They probably wouldn’t notice. I
thought about getting some cinnamon-scented potpourri and fooling people into
thinking I’d been baking when I was really buying. I could check the phone book to find a swank
bakery in Simpson that sold cookies and things that tasted homemade. I contemplated sending for one of those
gingerbread house kits you see on late night television, slapping it together,
and passing it off as homemade. No one
ever eats them anyway. Those things are
a lot of bother, all for show. I could
probably paint cardboard brown, use those tubes of icing from the store, and
stick a few gumdrops and peppermints on it and no one would be the wiser. This was sounding better and better--less
fuss and a whole lot less mess.
I was awakened
from my reverie by a deep voice. “Good
morning, Mrs. Logan. Planning your
Christmas baking?” It was that darned
Abel Baker. I was convinced that he’d
been following me ever since I bumped into him at the garden center months ago.
“Good
morning, Mr. Baker. Yes, I just need a
few things. Have a nice day.” I blindly threw some sugar and flour into my
cart and left the aisle.
But when I got
home, there was a letter from my grandson, David. “I can’t wait to see the gingerbread house
you make this year, Grandma,” he wrote.
“Remember you said you’d make a castle? I have a knight on a horse you can
borrow.” Damn. How could I disappoint that little face? I’d have to make one gingerbread house, but
only one.
One year ago today I moved Durwood into a nursing home for his safety and my sanity. I reread my journal entries for this time last year and wonder how I managed to keep him here as long as I did. I know that getting through the year of "first ... without him" isn't a guarantee that mourning will end but those dates feel like land mines. I really appreciate friends and family who tolerate me talking about him. It helps a lot. Thanks.
--Barbara
1 comment:
Of course you think and talk about him. I've never understood it when people would avoid saying a loved one's name after they died. You can't just let them go like that! Always in our hearts and with us in so many ways. You two were an inspiration to so many people -- still are!!!
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