A Litany of Little Things I Am Sad About Tonight

(and a few happy ones that writing this helped me remember)

A few things that are making me sad tonight:

My sweet dog has a burr on his stomach and I have not been able to get it off. There was another one that I was able to cut off, but this one is stubborn, one of those darned clover burrs. He whines when I get close to it. I’m sure it’s uncomfortable.

I dropped my son off at college last week. We left home early Saturday morning, rolled into the dorm parking lot around 4:00 pm, tossed his bags of belongings into a big wheelie cart, found his room, unloaded his bags, and made his bed. I always help with making the beds. Then we took the cart back to the parking lot, and I was hugged and kissed goodbye, and that was that. Maybe twenty minutes had passed. Goodbye, we said. Goodbye, dear heart. See you in a few months.

Then I drove my daughter to the San Francisco airport last Tuesday. That drive, by the way? We left in the afternoon to make sure she had plenty of time to catch her 10:50 pm flight. The drive back in the best of times would have taken a couple of hours, max. It was not the best of times. Because they are doing massive amounts of nighttime roadwork on the main highway, and have it narrowed to two lanes, and actually closed the off ramp that I needed to get home, so I had to trust my handy traffic app to guide me, because even though I have lived in this area for most of my life, I do not completely understand the freeway system. Thank God for that app, because otherwise I might never have found I-80 again and would have been stuck on Highway 50 all the way to Tahoe. My daughter made it on the plane before I made it home. Thankfully, she arrived safely in Barcelona and had a week that included a visit to the Picasso Museum and a tour of Montserrat to see the Black Madonna. I am only a little jealous. Next? She’s off to Madrid, and then probably Portugal, and France, and Italy, and… She’ll be in Europe until mid-November.

Maybe I am a lot jealous.

But I had a good work week this week and was looking forward to a day of rest today. Well. Not exactly rest. Because there are massive amounts of things that need to be done around my house, and I have not been here to do them. I am not complaining, not much at least. I’m grateful for the Japan trip and grateful for the work I have now. But the firewood needs to be moved and stacked. I need to get my weedeater out and trim the grass around the corner. The trees have many suckers that need to be pruned.

I went to bed last night thinking I would do oh so very much today! So it was disheartening when I woke up this morning to a beautiful, bright shiny day and felt like doing none of it. I was tired even though I got good sleep. I felt jetlagged, even though I certainly cannot use that excuse anymore. All the joy and hope and possibility of the day faded as I drank my first cup of tea. What did I feel like doing? Not much.

It was a day like that.

I am alone in my house now, so I should be having wonderful hours of contemplation and silence. My house could become a hermitage! I should not be disappearing into Instagram until my phone cheerfully reminds me that I’ve reached my time limit for the day, a reminder that I set once in a moment of self-control and unfortunately tend to ignore. I should not tell my phone to remind me again in 15 minutes and go back to scrolling. I should not be standing in front of the freezer, eating Tin Roof Sundae ice cream that I bought for the kids by the spoonful.

Maybe I am just tired. It’s been a busy few weeks. Autumn has technically arrived, but autumn temperatures have yet to make an appearance. So far, autumn is a trickster. I have been looking forward to autumn, when the season seems like it will finally catch up with my inner world. It has been a year of loss upon loss for me, with many small dyings and changes to grieve. But at least it is autumn now and the leaves are falling, reminding me that it’s ok to let go. To let the things die that need to die, because that is the only way that new life can emerge. My little Japanese Maple tree has to lose her leaves in order for new ones to come in the spring. I trust it will cool down soon.

But this is what I have remembered as I’ve been writing here tonight: that I am going for a walk with a friend in the morning along the Bear River. That I am having supper tomorrow with another friend, that I have enough basil in my garden to make pesto to share, and that I bought a big carton of heavy cream to make my copycat Olive Garden alfredo sauce recipe. (That alfredo sauce recipe: so good and easy! Let me know if you want a copy of it and I’ll send it to you.) I did not want to cook anything earlier today. But this writing tonight? Fills me with hope again. Tomorrow will be another day to work a little in the yard, to make zucchini noodles with my overgrown squash and the pesto. All is not lost. There is still time.

This weekly writing practice reminds me that I am not alone: I have friends like you who read. And something in the process of sitting down and facing the blank screen and then seeing it fill? It is healing. I feel so much better after writing this tonight.

Good enough to even eat a few more bites of ice cream right out of the carton. No guilt. Just thanksgiving.