When I awoke this morning, the temperature hovered around 50 degrees, by 11 am snow fell curtain-like covering trees and lawns, by 4 pm the scenery was gaslighting me, telling me the snowfall had all been in my head. The temperature whispered, “It was real.”
I visited my OB/GYN today. When I entered, the waiting room brimmed with expectant parents, moms with just-walking infants exploring this new world and beleaguered parents (“The schools closed early I had to go get all of my children,” explained the woman in the business suit with her four pink-jacketed girls in tow.). Movement and energy buoyed the space and infused it with vitality. By the time I heard my name an hour later, the space was empty save another woman with an appointment after mine with the same physician. We seemed to share the same life-stage: no young children, no possibility of pregnancy, deep appreciation for stillness and silence.
After working out early in the day, I came home, enjoyed drinking chocolate, read a bit about the updated Whole30, then promptly took a nap.
A day full of opposites.
J and I worked downstairs for several hours preparing our basement for the arrival of our daughter and granddaughters on Wednesday. In a flurry of activity, we rearranged furniture, set up a TV, repacked or moved items we had unpacked and left strown across the beds. J cleaned the sheets and remade the beds, vacuumed the floor, dusted; I cleared out cobwebs and provided job oversite.
Then I came upstairs and put away more of my mother’s bells. I could see her in a gift shop, admiring the many souvenirs vying for her money. I imagined her reaching for some lovely, delicate trinket, commenting on how pretty it was, then turning it over to see the price. Her face fell a little, knowing the item too pricey for what money they had and then she turned to the other, mass-produced wares. She scanned them until she saw the graceful lines of porcelain. Picking a bell up, she shook it between her index and thumb and considered its tone as well as its message. “This will do,” she thought, “this will do.”
I’m in the place where the weather changes by the moment – bitter cold and gray to sunny bright and blue (though the temps just don’t feel as warm). It’s not a bad place to be, just a new one: jubilant and curious, aching with the inevitable passing. Another borderland, another edge, another horizon. Time and time again.
3/16/26
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