On time and autumn and family and life
So I never update! And the pattern continues. But! Here's a bit of reflection inspired by (but not directly recounting) the past four months:
While frustrated that it's fall already up here in Erie County, Pennsylvania, I'm feeling the gears turning at an autumnal pace, and that means I can't deny the change of seasons. So a brief summer it is, then.
I've taken the habit of watching the pot in hopes i can draw out the year a bit. Connor is growing, growing, growing but I'm doing my best to pay attention to that, and it helps me feel like I'm actually here. He is doing well, by the way. Very curious, very willful. We noticed him using what we think was make-believe for the first time the other day (pretending to drink out of an old bottle he found, smacking his lips and offering the empty bottle to us to taste) and he's developing his skills as a deceit artist (hiding the bowl he was about to pour out of the bathtub behind him and sitting innocently when i peeked in).
We don't take enough pictures.
Keeping a garden helps pace the year, too, but it will help more when we're doing things on time. Next year: plant things in spring, not summer. A longer-than-usual winter made us skittish at putting things in the ground. Seeds know the difference between spring and summer, though, and some things will not fruit if it's too late in the year, regardless of nice weather.
Even so, it's nice having vegetables fresh from the garden. A few days ago we plucked corn from our own back yard and ate it for dinner. For some reason, home-grown corn is more significant than home-grown tomatoes. There's more symbolic permanance there. And we've been stealing blueberries from the vacant neighbor's yard, and look forward to filching their apples and pears soon.
Soon enough, too. Autumn keeps flitting through my brain--darkness and cloudy moons behind bare trees; rain-spattered, leaf-littered winds and woodsmoke--and i want to make apple bread and roast turkey. It's a different kind of loneliness being away from friends in the summer than in the fall. A different kind of empty hearth. We hosted some very good friends last weekend, and one night we just hung out, playing games and talking and baking things. It was really nice, feeling like people i care about are a normal part of my life. It took a few days to get that way, but i enjoyed it while it lasted.
The one hour per weekday i see Fuzzy is no help. He's my friend and love, and i miss him. We're both feeling strain and stagnation (not with each other but in general) and we don't even get a chance for conversation therapy.
I keep thinking we'll have more time in general when Connor gets a little older, but that's one of those things people "always" say. Now just to fold and stretch the time we do have.
Not that the time we do have ever will be long enough. I wonder how to discover what i may have learned in past lives so that i may not waste this one on lessons already taught.
So we're plugging through. We make slow steady improvements to the house and the yard and ourselves, and despite stress and money and lonesomeness, we're happy. Somehow. We're reading books and cooking things and playing in the dirt, and Jim can occasionally eke out time for hobbies and the house is not constantly a disaster. We are developing hypotheses on community and family and the cultural shifts that led us to our current location and society to its current situation. The exposition will not be available any time soon.
While frustrated that it's fall already up here in Erie County, Pennsylvania, I'm feeling the gears turning at an autumnal pace, and that means I can't deny the change of seasons. So a brief summer it is, then.
I've taken the habit of watching the pot in hopes i can draw out the year a bit. Connor is growing, growing, growing but I'm doing my best to pay attention to that, and it helps me feel like I'm actually here. He is doing well, by the way. Very curious, very willful. We noticed him using what we think was make-believe for the first time the other day (pretending to drink out of an old bottle he found, smacking his lips and offering the empty bottle to us to taste) and he's developing his skills as a deceit artist (hiding the bowl he was about to pour out of the bathtub behind him and sitting innocently when i peeked in).
We don't take enough pictures.
Keeping a garden helps pace the year, too, but it will help more when we're doing things on time. Next year: plant things in spring, not summer. A longer-than-usual winter made us skittish at putting things in the ground. Seeds know the difference between spring and summer, though, and some things will not fruit if it's too late in the year, regardless of nice weather.
Even so, it's nice having vegetables fresh from the garden. A few days ago we plucked corn from our own back yard and ate it for dinner. For some reason, home-grown corn is more significant than home-grown tomatoes. There's more symbolic permanance there. And we've been stealing blueberries from the vacant neighbor's yard, and look forward to filching their apples and pears soon.
Soon enough, too. Autumn keeps flitting through my brain--darkness and cloudy moons behind bare trees; rain-spattered, leaf-littered winds and woodsmoke--and i want to make apple bread and roast turkey. It's a different kind of loneliness being away from friends in the summer than in the fall. A different kind of empty hearth. We hosted some very good friends last weekend, and one night we just hung out, playing games and talking and baking things. It was really nice, feeling like people i care about are a normal part of my life. It took a few days to get that way, but i enjoyed it while it lasted.
The one hour per weekday i see Fuzzy is no help. He's my friend and love, and i miss him. We're both feeling strain and stagnation (not with each other but in general) and we don't even get a chance for conversation therapy.
I keep thinking we'll have more time in general when Connor gets a little older, but that's one of those things people "always" say. Now just to fold and stretch the time we do have.
Not that the time we do have ever will be long enough. I wonder how to discover what i may have learned in past lives so that i may not waste this one on lessons already taught.
So we're plugging through. We make slow steady improvements to the house and the yard and ourselves, and despite stress and money and lonesomeness, we're happy. Somehow. We're reading books and cooking things and playing in the dirt, and Jim can occasionally eke out time for hobbies and the house is not constantly a disaster. We are developing hypotheses on community and family and the cultural shifts that led us to our current location and society to its current situation. The exposition will not be available any time soon.