I’ve left breakfast dishes in the sink this morning. On purpose. If I was my mother I would have washed them as soon as Julia left for the day. If I was myself ten or 14 years ago, I would have washed them as Julia got into the van.  Back then, I needed to control something and washing dishes was a doable task. An easy success. And I needed success. 

Now, I am willing to let them slide. To let them wait until . . . . until later.  I will wash before I go to bed tonight. So, okay, I still have some need of control.

Instead of washing, I poured a glass of clean water, taped off a page of my sketchbook and spritzed the water colors. I am trying to paint. I am painting. I cannot seem to sit in meditation these days. I wander, I obsess, I plan. I slip too easily into past and future. I bring my mind back time after time, but I am not patient with myself, with the practice that I’ve had for years.

And so, I paint. Most of it, not pretty. Sometimes I copy flowers, follow a you-tube video of instructions. Figure out how to put color on a page, what shape to make to eventually paint the flower. Sometimes it is just color, wet on wet, wet on dry. I can get lost enough in the color, the merging of water and paint that I lose that obsession with past and future. With control.

I’m packing for the weekend. Church retreat in New Hampshire. Last year, I packed shorts and beach towels. Tonight, I’ll get the winter hats out of the basket in the hall closet. There are a few wonderful fireplaces in one of the buildings that we paid no mind to last year. This weekend there will be available wood to burn.

The week goes well. Julia hasn’t complained about her days for at least ten days. She is rowing outside this week but wearing lots of clothes. She is straightening books at the library this afternoon. She passes a young teen who is drawing manga figures and tells him, he is doing a good job. I remember when she did that, but don’t mention it. There are some small groups of teens in the teen room and Julia looks at them wistfully. I wish I could turn the look into action.

I am content and quiet this week. HILR classes and the Black Box theater production are over. I finally went to a cast party last week, first in three years, and had a very good time. I recognized the feeling of belonging. Since Monday, I have just been at home. Some zooming to get help with the website for my fall course. Catching up with house tasks that I’ve swept under rugs. Finally, I will be teaching at HILR in the fall and I spent hours putting up a website yesterday and today. We are all expected to teach and I have dragged my feet. I’ll be facilitating an in-class writing group. I’m calling it “letters.” I am hoping someone will sign up. Actually about a dozen someones.

I did more gardening last week and a bit on Monday. I will do more when it gets warm again. A bunny has taken up residence on the front lawn. She moves to one side when I water and back to the center when I am finished. She is there almost all the time. She is responsible for a hole in the middle of the lawn. I can only imagine that she has made a small underground nest to raise some babies. I won’t dig up the hold to check. Bunnies are responsible for eating through at least three of my front shrubs planted last June.  I replaced one and I am nursing the other two. The shrubs will survive but will need protection in the Fall. Possibly to protect my young shrubs from the young bunny family.

News updates don’t stop coming: Judge finds deportation flight violated court order. Analysts were pushed to rewrite intelligence so it couldn’t be used against the president. Kristi Noem incorrectly defined habeas corpus as the president’s right to deport people. The US formally accepts Qatar’s gift of a luxury jet for the president. And president’s meeting with South African leader turns contentious over his false genocide claims. Can anyone living in this country be proud of any of this afternoon’s debacles?