Close Enough to Real TIme

I was going to quickly type this yesterday right after it happened, but real life keeps breaking in on blogdom. 

_________________________________________________

This has several parts I'll sloppily glue into one.

So, yesterday I was trying to mow the side of the yard by the lower garden while the older girls finished some h'learning on their own.  Our push mower is not self-propelled, and the grass was almost as tall as I am, so the mower kept stalling, and it was taking longer than I thought it should (but doesn't everything?).  Time was limited because I had a meeting to attend that evening, and since the issue under discussion is close to my heart, I also wanted to take a shower so I didn't look like a Crazy Green Lawn Lady when I spoke.

Part 1:
Getting a coat of burdocks when one is mowing around the perimeter of the lower garden does not bode well for summertime weeding. Nor does this:
Ezekiel: gives a brief squeal of delight
Me:  "Noooooooo!"

He had dashed into the plowed garden because clumps of dandelion heads were just perfectly ripe for blowing wishes (i.e. MORE DANDELIONS) all over the garden.

Part 2: 
Me (Sweaty.  Beet-faced.  I'm sure you can imagine.), noticing Piper's legs dangling from the corner maple where she'd been sitting just outside the bounds of my conscious observation for half an hour.: "PIPER!  What are you working on right now?!" 
Piper:  "Um.  My cursive."

Curled up.  In a tree.  Now that's gonna be a neat handwriting sheet.

Part 3:
I rush into the house to scrub off the green and get dressed to leave.  Cadence meets me at the door, looking soft and rosy, fresh from her nap.
Me: "Hey, sweetie.  How was your nap?  Did you sleep well?"
Her, with a demure look up through those lashes: "Maybe me just pooked.  Maaaaayyybe."

Yup.  Pook.

Sublimation

Annika's learning high school biology currently and recently read about sublimation.  I feel as if winter sublimated into mid-spring this year, completely skipping the transitional phases that early spring brings.  Snow, white, brown, gray, cold wind, and then-- BOOM-- sun, warmth, breezes, and greeny-gold glowing brightly in all the corners of sight.

Last night I nearly cried at the perfection of sound and sight-- hearing the persistent call of the red-winged blackbird while watching the liquid movement of copper hair, a girl I love jogging down a path of sunlight before me.  Juneberry blossoms rise like froth in hedgerows and greening springs everywhere we turn. Peepers, small and steady, fill the dark with nightsong. A dozen swallows swooping in front of the kitchen window this morning stopped me still, their delicate tracings a grace I can't understand, and one that works wonder in spite of it all. 

My hair is falling out, which for the last several years is my harbinger that hormones are shifting, which, in turn, makes fending off certain thoughts, emotions, and regrets difficult for a while.  Knowing this late arriving "baby blues" for what it is allows me to keep things in perspective mostly, though nights are sometimes hard.  I am knee-deep (or submerged, breathing through a reed Someone slipped through the muck) in my personal sloughs of despond at times, but spring helps light return.   It always does.

And when it comes right down to it, this truth remains.

A Slew of Snapshots Repeated

Cadence was running around after a bath when I noted how extraordinarily tidy and clean and cute she looked--not at all like a springtime ragamuffin.  I immediately plopped her by the flowers, a la Last Year's Post.  And, yeah, she's still a peach, but look what a difference a year makes!

...one quick note that, although she is no longer frightened of John Wayne, in its place coyote-song, loud nighttime barking, and the sound of vehicles driving by our house have risen up.

So here, after smiles, she heard A TRUCK DRIVE BY.

On goes the fearful scowl, and in goes Thumby.

Birds!