Day 35. 10 small moments
1. Apricot bread and sliced bananas for her first breakfast. He makes us coffee. She douses herself and her high chair in water because apparently all sippy cups just laugh at me.
2. He fries me up an egg and I have it with leftover roasted potatoes and green beans from our neighbor’s garden. It’s such a delicious breakfast, but I’m really only eating it as a precursor to my downing three Advil.
3. I crawl back to bed with a heating pad on the full-boogie setting. I sometimes fantasize longingly for menopause, but my older friends just shake their heads at my naïveté.
4. The shiny new John Deere is a toy for the entire family. I can’t help but love it while feeling overwhelmingly part of the Americana experience through the depths of my first generation bones. I wonder what it was like for them when they first moved here to the Midwest. To people who were super friendly but kept to themselves. Is it better today or worse? Would someone look at our child and still ask her (like they did many times with me) why her English is so perfect?
5. The echinacea finally have their turn at owning the garden.
6. I walk through the cabin making a mental list before they arrive with a truck to take away everything from an old church pew to extra bathroom tiles. I can’t wait to slough off what isn’t necessary. I feel lighter just thinking about it.
7. He sweeps the floor while tending the fire. He’s my champion when I’m surprised by a spider as we move a large screen out of the boat house. He tackles the job with his usual charming and positive spirit, and I can’t help but feel amazed that this lovely human is our son.
8. First we organize the birch limbs that we cut a week ago (collateral damage from a rapid and violent storm). The three of us work together to figure out which limbs would work best where. The walls of the clubhouse start forming before our eyes. Memory making.
9. She has a runny nose, and she feels a little warm. How is this possible when we’ve basically been in isolation at the cabin?
10. She shares the devastating news about the boating accident. I can’t imagine the grief of their parents. Impossible to overcome. I am a stranger to them, but the news still leaves a cold and metallic prickling sensation running through me. I’ve become more accustomed to this sensation as I’ve become older. I know this feeling now: it is Anxiety of the unknown. Anxiety about things out of your control. Anxiety about how the most important treasures in your life can be taken away in an instant.
