|
It’s quiet today. All of the kids on the street went back to school yesterday. There’s no yelling, no laughing, no street ball.
We have two new graduates on the street, and I wonder where they are this morning. One’s joining the army in a couple of months, and I wonder what’s going on in her mind. One is a talented young writer who’s been homeschooled, and I wonder if he’s going to dig into it, stay at home…what. I need to bake some cookies and give them all a word of courage.
Sometimes it’s hard to dream beyond what you can see in front of you.
Two advantages (often, anyways) of growing up an army brat were the “be all you can be” mentality and the lack of assumptions about where you’d end up. If you’ve got no hometown that you’ve always been in, then well, you need to find one. I think mine might be Nashville now, after twelve years, friendships grown deep into me, four gardens and three and a half years of marriage.
We went for a bike ride this morning, spurred on by the Olympic courage we’ve been watching on television. It was the two Americans in the lead, grabbing the gold and silver… I watered the plants, tucking Romas and grape and cherry tomatoes into my pockets. I walked back in to the smell of the granola I’d started baking before going outside. As I sit here typing, the house is blanketed in cinnamon, sesame oil, molasses and maple syrup. Quiet smells for a quiet morning. There’s the timer…
Seven more minutes on granola. Then we have a backup breakfast plan for the next month or two.
So, we’re off and going. Today I’m going to :
-Go treasure hunting. We’ve been out on the road with Over the Rhine (Kenny playing, me helping out and being a wife) and I tucked little bits of writing in my
notebooks along the way. I need to go find them and coax them into full-fledged whatever-they-ares: songs? stories? poems? You have to spend a little time to listen to them. I’ve also made a recent habit of writing in the margins of books. Not little notes, whole verses. Easier than finding paper mid-thought. So I need to gather the Kingsolver, N.T. Wright and Paris Review Interviews I’ve been working on and flip through.
-I think I may ride the bus to the downtown library. Sometimes a good place for thinking and writing.
-Aaand I need to finish sending an email to the mailing list to tell them that we’re giving away All Of My Friends for whomever would care to have it and share it. Good response thus far.
-And empty the dishwasher.
-And fold a load of laundry.
Yesterday, the daily chore things were higher up the list, and took over the day. Those things are so concrete and check-offable. Broken cell phone taken care of, check. Laundry folded, check. Email sent, check. Today they get a back seat. Making first. We’ll see about the other stuff. I find this harder. Because people ask what did you do? I don’t say “I grappled with this bit of a thought that I found while reading an interview, and tried to find the right sentence that would bring out what it evoked in me.” I tell them I made granola and cleaned house.
|
