I just dropped Martin's parents off at the shuttle, which will take them to Seattle, where they'll board a plane back to Texas. After so much lovely company during the day and joy and food and laughter shared, it's very, very quiet.
I came home and put the pot on immediately--so I do after coming home after just about any event, big or small--and now I'm listening to the wind rattle the top of the exhaust pipe--clank, clank, clank--and watching the trees bow and bend outside. Last night as we slept, we heard the immense force of the wind moaning outside our window. This morning when we awakened, the little valley behind us looked almost wintry with bared branches. Bright yellow poplars and auburn maples still burn brightly, but many of the trees have been stripped bare. Thanks be for the sentinel pines, green despite the cold autumn wind, standing shoulder to shoulder.
The slim white branches of the quaking aspens outside our dining room are almost bare but for a few rusty yellow leaves. I watch them fluttering against a blue sky and suddenly I am sitting under our tall aspen trees in the heat of a Pennsylvanian summer, hungry for shade and delighted with the rustling dance of a hundred coin-shaped leaves. On our trip back last summer, I was terribly happy to see that the new owners of Wazoo had left the trees alone. I remember planting tiny, slim sticks, roots clumped with mud, and I watched them grow stronger and broader and more full of life and wisdom every year. It would have saddened me to see them cut down.
Time to dry the sheets and then remake the beds. Time to tidy and put the rooms back in order. Time to get back to Maple and her problems. These days I miss Martin's company the most, because there's no one to mark a passing event with, no one to tell, "Put the pot on; we'll have tea and then we'll get back to work." No one to convince me that a piece of toast with butter is indeed in order. . . .
The whole idea of money and salaries and making a living is horribly overrated. What about dancing and writing and painting and tea, darling? Having children will cure the most passionate bohemian, though I reject the idea that we are mere plebeians now. Perhaps we will strike the perfect balance one of these days.
This morning, though, all I must do is transition to the change from activity and bustle to sudden silence, from running about to contemplation, from play to work. It can be done. If the trees change daily and become ever more beautiful doing it, then I can too.
Just let me finish my tea first.
I came home and put the pot on immediately--so I do after coming home after just about any event, big or small--and now I'm listening to the wind rattle the top of the exhaust pipe--clank, clank, clank--and watching the trees bow and bend outside. Last night as we slept, we heard the immense force of the wind moaning outside our window. This morning when we awakened, the little valley behind us looked almost wintry with bared branches. Bright yellow poplars and auburn maples still burn brightly, but many of the trees have been stripped bare. Thanks be for the sentinel pines, green despite the cold autumn wind, standing shoulder to shoulder.
The slim white branches of the quaking aspens outside our dining room are almost bare but for a few rusty yellow leaves. I watch them fluttering against a blue sky and suddenly I am sitting under our tall aspen trees in the heat of a Pennsylvanian summer, hungry for shade and delighted with the rustling dance of a hundred coin-shaped leaves. On our trip back last summer, I was terribly happy to see that the new owners of Wazoo had left the trees alone. I remember planting tiny, slim sticks, roots clumped with mud, and I watched them grow stronger and broader and more full of life and wisdom every year. It would have saddened me to see them cut down.
Time to dry the sheets and then remake the beds. Time to tidy and put the rooms back in order. Time to get back to Maple and her problems. These days I miss Martin's company the most, because there's no one to mark a passing event with, no one to tell, "Put the pot on; we'll have tea and then we'll get back to work." No one to convince me that a piece of toast with butter is indeed in order. . . .
The whole idea of money and salaries and making a living is horribly overrated. What about dancing and writing and painting and tea, darling? Having children will cure the most passionate bohemian, though I reject the idea that we are mere plebeians now. Perhaps we will strike the perfect balance one of these days.
This morning, though, all I must do is transition to the change from activity and bustle to sudden silence, from running about to contemplation, from play to work. It can be done. If the trees change daily and become ever more beautiful doing it, then I can too.
Just let me finish my tea first.
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