December Morning

Sunday morning
December 2, 2012

In the dragonfly chair, foggy morning, Owen, old orange cat perched sphinx-like on the edge of the sofa. Claire is in the other room, watching CBS Sunday Morning. A great show but too early for television today. I need quiet to sort through a week's worth of thoughts and stories and adventures...

The usual suspects:
tea
journal
Mom's meditation book
books

Grateful for the subject line in an email: 

finish what you started

Thinking about taking Dad to the eye doctor where he gets injections to stave off blindness. We sit together, surrounded by mostly older people with their middle-aged children. One man with his tiny mother, her feet swinging off the floor; a little girl in a chair too big for her. Her one eye looking in a westerly direction. Dad sits quietly. I lean my head on his shoulder and whisper observations in his ear to calm myself. He laughs.

He is always laughing. 

After we get frozen yogurt cones, I remind him of a memory of the two of us in the New York house. We are at the kitchen counter, digging through the cold container of Butter Pecan ice cream in search of pecans. 

Two spoons. 


I am happy to be with my father at the eye doctor, on the sofa, or in the car. He thanks me for my help with these things.
"I see it as time together, Dad."
"Yes." he says.
Then, life is good, he says.

A conversation overheard between Elizabeth and Jesse - 

E: I'm smelling Blackie's butt (Blackie= doggie stuffed animal)
J: What does that smell like?
E: Like GO
J: What's GO?
E: Going to the ice cream place

don't have fences around your mind

Claire learned that she had a ticket to see One Direction, on-fire British boy-band, at Madison Square Garden, euphoria, then no, things had fallen through, crushing disappointment, then yes, 2 tickets for Monday night, euphoria!!! thanks to the never-say-never energy of her beloved Uncle Rob.

the roller coaster ride of life, right?

I intended to write yesterday, first day of December, but never got here. The meditation in Mom's book was so lovely and soothing, I share it with you today, a simple reminder as the frenzy of the season gets into full swing. May you not get swept up in it ~ 

In our own personal stillness, we find the solutions to the challenges facing us. We need to be willing to be quiet and turn our attention inward. No information we need eludes us for long when we dwell in the stillness...

I'll have the answers I need, 
when I need them, 
if I turn within for them.













xo b