I begin blog entries and get dead ended after a paragraph or two.  I’ve been writing letters and trying to complete a scholarship application for the online course that I want to take next.  Also, it is tax time.  I have my way of preparing and I usually get down to it at exactly this time of year.  How predictable is that?  I always imagine that I am getting started this year much later than last year, but looking at my prep documents from previous years . . . Yes, same process, same time.

Julia and I are making eggs in the evenings a few nights a week.  Julia finished her first egg and I cleaned off the wax.  She was satisfied with the result, not astonished, not disappointed.  She had already started a second egg and while that was in dye last night, a third.  She has no interest in looking at pictures — I’ve said this before.  I am so dependent on the traditional designs.  Julia has her own ideas.  I’ll post pictures soon.  I’ve made three eggs and ready to begin challenging myself.  I am not using any guiding elastics on the eggs to begin designs this year.  It is changing what I can and want to do.  Again, I’ll put up pictures.

The spring comes slowly and we are ready.  Circumstances and situations run through me, sticking for a little while then moving on.  I’d like to check with some mucky-muck guru to see if this is what living in the present is.  My heart seems to be thrown this way and that — tears and laughter, short bouts of anxiety, patches of contentment, although a good dose of delirious happiness still eludes me.

An internet adoption friend who is in China to adopt her son cannot adopt him because he is too sick.  Another friend’s husband had a heart episode last weekend that landed him in the hospital.  I sat with both.

In the shower this morning, I thought about starting a summer family meditation group in my back garden.  Last sunday during the long evening sit, I focused on longing, loneliness and desire.  I could hold the sadness for most of the 45 minutes sit.  I have never done that so deliberately — sadness in some form has invaded my practice but this time I invited it in.  I did not die.  I did not solve anything but I did not finish more hurt than when I began.  I think I have been fearing this kind of sit for a long time.  Scared that it would scar.  Just scared without knowing why.

Julia met a tarantula last Saturday at a science day at school.  She loved it — very scared at first.  Didn’t even want to be near it at first but more than intrigued and curious.  She listened to the adult who did a short presentation and couldn’t wait to touch and hold it.  Me, not so much.  And she did.  A not-small tarantula crawled onto her hand.  She pet it and clearly enjoyed that it was not trying to get away from her.  She ended the day, writing about tarantulas and her meeting with one for her week’s paragraph homework.  It was one of the longest paragraphs she has written at home.

And she also asked if she could have a tarantula for a pet.  I told her that once she was able to take care of it by herself, she could, of course, have one.  Secretly, I hope that she forgets this desire and promise, or at least that it is some time before her ability to care for a pet has been proven.

I am planning a vacation. I have wanted to travel for two years but I have not had the energy or the will to do the planning.  Lisa did the finding and planning for last year’s beach trip.  I planned the driving trip of a few years ago but it was from known place to known place.  No guide books were necessary.  I was very nervous going to the west coast last fall not understanding but feeling anxiety.  It does not make logical sense that I am now anxious about travel.  I planned and managed all of our big vacations and most of the small ones.  I can’t even explain the reason for my anxiety, worry and ambivalence.  It is about doing it without David, but I cannot be more articulate than that.

I wanted someplace away for this year but I wanted more than Julia for company.  Cheshire was willing to join us but was not interested in Europe.  Winter has been in my bones and all I could think about was a beach, and I’m not ready for ambitious touring.  So, I’ve come up with Mexico.  Puerto Morelos, Quintana Roo, Mexico, south of Cancun, in June.  A house for the week with room for more people than those committed right now.  We will either have more room than we need — a luxury, indeed — or the space will be filled.  I will leave that to the universe.  Booking tonight.