Blog Post Love
I found this lovely post from a fellow blogger that I just had to share. Check out her blog at Hannah, just breath... The imagery is so beautiful that I fell in love with her style of writing. Take a gander...
I just want to splash through puddles all day long.
My father used to make my sisters and me breakfast every morning before school. It was his time with us, while my mother stayed burrowed beneath the covers in the quiet darkness of their bedroom. He’d whip together pancakes or eggs and bacon, sometimes cinnamon buns, sometimes waffles or oatmeal. Always a tall glass of orange juice, oftentimes a plate of grapes or sliced bananas, and, once a year, homemade doughnuts.
We’d stumble downstairs one by one and fall into our seats at the table, red-eyed and rumbling to get out the door to school, and my father, God love him, would quickly place steaming plates or bowls before us and give the weather forecast and ask questions about the day ahead.
What I remember most from those mornings, though, is the songs he played. John Denver, Juice Newton, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, perhaps some Mozart or Bach. This music alerted me to the day’s arrival long before the rich smell of coffee or the salty sting of bacon frying in the cast iron skillet on the stove. It was always the music that woke me, fully.
I thought of those long-ago days, and of my father, and of Stoneyway when I was a child, as I sped into work this morning. Juice Newton’s “Angel of the Morning” shuffled its way onto my stereo, and suddenly, I was back in my parent’s kitchen, sitting at the wobbly oak table, and insisting Juice was saying, “Just brush my teeth before you leave me, baby!”
My parents howled when I first asked them about this lyric—I didn’t understand it. Why would Juice need someone to brush her teeth for her?! Was she not able to do so herself?! How strange! Was Juice okay?!
Of course, eventually, I figured out that she was really saying, “Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby!”
Ohh, the innocence of childhood.
It is raining again this morning. I always think of my father when it rains—he has never let a few showers stop him from gardening or working on the house or getting a little muddy. Usually, I love a good downpour, too, but after last night’s slog home following a thick, heavy, and difficult yoga class, and given the mountain of work I must complete before the weekend, and considering my scattered thoughts, today’s gray, wet skies aren’t helping much. Where are the blue skies hiding when you need them?
As I made my breakfast here at work, as I stood in the bright, sterile kitchen of my office, washing off grapes and brewing coffee, envisioning my to-do list, feeling the stress and anxiety growing, I thought of my father again. I missed him, suddenly and sharply. A surprise batch of hot tears bubbled up in my eyes.
In my distraction, in my clumsiness, I dropped a handful of grapes on the tiled floor.
And then, because it’s a watery, slick world out there today, and because my father appreciates imagination and silliness, and because I stood there feeling like a small and frightened child, in need of strong arms and reassurances, I toyed, for just a brief moment, with the idea of stomping all over those grapes, like a child splashing through rain puddles, muddying herself, if only for a moment, before being taken inside again, and rinsed clean.
I just want to splash through puddles all day long.
My father used to make my sisters and me breakfast every morning before school. It was his time with us, while my mother stayed burrowed beneath the covers in the quiet darkness of their bedroom. He’d whip together pancakes or eggs and bacon, sometimes cinnamon buns, sometimes waffles or oatmeal. Always a tall glass of orange juice, oftentimes a plate of grapes or sliced bananas, and, once a year, homemade doughnuts.
We’d stumble downstairs one by one and fall into our seats at the table, red-eyed and rumbling to get out the door to school, and my father, God love him, would quickly place steaming plates or bowls before us and give the weather forecast and ask questions about the day ahead.
What I remember most from those mornings, though, is the songs he played. John Denver, Juice Newton, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, perhaps some Mozart or Bach. This music alerted me to the day’s arrival long before the rich smell of coffee or the salty sting of bacon frying in the cast iron skillet on the stove. It was always the music that woke me, fully.
I thought of those long-ago days, and of my father, and of Stoneyway when I was a child, as I sped into work this morning. Juice Newton’s “Angel of the Morning” shuffled its way onto my stereo, and suddenly, I was back in my parent’s kitchen, sitting at the wobbly oak table, and insisting Juice was saying, “Just brush my teeth before you leave me, baby!”
My parents howled when I first asked them about this lyric—I didn’t understand it. Why would Juice need someone to brush her teeth for her?! Was she not able to do so herself?! How strange! Was Juice okay?!
Of course, eventually, I figured out that she was really saying, “Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby!”
Ohh, the innocence of childhood.
It is raining again this morning. I always think of my father when it rains—he has never let a few showers stop him from gardening or working on the house or getting a little muddy. Usually, I love a good downpour, too, but after last night’s slog home following a thick, heavy, and difficult yoga class, and given the mountain of work I must complete before the weekend, and considering my scattered thoughts, today’s gray, wet skies aren’t helping much. Where are the blue skies hiding when you need them?
As I made my breakfast here at work, as I stood in the bright, sterile kitchen of my office, washing off grapes and brewing coffee, envisioning my to-do list, feeling the stress and anxiety growing, I thought of my father again. I missed him, suddenly and sharply. A surprise batch of hot tears bubbled up in my eyes.
In my distraction, in my clumsiness, I dropped a handful of grapes on the tiled floor.
And then, because it’s a watery, slick world out there today, and because my father appreciates imagination and silliness, and because I stood there feeling like a small and frightened child, in need of strong arms and reassurances, I toyed, for just a brief moment, with the idea of stomping all over those grapes, like a child splashing through rain puddles, muddying herself, if only for a moment, before being taken inside again, and rinsed clean.
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