Everywhere I look there are works-in-progress.
I had coffee and plugged the girls into a movie so that I could hear the sound of nothing for a few minutes. The plants are in the shower.
What brings peace?
It took all day to release the crunchy place in my forehead and now, here I sit, on the anti-fatigue kitchen mat in the way of a good cross-breeze and I seem to need my fingers to move along these keys. I think I am meditating.
Yesterday was my birthday. The night before, while on the phone with my parents, I said, I can’t believe I’m going to be 43! You’re not, said Brendan. You’re going to be 42.
Right.
I’ve never been good with numbers.
It does, also, seem like wishful thinking to fast-forward to a year from now. Past the wondering and the what about school?! nail-biting and the push towards liberation and progress towards a whole new world. Imagine next June. I would like to be able to imagine it.
So I am not 43, I am 42, firmly in this year or whatever it is, that chugs along and makes us wait and speeds us up to places we never thought we’d see. This week, I thought, we’re so lucky to be alive right now. It was a quick feeling. That’s how they come and go.
I hear the sirens, the helicopters, all for different reasons. I see the pain, feel the anger, run my fingers over the cover of my New Yorker magazine while lying in bed.
I turn my head to the right: rainbow flag, two mangos, rosemary grown from seed, begonia from Renata, upside down mugwort.
I turn my head to the left: round table, fat cat, painted birthday sign, a pile of apricots in a blue ceramic bowl, lilac scrunchie.
I breathe in the year to come.
I breathe in the year and let go.
I celebrate another year of life. Of living.