Big Emotions

On Monday after I'd spent hours tidying and cleaning and winnowing in the kitchen, I got a call from Lis. They've got a gig in Tallahassee on Saturday night and she was wondering if we'd like to have them here for Friday and Saturday and spend Valentine's together. The four of us have spent many Valentine's Days together. I am not sure why but it often works out that way. In fact, I think the last time I went to see them play was on a Valentine's Day right before Covid shut us all down. 

Now, Lis knows me as well as anybody could and she knows about my anxiety and how it extends, even to something as simple and wonderful as having her and Lon come and stay with us despite the fact that we have spent SO much time together and love each other deeply and dearly, all of us. They know me through and through and still seem to like me okay. So she always gives me an out when these things come up. Lon's sister lives nearby and they can always stay with her and her husband and so when we talked on Monday I was definitely leaning towards saying, "Yes, yes, please come," but I just had a hard time with it. However,  when I was at the store yesterday I bought the half-and-half that you see above which I only ever buy when Lis is coming because she loves that in her coffee. So I texted her that picture and said, "When can I expect you on Friday?"

And that feels good. They will be here for martini time. 

By the way- the whipping cream is for the coconut pie that I'll be making for Mr. Moon's Valentine which he will gladly share with the rest of us. I think.

And so it was fortuitous that I'd cleaned the kitchen at least a little. Lis and I always tell each other not to do ONE BIT of cleaning before the other one visits. And both of us decry our own bad housekeeping skills. In our text exchange last night I told her to please not bring her white gloves and she said, "I won't even bring my glasses!" but you know that I have to at least have things fairly tidy for them. There will be, at the very least, clean sheets and clean towels and clean-ish bathrooms. 

Today I did a lot of laundry and I organized my bathroom and cleaned and oiled the wood in there and went through my overalls basket and my shirt drawer and put things aside to take to the hospice resale shop and threw things away that absolutely needed to be thrown away and even a few things from my closet went into the the old laundry basket where I was putting the things to donate. 

Oh, there is so much more but that's a start. 

I dusted most everything in our bedroom and also in Glen's bathroom.

I swept the front porches. 
Tomorrow I will attend to the guest room and the kitchen bathroom and the dining room. Nothing at all will be white-glove test-worthy but there will be camellias in vases beside beds and on tables and I'll bake a loaf of bread. 

It will be lovely. 

While I was sweeping the porch swing porch, I was looking at the bed around the giant, ancient oak in the front yard and despairing. All the ferns died back in the freeze and also the other plants that have taken over that I do not like but have not tackled yet. 

The only green thing growing is dewberries which are like blackberry vines except that they grow along the ground, not on bushes, and make smaller berries. They do, however, have briars that will rip your skin. 
I mean- ugly. Depressing. Another element of the overwhelm that I feel. 

But. 
Look what I also saw- 

The trillium. It's a shy, native plant that is very picky about where it grows and every year they come up in that spot. I have no idea who planted them but I am so grateful. Every year, they thrill me again, and I always post their pictures. 

Here is what the Florida Association of Native Nurseries says about them:

All trilliums are at least moderately uncommon in Florida; some are very rare. Please do not harvest from the wild.

Every year these plants bring me joy. This year, perhaps, especially because I need it so much. This is not a metaphor for anything, it is not part of a life-affirming story. It is just a simple fact. Today I realized the trillium had bloomed again and it made my heart so happy. 

Oh! I keep forgetting to tell a story about something that happened to me in Costco a few weeks ago. This was another thing that took me away from despair. 
It was one of my very bad days and I did not want to be in Costco and it was so crowded and I was concentrating on just getting to where they sell the avocados and tomatoes and blueberries when I got behind a family who was strolling in the same direction I was. I assume it was a family. They looked like a family with parental and child units as families look. But one of them was wearing a fluffy red tail like a fox tail over her britches and under her shirt so that it was in the proper place for a tail. She was probably about six or seven years old, I'm thinking, that magical age when girls have discovered their power and their pride and have not yet become worried about other's opinions of them or what society says they should be like, and she was just sashaying along with her family and her tail and I fell a little in love with that girl. As I passed them, she looked up at me and we shared big smiles. Her face said, "I  have a tail. And I love it," and I gave her a wink that I hope said, "You have a tail and I love it and I love you for wearing it."

That was one of the best moments of the last three weeks. 
Ain't nobody gonna hold down that sassy little woman. 

Love...Ms. Moon