In hindsight I may have reacted too harshly, but this was his eyesight we were dealing with, and I knew that any damage done would be permanent. And he is more and more thinking himself The Wisest, probably because he is the oldest and, compared to his brothers and baby sister, he is the The Wisest, though he has yet to learn that that sampling of four children that he dominates is hardly a cross-section of the entire world’s population.
This past year has given space to much thinking and evaluation–much contemplation on busyness vs. diligence, on valuing people and making a home, on routine (oh, how I have evaluated and re-evaluated our routine!) on birth and the eternal perspective, and on so many other things that haven’t made any appearance here because they haven’t matured into coherent thoughts, able to be shared.
The concept of rest is something I have been thinking on for several years. Oh, I know that thinking on is such a tame word for the process–I use it for the same reason as that nebulous word interesting, which we use because we can’t think of any other phrase to express so many things. My husband constantly stops me after I’ve called something “interesting”: What do you really mean when you use that word? Strange, repulsive, curious, funny, fascinating? When I say “thinking on” I mean obsessing over, evaluating, wrestling with, trying to make clear.
It is both very chic and very cliche to comment on how fast the year has gone, once we hit mid-November, right? Today I made a menu for Thanksgiving and I couldn’t quite comprehend what I was doing. I believe my mind stopped calculating the passage of time around late August–I couldn’t explain to you why that happened, only that if you asked me when Halloween was, I would tell you it was quite a number of weeks away yet. Of course here we are barreling on towards Christmas, and today I made a new section in my bullet journal labeled Holidays, hoping to find myself ahead of the game, for once! We’ve started stringing garlands of oranges, cranberries and cinnamon, though I have personally banned myself from Christmas music until after Thanksgiving and have attempted to lobby for no tree until Christmas Eve, which will likely will not happen. I really love the Christmas season and I am always nervous about wearing it out by starting in on it too early.
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The morning was greyer than any I had seen in a while. Even the misty August mornings showed the suggestion of a sunrise, glowing in all that fog, bringing a warmth to the eerie. That warmth would turn into oppressive heat once it dried out the day. But this morning there wasn’t even a hint of such a thing, only grey, grey, grey; grey and deep green, and the gold of the soybean fields gathering itself for the harvest just peeking through.
I got up in that grey thinking that it must be cold, and so I put on a sweater before bringing Elvie Kay with me into the main rooms of the house. She played on a quilt on the floor and I prepared the coffee. But when I went outside to dump the coffee grinds I learned that the day wasn’t cold in the slightest–it was every bit a muggy leftover from summer–and upon coming back inside, I took the sweater off.
Mornings are quiet here, Elvie Kay’s lilting squeals notwithstanding, and I had my coffee and eggs and toast and then moved her from the floor to the johnny-jump-up while I read. First a Bible study, then a chapter of another book I am reading which is sort of depressing in a way that I’ll have to explain at another time. Elvie’s songs turned sour as she became tired, and I cuddled her before putting her in her crib, where she snuffled into her blanket a bit before finding her thumb and closing her eyes. [Read more…]
If I hadn’t slowed down intentionally I would have missed it for sure–even though the sign was large, it was hidden behind overgrown trees that blocked it from view until it was almost too late. The road sloped down to the right in a westerly direction; great green-grassed ditches were on either side of the pavement. In the distance the road disappeared around the bend and into the trees.
“I have to set the stage for you,” said my Aunt, and I slowed to a stop there in the road. There is very little traffic in this part of rural Kentucky, and the road we’ve turned on is even more rarely frequented. I didn’t even think to turn on my flashers as we sat there. “In this town there is a hotel. There is a train depot and railroad track. There are restaurants; there are little streets and houses.”
“Right now?” I was excited at the thought of seeing a little, well-preserved town.
But she shook her head. “No. Well…you’ll see.”
