Hot As A Pepper Patch

That's a reasonable representation of what it feels like around here. Hot peppers and dried-up bean pods. It's deja-vu all over again. 

Today my feelings of beastly bitchiness morphed into feelings of despair and hopelessness. You know how some days you just feel these waves of unnamable and unaccountable joy and peace? I think we've all had a few of those, and by golly they are gifts.
And then some days it's just one wave after another of some sort of deep and unfounded yearning for...what? 

My yearning today has been for days past, for youth, for the strength and confidence I felt in my forties and even fifties, for the abilities I have lost and the hopes that I dared hope that one day, eventually, the things that have always fucked me up would leave me alone in older age. That I could let them go and would finally enjoy my life in a way that I never truly could. 

Somehow it hit me this afternoon that that is never really going to happen- that the guilt and the shame and the inability to lose myself in the unmitigated goodness of certain human experiences would just finally wear themselves out, leaving me freer and happier, my heart and soul lighter and less dark. 
And of course these feelings today are probably just a lick from the black dog's tongue. 

It's been a fine day, albeit a hot one. I met Jessie and the boys at the library since I didn't get my books yesterday and it was nice to have a little chat with Jessie and to get hugs from those two guys who are about to start school. I will never, ever not love a library. I consider libraries to be the height of human civilization. And Jessie told me today about a new app for downloading (uploading?) books to my phone from the library and I have done that and it is going to add a lot to my life. I feel as if I've read every book available on the old app that I have any interest in at all. So that is a very good thing. 

I also went to Costco because I did not go there yesterday, either. 
Let me just say that entering the "coldy" room as we call it, where they keep many of the more perishable vegetables and fruits, was like a step into heaven. I did not want to leave. 
I bought sandwiches to take to the river tomorrow. It'll be the last day before school starts and Jessie will bring the boys. Lily has to work as do the rest of the children. One more day of summer. On Thursday, because I remember what it feels like to be the mama of children on the first day of school which is ecstatic and a bit difficult, I will be taking Jessie and Lily and Lauren to get pedicures. So all of that is good. 

When I was looking at the sandwiches, I realized another woman needed to get sandwiches, too, and I moved aside to give her space and then I looked into her cart to realize that she had a very, very young baby in there, safely in his little seat with the shade up for privacy and protection. 
Oh, he was gorgeous! Just as round and soft and perfect as the most perfect peach ever grown and I told the mother that and said, "Do you mind if I look at your baby?" while keeping a good distance and she said, "No! Not at all," and tears came to my eyes, as hot and quick as tears can form in a human eye and I could tell she was in love with that baby which moved me even more. I asked how old he was and she said, "Four weeks," and I melted and we agreed that new babies are the best and she said that they were obsessed with him and how I wish that every baby had parents and grandparents who were obsessed with them. 
I told her that I was a baby expert (but for real, right?) and that her baby was a GOOD one. She liked hearing this. 

Oh, how I miss babies. My grandchildren babies and yes, my own too. I never experienced anything that came close to the magical ecstasy of holding a newborn. And honestly, instead of feeling bereft that there will be no more for me, I should just be so very grateful for the ones that I have been able to love with that intensity. The healthy, beautiful babies in my life. And I am grateful. Immensely so. 

And here I am on this one-more-in-a-row day where there are heat warnings. I tried to do things in the garden but all I managed was to pick what you see in that basket above. 

I simply cannot bear working in this heat. 

But I'm okay and everything really is fine and this is just one day in my life and tomorrow there will be the river and delicious sandwiches and cut-up honey mangoes and the shade from a cypress tree and I have new library books and at least I did not want to smack anyone today. And that, I think, is a good thing. 

Love...Ms. Moon