This Fall

I haven’t written anything in a long stretch. It wasn’t intended, never is, the blinking cursor abandoned for house projects such as removing bathroom wallpaper and creating long over-due vacation photo books. This afternoon, I gave up an attempt at cleaning out Lily’s closet to play Scrambled States with Daisy.  

Setting aside productivity; saying yes to something lovely.

On my nightstand and in my earbuds:

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

Two Steps Forward by Graeme Simsion

I, Eliza Hamilton by Susan Halloway Scott

The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wildler

The House at Pooh’s Corner by A. A. Milne

Dante Club by Matthew Pearl

This past month. Spontaneous playdates. Soccer games. Frozen yogurt dates. Birthday celebrations. Field trips. Long hikes with good friends. Christmas songs practiced for the upcoming piano recital. Afternoon runs.

This past week. Halloween costumes strewn about the playroom. School parades. Sugar highs and sugar crashes. Dinner with friends. Roasted vegetables, hardy soups and lots of salads. After school bike rides and evening board games.

The past twenty-four hours. A quick trip to my hometown to kiss cheeks of my first church family. Laughing and crying while listening to eulogies. Spotting familiar faces – old pastors, long-ago friends – and remembering moments of my youth that had fallen to the recesses of my brain. Listening to old memories. Margaritas’ and delicious enchiladas.

           

Scrawled in my planner, from A.A. Milne: And by and by Christopher Robin came to the end of things, and he was silent, and he sat there, looking out over the world, just wishing it wouldn’t stop.