A Conspiracy Of Happiness

It's a ridiculously beautiful day here in Lloyd and if I could bottle the way the cool air feels on newly bare skin I would be richer than my wildest dreams. The past days' steel-gray skies have given way to purest blue and it seems to me that even the birds are somewhat in awe. The finches chatter but I think that for the most part, the other birds are too busy doing what birds do in spring to give much voice to the day. But the wind in the Bradford pears is doing a fine job of it and then suddenly, a cardinal remembers to sing and does, then a mockingbird, then a blackbird with his liquid notes.

I say newly bare skin because I have traded my overalls for the men's linen cargo shorts and boy, you know that's a big wardrobe improvement. Actually, it's not at all but it feels good on a day like today. I've made Mr. Moon an egg sandwich and fed and watered the chickens and opened up the front doors and put the meringues I made last night in containers to take to the Sex Please, We're Sixty cast party this evening. They are lovely, light and crisp with tiny chocolate chips in them and I think they'll do fine. I left them in the oven all night, as you are supposed to do. I'm making guacamole too but I'll do that later on this afternoon. I'm looking forward to the party although as I told both May and Kathleen yesterday, I'd rather go to a rehearsal than a party which is odd. I am still going through my lines in my head at night in bed and it's a sure-fire way to put me to sleep. Never fails. And by golly, if we had to do the play tonight, I think I could.

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And then, suddenly, the day did grew even more beautiful because Lily brought out Owen and then, just as she left so very reluctantly to go to work, Aunt Jessie showed up in her overalls to help her daddy finish up the garden fence.

And now I am not thinking about what my worth is or what it is I do or don't do to measure it. This boy is here and we have been outside and to the post office and into the chicken coop and in the camellia bushes and under the great live oak tree out front.

My heart is as happy as a heart can be and the kitchen is filled with dishes and I don't give a damn. The boy wants a bottle and I am going to hold him close to me and give him one and that is that and then, as if the Universe is conspiring to make me crazy with how funny-good things can be, when I turn on the TV to watch it while I am giving him his bottle, there are Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello at the Apollo Theater and Bruce is talking about Sam and Dave and how Sam's voice was up in the heavens and Dave's voice was down in the DIRT, man, and then they sing together, Bruce and Elvis, and Owen falls asleep and I leak the camera of its pictures and put them here and well, this is today, Saturday in Lloyd today, March 13, 2010.

Owen and Pop-Pop, in the kitchen.

Madonna and Child

He is smushing my nose!

The center of our village.

Inside the post office.

Daffodil and the boy.

Owen and the matriarch oak.

That mean Aunt Jessie.

Please don't tell his mama I let him eat a camellia as big as his head.

The dogwoods, still budded-up tight. Not for long, though. Not for long.