Further Proof Of Spring

I noticed that there was actually purple on the wisteria trellis this morning and so I went out and took a snap.

The sky, as you can see, is a bit bruised this morning. Like maybe Lily's tailbone but that's another story and it involves bamboo, as does this picture.

Wisteria in the bamboo, growing wild, untamed by trellis or snips. Just growing there like the wild thing it really is. Invasive as hell, gorgeous when it blooms. It can pull down a house if you let it.
Go ahead. Make a metaphor. I'll wait.

The dogwoods are coming out white finally but they sure are taking their time. In town I see them full like clouds but here in shaded Lloyd, they are slow to fill in the spaces against the sky.

But they are beautiful whether in massive clusters or tiny tree-tied bouquets.

So back to Lily's tailbone.
Yesterday Owen wanted to play in the bamboo and so Lily went over there with him and she tried to pull down a very, very large stalk and it popped and split and she sat hard on the ground and no, labor did not start but now her tailbone hurts like crazy and she's been consulting Dr. Google and has discovered that she may have actually broken it and since they can't do an X-ray and couldn't do anything about it if she HAS broken it, she's just going to have to suffer.

Now really. Life is NOT fair. She is forty weeks pregnant today- this is her due date, and now she has a very, very painful butt bone and that's really not going to help during labor. She's resting. She is icing it. She is not complaining. She is just facing this uncomfortable new reality and she did call in to work, thank GOD. I may go to town soon to go with her to a chiropractor, to go buy Arnica. You do what you can do within the limitations of pregnancy and I would do anything to help her. I am so grateful to be able to be this close to her, both geographically and emotionally, so that I can be the mother to her I want to be. Or to try, at least. And to be the grandmother to Owen and this coming baby that I would wish for all grandchildren.

Yesterday Owen was in a dreamy-dream land of goodness, being out here but with his mama and daddy too. If Lily went out to talk to the fellas in the garage and Owen decided he wanted her, he could say, "Mama! Where you? Need you!" and we could go and find her. If he needed help he had so many arms to choose from. When it was nap time he threw a little hissy. "Owen go home, sleep Owen's bed!" he told us but we settled him down between us and I told, not the Mr. Peep story, which he did not want to hear, but a story about going to the beach and his eyes got starey and then heavy and finally his lids dropped and I kissed his perfect little mouth and Lily opened her eyes and saw that he was asleep and then we too, slept. What is it that is so perfect about sharing sleep with babies and with those you love? To be huddled up together under the covers like puppies? I don't know but it is. I pity people who don't sleep with their babies. I don't understand how they can not do that.

It's just amazing to me that I am here at this point in my life. I think about my own mother and how it was just impossible for us to have had this sort of relationship. How I fled from her house when I was eighteen and never looked back. I think of how horribly unhappy she must have been and how that unhappiness affected her life so profoundly. It still does. I wonder, over and over again what it was about her childhood that made her so perfectly able to tolerate such unhappiness for so long. I heard a woman the other day talking about a 24-year marriage she had been in with an alcoholic. A marriage that even her priest told her to get out of.
A Catholic priest!
And yet, she stayed with the man for 24 years.
What is it inside of certain people that disallow them to walk out of a door into another life?
Oh it is so easy to stay stuck. I know. There are so many different things that bind us to unhappiness that are almost impossible to slip away from.

Well, anyway. Here I am and I'll be going to town in a while to go with Lily so that I can watch Owen when the chiropractor adjusts her and we'll go buy Arnica and these last days of her being pregnant are so special in a way. She is living in that portal-time, that time when the world holds its breath, waiting for a new life.
I get to share that with her.

Here- one more picture.


The peas Mr. Moon planted over a week ago are finally coming up. They have decided to stretch forth from the dirt and reach up for the light. Their little green powerhouses of energy are clicking and whirring, taking the light and the water and making energy which we humans will eat. Sweet pods of crunch and goodness and Owen will eat them right from the fence where they grow.

Life. It just keeps on popping up and popping out and some of it is green and some of it is purple and all of it is noted here and appreciated.
We wait.
We tend.
We attend life.

Good morning, y'all. Good morning.