There Is Stillness Here Today

Last night's post really struck some nerves, didn't it? I haven't gone back to answer comments individually yet, but I will. I just want to say right here and now that it is unbelievable to me to realize that people read my words and are influenced by them in any way and, well, I am rather speechless.

Anyway, here it is Saturday morning. I am wearing my old man jeans, of course, and a holey (holy?) old cashmere cardigan and I walked out into my kitchen not only to find my husband cooking eggs and sausage but to realize that our across-the-street neighbor was sitting at the kitchen counter.
Whoa!
Disconcerting. At least I was dressed.

Mr. Moon and our neighbor are going to go do some carpentry work on a building we own in town and so they were drinking coffee and making lists of materials they need and yes, Mr. Moon was making breakfast sandwiches of the eggs and sausage and cheese and some of the buns I made last night. He offered me one but I was nowhere near ready for such outlandish protein at that early hour. He kindly left me a sausage patty though. It sits on the stove on a paper towel, waiting for whenever I may be ready.

Bless that good man's heart.

I had a tiny breakdown last night but it turned into something so sweet that it was well worth it. There were no angry words, there was just turning-towards and reassurance and softness and renewal.
One of those tiny miracles of marriage, or at least long-term relationships and even after all these years, it is something to know that we are capable of such awareness of each other.

I have been having trouble sleeping. Not getting to sleep but staying there. We all know these times. I wake up at least once an hour and so of course, I am sleeping too, but it seems to take an inordinate amount of time to get back there, fully, but my mind isn't racing, I am just still. It's okay.

The men have left to go to town, Jason has come in from hunting and gone again too, taking Zeke with him so I have this house to myself again and am doing laundry, still from the hunting trip. It takes a lot of laundry for a man to shoot a buck, y'all. I'm telling you the truth. But I don't mind. I let the washing machine do its work and then I hang the leaf-patterned clothes on the line. It's gray but I doubt it's going to rain. I could clean today, in preparation for next week's gatherings. I did, in fact, finally dust that piano and it gleams with orange oil, the pictures upon it set back in their places. I know I must clean out the hen house. This is a fact.

I dreamed last night, in one of my short naps between awakenings, of a hummingbird, tiny and teal-jeweled in color, feeding among red flowers.
I am grateful for that image, grateful I remembered it.

This may be a day of small things under a very still gray sky. Pewter overhead, the orange and red and yellow leaves of the Bradford Pears look merely bedraggled when they do not dance in a breeze, lit by sun. But still. There is beauty in stillness.

We do not always have to dance to prove our presence.

We do not, in fact have to prove our presence at all. We are here.

I am glad of that. Thank you for coming by, for being here. Thank-you.