Cacophonous Morning

Maybe going to bed at 8:30 simply earns one a 5AM wake up call, but the insistent tweeting and chirping of dozens of birds on the other side of the window glass helps, too.

So here we are, May.

The landscape makes me believe we've been here longer than a visit.  The heavily blossomed red buds and crab apples that lined the streets when we arrived, leafed into green weeks ago.  The tulips, dogwoods, and azaleas have come and gone.  Now rhododendrons raise clustered blooms, and the poison ivy grows along the floor of the woods.  The leaves that shush the world on windy days have darker broader faces -- the landscape is moving into summer.

We continue to find our way, mostly through ourselves, to be patient and allow for unexpected soft spots, and to figure out what we need.  Today Ben and his high school friends are having a "work from home day" -- all coming over here to work in the basement, probably tell a lot of stories, and crack open beers at lunchtime.

I think I have to start putting on full armor Monday mornings.  I keep thinking we're past the sharp point of transition because Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays are all easier, but Mondays press the resent button and surprise me.  This Monday, all the way up the hill to school, Silas said things like, "I wish we didn't leave California.  I wish I still went to Mariners and could play with Charlie and Jack and Quinn.  I don't like this school," and when we said goodbye, he gripped my arm, his little face trying to be brave while his wide eyes brimmed with tears.

Monday afternoon, a brighter time of day, Silas and I brainstormed what he could do to make going to school and especially saying goodbye a little easier -- what could he bring, where could I say goodbye to him (he said whether it's on the curb or at his classroom door, "I have tears in my eyes" -- stab!), who could take him to school, what could we draw on his hand?  He decided to try tucking his blankie into his bag -- yesterday was day one of this, and his report was that it was SO good, and he visited it throughout the day.

My "blankie" seems to be cooking.  I haven't figured out how to map out enough time to write as I'd like or even to art journal, so to satisfy the craving to work with my hands and make something, I cook.  My parents gets a CSA basket on Fridays -- that sometimes has bread, cheese, and jam in it, too -- so I have played with ramps, mustard greens, flowering herbs, and currently have a bok choy (suggestions?).  Never in my life until we moved here have I eaten soft-yolked eggs, but now I eat them on buttered toast most days.  Last night I went so far as to try poaching one -- bon apetit made dropping a raw egg into a "whirlpool" of boiling water in the pot sound very easy -- and Silas was mildly horrified at the scrappy shredded result.  We fried eggs instead.  Chopped strawberries and crushed vanilla cookies over ice cream, caramelized pineapple slices, pistachio-citrus pound cake, smoothies, many cups of tea, and hopefully one of these days, some time to write...