Don't fill up each day. Live it.


Taking a bit of stock in my day to day this windy Monday. November is here, October breezing in and out with all her bits of color and mayhem. I enjoyed October with abandon this year because I decided I would. Normally I would have been whooshing here and there to soccer games, but no, I was firmly planted in my seat at the kitchen table typing away. I hung up Jack O Lantern faces, set around glittery skulls, and made a dummy to sit on the porch for the season. I brought him in this morning, what with his torn pants and bony face, as his season is done. I carved pumpkins and lit them every evening and watched burn merrily. I pitched my squashed and frozen Jacko into the garden this morning and prepare for the next thing.
I love this stage of my life. 
The house is quiet.
I'm doing ME. 

The words I need to fill up the spaces are coming fast and furious and I embrace them and hug them close. I have to do me because no one else will and I don't want her to disappear into the thin seams of life, always awaiting the next thing to come to pass.
 No, waiting isn't an option so I've slashed open the veins and let the words and phrases pour our. Spill out voraciously so that I can become empty of them, so they can breathe and stir about - simmering in a rich stew of longing and having. The longings, which come so often as younger versions of ourselves, reaching and conforming and not yet seeing who we are as women. I find the having to be satisfying and satiating, I'm not reaching into the abyss of small children and toys scattered about. It's such a change of trying to find yourself in the morass of age and youth and the needs of a family young and wanting. 

Love you.
Love your wrinkles that tell a story.

I can't say the same for gray hair because I'm not sure that I will ever let those appear until I'm so old that all of a sudden it will be a breath of fresh air not to paint and primp them into order every month or so. For now they will be a wicked red resting in a nest of dark brown, or a tint of caramel when the months are warm and sun-drenched.
  Why not? Why let them go gray and feel yourself aged? Some can embrace it, but not me. My husband is one of those that ages like a fine wine, falling deeper into his features more handsome than ever. Gray would only make me feel like someone else, so I paint....and will continue to do so. 

I can feel the air changing as we turned our clocks back and in doing so turned our faces towards the holiday season. Heavy sigh. I love the holidays but I don't love the rush. I'm deciding to take each day of November and enjoy the march to Thanksgiving - not Christmas. We have plenty of time for that and all the anxieties and rush that comes with it. For now I can see ahead several weeks and know that my KIDS will be coming home, if even for a few days to eat turkey and stuffing. To know the warmth of home and fill their bellies with more than just food. I'm counting those days down. One, two, three...

Enjoy today.
Enjoy tomorrow.
In fact, enjoy tonight when your loved ones come home.
Take the time to kiss them home.
Snuggle on the couch.
And embrace the morning when the cold dawn freezes the tip of your nose.
Each moment is here. In the now.











Comments

SassyPatty said…
Ahhh well said...you da bomb!

Popular posts from this blog

Grace in the madness of mothering

We are Ghosts