#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream
Stars & Hearts
Final day of vacation with Wave. He finds me at my computer in the dining room and eats his granola and yogurt and berries beside me. We agree that instead of me taking my swim today he will join me for a snow and ice hike around the property. We will go into the frozen, shallow wetlands and skate around on our boots. Charlie joins us too. The tent has collapsed in one of the storms. The stove pipe has fallen in and the whole top of the tent is down. Wave wanted to see it and I needed to send my son some photos of it because he had not yet seen it. Of course it can be put right. I’m sure a lot of work, but my son and Frank will get it done. The river is really frozen, but we don’t go on it. We take the trail past the kicked up piles of leaves on the snow under the trees where the deer have been sleeping. There is wonderful ice in the wetlands. Wave has brought Frank’s hammer, the one Frank has been using to try and clear some of the ice from our front steps. He busies himself chopping at the massively frozen ice (just for fun). We find some cattails and have a sword fight, blowing the cattail fluff all around. It’s the time time of year when we can boot skate the wetlands to the brook and end up back at the house. Poor Charlie barks at us. He doesn’t want to be on the ice. Too cold. Then we see his sled on the hill from the house and decide to use it and have a good time whisking down our slope. The snow is fast and fun. The air is fresh and cold and feels healthy to be drinking it all in. Except now is the time for cookies to be baked and frosted, we must get to it. As I roll out the dough Wave consumes a very large portion of it. Very large. I keep warning him he’ll get a stomach ache but he doesn’t. He can handle his dough. We bake our stars and hearts and whisk up the frosting and colors and glitters. It’s a very delightful time to be in the kitchen together. Then I have a craft workshop with a couple of writers. In the late afternoon before he leaves we play war with Papa and Wave wins. He always wins. Once again today he begs me to go back and replay the beginning of Mikey and Squirt. Beginnings are so important. Re-enacting this ritual of meeting our imaginary friends is giving him a big charge of something I don’t totally understand. But I’m happy to keep giving it to him. Before Wave woke up I worked on my poem again in the early morning and I found some very important personal meaning in the poem. So, whatever it means to anyone else, this poem means something very significant to me. I will work on it more tomorrow and hope to work on another one too. Playing pickle with family and friends is really wholesome fun. It’s such a wonderful break from thinking about troubles. I especially enjoy playing with people I really know because then I really feel like I can just be with the joy of playing and not worry about performance. After we play we have a great time in the restaurant with our dear friends catching up. It’s a cold world and it’s made so much better with some shared warmth with friends. There’s some meanness out there. Lots of meanness. One of the wonderful things about Wave wanting to keep meeting Mikey & Squirt is that their story begins with Mikey & Squirt trying to be mean to him. And he just says, hey, you can play with my toy. Why don’t we be friends?
