what it has all been about. two years. some fitful writing. all too little painting. money flying out of my pocket like I live in a giant vacuum. dust in my coffee for 14 months. men in my kitchen forEVER, in the morning, and still, after work. ("Hey. Hi. Um... uh... almost done??"). Becoming practically a shareholder in Home Depot - deliberating over switch boxes, and copper pipes, and drywall and track lights and substructures and troublesome plumbing and tiles and cabinets and cabinet handles and cabinet colors and glass bricks and wall tiles ripped out and replaced and deck screws and psyche screws and a thousand and one (multiply everything by three, then again, and ... again) checks. I don't know why it took so long - the redux of the back of one humble bungalow.. I don't care. I have my little Juliet, on a backyard bench, scrunching up her mouth on the side, (cracking me up!) to sound like the hick character, George in "Our Town" (a production we MIGHT endeavor to most humbly produce on on my new, potentially stage-like back deck), and Natalie, testing the lemon, sugar ratios in the many lemonysugary things we have made all-day from my very giving, very sweet Meyers lemon tree (Richard there below).
Really, this is how long it takes a dream to manifest and how much effort it takes. When I was trying to decide whether or not to stay in New York, the tense reckonings of multiple restless nights told me to come home, get a job, fix my house, take care of what I could take care of so I could take care of what I could not have (at the time) taken care of. A big decision, maybe even a terribly wrong one, but this weekend, I (for the most part) completed that resolution and it did, indeed, feel good. (not incl. the dead battery at the drive-in bit....ugh. uh. stuck wedged in the bowels of Rancho Cordova ... - but all's well that ends well.)
They are here just for a few more weeks. Not mine forever, but, for now we are alive and growing as best we can, loving each other without ceasing, or failing to say. The air (and the lemons) could not be sweeter. There is not a blessing I fail to notice. Though there are so, so very many. I am busy now in this way, counting and counting, loving and loving and loving till it spills right up over the brim, bright and sweet.
It tastes so good - just straight from the tree, just as it comes.
