Boy home again

The first boy is a preacher, the second is a poet and the third is a screenwriter (in the making). Words seem to count a lot in our house.

Boy two came home this week after being on another continent for months and months. We weren't worried about him, really. Ok, we were worried. He gets lost on I-285 here so would he be ok speaking in a second languge, and learning a third while living in a very different culture? We didn't speak a lot of being worried, not wanting to show a lack of confidence in him, but it's what parents are sometimes.

Now he's come home and the sun has come out. Arriving on solstice, our poet is home. He's written music, and delights us with expressions from his other home. "Coffee without froth is like a wedding without flowers."

He's written a song, the title of which translates to "slowly slowly". It's an expression which affirms patience. In the song he says it's time to "start living, and owning what you know." It's made me think some more about owning what I know. Trying to live a little less in the reactive mode.

We used to say that we were rich, rich not in money but in boys. And hearing a song that sounds so wise from someone I birthed makes me feel very rich.

Winter coming

I dread fall.
After fall, winter always comes.
Beautiful leaves and a crispness to the air only slightly ameliorate the dread.

Fall means things are dying, and reminds me that I'm dying, too. It means months (I've already start counting them now - how many til April?) of never being warm enough - even during hot flashes my toes are still cold.

It doesn't help that the cliches about time moving faster as one ages are true. That's part of the dread. It makes me feel tired. Time has started to go so fast that it blurs into a "gotta get the tree up - gotta take the tree down" chore list.

I keep searching for the beauty in it.
I read essays on how we all need time to lie fallow just as the earth does. I marvel at the bone structure of trees that you can only see when they are laid bare by winter. But I'm cold, whiny and the Dar Williams song about February plays in my head.

The solstice will be soon, and then in another month the days will be lengthening. I don't wish for the time to come sooner cos that's wishing away even more of my life.

But I do wish for the daffodils of March and kite weather and the neon green of spring.

Here's a poem by Louise Gluck, from Averno (Farra, Starus and Giroux)

My friend the earth is bitter; I think
sunlight has failed her.
Bitter or weary, it is hard to say.