There is a quiet that comes as the sun gets low in the sky here. I'm feeling like a mama duck these days, as the ducklings follow me around the yard while I do chores and into the garden to nibble on lettuce. They're starting to quack instead of peep. It's rather amusing to look behind and see those three, running as quickly as their unwieldy built-for-water bodies and webbed feet will allow.
The hush that comes in the evening is my daily peace. Cool air melts down through the center of our property in the low-lying areas and crickets start their thrum. Birds are making their last run to the feeder and I sit thinking about what a great life this is.
The kitchen garden is in full swing, the lower garden moves closer to revival and plans for a third garden area are brewing. Thinking about the unlikely odds that we would return to this house, in this manner, with this timing cause me to smile at the absurdities in life.
One of the apple trees did not survive last winter, the long winter for me. It will burn in the solstice bonfire along with the tulip poplar that came down in a storm not long after I moved away from this place.
Keith and Trinity are in Columbia closing out their time in that city, closing out an era of their life, saying goodbye to his past and packing up what is needed for the now. It's been a year of endings and beginnings for all of us. What Keith and I are building in the here and now is reviving many parts of our spirits that had been lying dormant and silent for too long.
I sat with Jalen as he fed the ducks lettuce from the garden last night. Peach glow of sun washed the tree tops as we sat on newly mowed grass, tired and happy from a day of friends, water and sun. I was utterly and completely content in that moment. I've heard it said that there are two kinds of people in the world; those who are content and those who are not. I'm not. Not usually. By "content" I mean "in a state satisfaction, not wishing for more"....because I always want more. More experiences, more learning, more travel, more ideas, more LIVING. I don't want more stuff, I want more from the days I have left on this spinning ball.
Because of that, those moments of complete and utter satisfaction don't come as often, I'm thinking about the next thing, the next project, the next chore, the next plan.
So to sit with my son, and be utterly and totally satisfied with my life and where I am in every way, felt so very peaceful. So many life experiences caused me to depend on myself, to crave independence and never wait around for somebody else to rescue me. Those are useful traits in my book, but sometimes I forget to slow down and savor things enough. To really be in the now fully. I live in my head and the now is hard to meet there.
