We’ve been so sun-starved around here that this weekend was like a revival. We itched to get outdoors, and even when we were indoors we [gasp] opened the windows, stripped off the flannel sheets and dusted the cobwebs out of our overdone, over-hibernated brains. Lovely, lovely. Scrumptious sunlight. Even as the sun moved lower in the sky, the little one moved her play into its waning rays. I putzed around, cleaning, organizing, culling, all with a renewed energy that was most certainly solar powered. And she played like this for hours, sitting on this sun-warmed patchwork quilt with an odd assortment of objects, lost in her own world of some evolving storyline. The almost-five don’t ever truly hibernate – the buzz and hum of activity may slow a bit with the season, but it rarely sends them into a state of suspended animation like it does in the 30+ set. But the change in this season has been palpable. Even the youngest of us need this cyclical change and a bit of rebirth themselves. Pillows headed for the laundry became wings and she took flight – leaping over piles of sheets on the floor – a pterodactyl, a super hero, a monarch butterfly. Whee…
We went to the museum and studied ourselves in mirrors deciding how best to draw our own portrait. We hunted through the galleries for examples. Men in fine threads posed stiffly in grand parlors, women barely clothed draped in linen and long shadows, children with cherubic faces and flushed pink cheeks belying their stillness captured in oils. Hers was drawn confidently, quickly and colored mostly in a lovely peach. “I was going to put a dress on me, but then I just wanted to color it like skin, just skin” she said. She’s emerging too, from the layers, from the chrysalis, this weekend.
We worked more on this new room, polishing up the final details, knocking a few more things off the never-ending list that is this house. It’s such a pleasant room to work in though, that no one was really complaining. We wrapped things up for the weekend and I took a peek in on the little one. Bliss is what she has found with this newly acquired ability. No book is off limits. The words that daunted flow much more freely and the expression in her voice is a joy to behold. I took a silent shot of her at her reading. This book on pirates was far too exciting – she never even noticed me.
And then the two of us grownups had a bit of birthday eve celebration in the form of a nice, simple desert. It’s not a landmark number, just thirty-three. Kind of nice in its repetition and symmetry. I think my birthday falls in my favorite week of the entire year. It may be a bit hit-or-miss on the weather, but it’s definitely a changing of the tides. With any luck, and based on some good genes I should have scored, I’m only a third of the way down my path. And up until now it’s been a pretty good path to travel on. As long as it’s a winding one, preferably through a nice garden or two budding with new found possibilities around the occasional bend, then I’ll be a happy wanderer awhile longer.
Hey – Happy Birthday to ya!
I turn the big 33 too here in a couple of months. And I’ve got 2/3 to go as well (thanks Grammies).
Here’s to a great first third of life…
*clink*
I like the way that sounds!
🙂
NV