The plums are back. This year there was a finch nest in one of the trees but it has been abandoned- think a predatory bird probably got the two eggs. :(
Set scene: I am lying here in a tank top(it's pretty long) and my boyshorts, on my 'princess' bed(my collection of a billion pillows and cushy comforters), the window-thrown wide open about three feet away, curtains pulled back, golden last bit of sun streaming in and the wind just breezing over me. I've got my awesome Philips 'The Stretch' headphones on listening to my "Living My Life" mix- current song Good Life by OneRepublic and the Katherine McPhee version of "Brighter Than the Sun" from SMASH!.
I'm in one of those moods where I want to just blast my music, put on sunglasses and dance in my underwear on the bed. (I actually broke a bed doing this, so please don't try at home unless you want a new bed).
The weekend was a bit rough- there was a memorial for Dean's uncle on Saturday afternoon/evening up in Grass Valley. Ave wasn't feeling well so I stayed with her because six hours in a car with a sick kid is just miserable. I spent a considerable amount of time trying to verify some tax crap. The California Franchise Tax Board has made me understand others in our society who might be labelled psychopathic. Dealing with this agency could definately cause psycopathy in many individuals.
Avery left for Girl Scout Camp and she was incredibly excited for her week away from home.
I had a friend who ended our friendship this weekend. That's okay.
I've learned that the people who really matter stay through thick and thin. I've learned that a good friend is one who makes you a better person, makes you want to be a better person, not less of one. They call you on your shit and you do the same but it comes from a place of loving and understanding. Mostly, I am sad about losing a connection with someone and yet one door never closes without another opening. On Sunday, a very dear friend dropped in and we laughed and cried a little (she even brought me Starbucks!). All the loss we've suffered over the years- hers(which is for her to tell) and mine- losing the mother I knew to a brain tumor when I was 13 years old(she lived but was never the same, which I feel guilty for even thinking or saying this but it is almost worse in some ways), Dean's dad's accident that left him paralyzed from the chest down, watching family that we love lose people they love... It has been a rought year for that. Yet, somehow that loss is like the golden key. It turns the lock to true joy, to finding silver linings, to keep putting one foot in front of the other until the sun comes out again, even if for only a glimpse, it is somehow our proof that life goes on. And there are people out there that I know who will wake or sleep under the same sky tonight that would come if I needed them. There is a lesson here, too, though, that this life is, in so many ways, an individual journey.
People come and go. When I got the phone call that my grandmother had died, I felt as if my heart had shattered into a million pieces. It still makes me cry to think of her, to think of all the things I would say to her if I had another day with her or even 5 more minutes with her. It is almost indescribable, palpable, that feeling in your chest of your heart breaking. I've been so lucky to find that it is not only pain that breaks us, our hearts are meant to change I think. I felt it again when I held Viola, and then Avery for the first time, when Dean and I said "I do" under the big tree in our backyard at our house in Seattle. There are just some people- Anne Shirley might call them kindred spirits- who remind me that there are so many ways for a heart to break and be put back together again.
There is some Cosmic balance to this universe, though, no matter what anyone else believes. I believe. God? Something else? But each day is a miracle. When Viola was born I would put her to sleep for her too brief nap at night and whisper to God, "If you are there, and you hear me- just give me one more day with her." But I'm greedy now and I wish it would never end.
But it all ends. Everything is temporary. So, I take back what I said. Turn your music up. Dance on your bed in your undies. Break your bed. It's just a bed. Celebrate the miracle of another day, of breezes fluttering at the curtains, the smell of night-blooming-jasmine in the air, the sun setting in a glory that we get to witness daily yet rarely appreciate, a sky full of stars and a heart beating in your chest that will break like glass(sometimes violently and quickly, sometimes slowly and quietly) but mend again, maybe changed- I hope for you- many times in your life.
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