June 3, 2003
When I’m visiting my daughter and son-in-law, I sleep on their couch, and then when everyone gets up at 6:30 a.m., I take my pillow and blanket into their bedroom and snooze for another couple of hours. By the time I get up, my son-in-law has gone to work and I have another hour or so to play with my grandson and chat with my daughter before they go in for their morning naps.
And then I take advantage of what I don’t have otherwise – not just the solitude, but also the calming space that surrounds that solitude. This was my view early this morning from the hammock/chair on the deck at my daughter’s – on the second floor, nestled among old leafy tree limbs, drifting in an out of the dappled light as I drank my tea and rocked, rocked, and daydreamed about what it would be like to have this kind of place, this kind of time in this kind of place, every day.
Today, after lunch, the three of us went out and ran errands, taking a bus out to the animal hospital to buy the special cat food for their aging feline. As we walk into the building, we see an old, shaggy dog with bandages around a terribly swollen front leg being lifted onto a gurney. A woman is crying. I look at my daughter and see her empathetic eyes filling with tears.
I marvel at how my daughter manages getting on the bus with the folding stroller, and the diaper bag, and the baby. She’s used to public transportation, since she doesn’t drive; they have always lived near the “T” and near bus lines. Otherwise they walk. Today I leave my car parked and travel with her. I carry the cat food as we make the half-hour walk back.
I like having a town center close by where you can stroll from hardware store to drug store to grocer’s, picking up the things you need, stopping to chat with people you see often on the street running the same kinds of errands. I like walking up and down winding tree-lined streets looking at the old restored Victorian homes that I’ll never be able to afford. My daughter and I walk and talk and take turns pushing the stroller.
When they go in for their afternoon nap, I pack up my car and leave. And so now I’m back where I live – which I can’t really call “home.” Someday I will again have a space that will feel like home. But not yet.
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Old Comments (5)
myrln on 03 Jun 2003
I C(atc)hing
Because the angles are right --
morning sun to frozen snow cover,
frozen snow cover to me --
sun, snow, eyes
triangulate
a first-ever perception:
every tiny snow crystal
becomes its own prism,
shifting glints of bluegreenorangered
carpeting the white expanse.
Sometimes
seeing is a matter
only
of what catches your eye
-- inner or outer --
and the angle between your self
and the world.
myrln on 03 Jun 2003
2.
First and Last
On the first morning
of the first day ever,
the first eyes opened
-- light! --
and for the first time saw.
And living began.
(goldsunblueskybrownearthclearwater)
On the last evening
of the last night ever,
the first eyes closed
-- dark! --
for the last time.
And living ended.
(????)
Make every morning
the first.
Elaine on 04 Jun 2003
Yeah. I have to let myself keep seeing.
Kate S. on 11 Jun 2003
That was so beautiful, Elaine. I am so glad you got to rock and sip tea and daydream. What a perfect moment.
dzwonki polifoniczne on 14 Jun 2004
Hmmmmm interesting !!!