In my bedroom, three very tall windows face south. They are blinded, at least partially, for the sake of privacy—because after all they line our bedroom, and south means the street— but I have no regrets about window or bedroom placement. The sunshine (which is too rare in the winter here) pours through the window transoms, and glides between the blind slats in a way that comforts, cheers, and moves me. I love these windows; I love my bedroom.
Also in my bedroom I have a castaway chair, one that I rescued from a thrift store a couple of years ago, confident that I could recover it by the end of that month. Like the other three chairs I rescued that autumn, it has escaped reupholstering and remained in its dilapidated state. A project not even begun. As time has passed, I have grown to like the vintageness of it—soft cream velvet piped with a fading grass green, buttons everywhere. It is worn but it does not appear to be dirty; today, I turned it around to face the tall tall windows. The sun shines full in my face. My laptop warms my legs. I feel content as a cat.
But I’m not a cat. Or I would wax indignant at the sight of a neighborhood vagrant, a bloodhound with a temperament both blithe and obdurate. She is nosing aimlessly around our new lawn and infant borders, eventually making her way to the perpetual puddle on the side of the house. I assume she goes there to get a drink. Ok, I do feel a little indignant, though I like to think the dog and I are friends. I am uncomfortable with an animal so large nosing amongst my little shrubs. While her gait is sedate enough, it is hardly dainty.
The quiet of my winter reverie (or the quiet of my neighborhood watch?) is interrupted by kids returning home from school. Maurya is the first. She is happy. She’s not sure why she’s happy, she just is. “I laughed a lot today”, she tells me. “I laughed loud.” I nod. I can hear a high, clear note, residual of flirting, in her voice. While I wish that the sunshine and her bright future were the best and even the only reasons for her giddiness, I am ok with the high note. She balances delicately on the threshold of sagacity. A senior this year, she is learning to navigate the high seas of romance, heartbreak, friendship, and disappointment with an endearing artlessness. She will be leaving for BYUH in the fall; every moment with her is precious to me. We talk in the kitchen, our customary after school meeting place. Soon Ezra, my 8th grader, makes his appearance, and Maurya exits.
Ez is at an age where his wildly handsome adolescence reads like a comic book. Blam! Zowee! Biff! Kablooey! There is animation in his mouth and brow, chutzpah in the posturing of his head and shoulders, curiosity and a squeaky challenge in his eyes. Occasionally, he flings an arm out at random, flicking the air inches in front of our noses. I can easily see that he’s also content. He pours himself a bowl of cold cereal (a rare and coveted relic of Christmas morning), agreeing with me that the cereal is so colorful and pretty, it doesn’t look like food. Smacking his lips as he devours it, he tells me with an arch look that it really doesn’t taste like food either… and pours himself another bowl. I sit across the little table from him, and feeling companionable, I slowly eat my favorite salad (ah, zucchini! and olive oil and lemon and sea salt!) while he crunches and slurps his sugar snack. And yet his festive meal does hold a weird appeal. Perhaps I might try a synthetic, luminous bowl…but no, he’s finished it off.
As Maurya dives into homework and Ezra tackles the mess in his room (beginning with a few boisterous slugs on his boxing bag), I lean against the sink in the kitchen to wait for the younger girls to return, looking this time out a northerly window, and spy another neighborhood vagrant (the bloodhound has long since wandered forth to regions imperceivable by my naked eye)— a black cat, crouching, pouncing, lively and perky. She is obviously on a mouse hunt, glory day. I am glad she is at large; we haven’t seen or heard any sign of mice for several winters now.
The cat either loses her prey or tires of the chase and my glance drifts past her, past the winter faded field grass in the neighboring lot, to the asphalt on the corner of our street. Something flashes unnaturally in the sun. I’m pretty sure I know what it is. Bummer. This year Frank wanted tinsel icicles on our Christmas tree, remembering with fondness the flocked and thickly icicled trees from his childhood. I acquiesced with wifely fondness and janitorial (not to mention creative) reluctance. While I love Frank, I think tinsel icicles are… well, ugly. Nora and I agreed that they looked and felt like spiderwebs. Last night Frank and I dismantled the tree in a hurry and dragged it out to the curb to be picked up (boys from church wanted to make a Christmas tree bonfire). And so there, lying in the road, is evidence— both of our bad taste, and of our collaboration, our unified efforts.
Cats, dogs, kids, chairs. What a ramble; I know. Well, a cat would be content simply because she had a chair in the sun. A dog is happy just to wander. My sunny chair does great things for me, yes, and so has this little jaunt… but. Contentment does not come easy, nor is it bound to stay. Today it lingers because I love that my kids are happy and trickling home from school, to my kitchen. I feel connected to the world outside my windows, and I am keeping faith with myself, reaching for the beautiful. Which reaching has been hard for awhile—life, like a cat, got my tongue.
I think I’ll stretch, purr a little, post this blog entry, and think of what other promises to keep.
