Driving in cars with girl(s)

My daughter and I kept our new to us tradition of starting the new year driving somewhere and taking pictures, talking and listening to music.

The car unleashes an intimacy that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. There are no brothers or fathers or noise except the noise we make.

There is no need to hold back but also no need to talk.

I treasure these drives. Who knows how long they will last? Not long, if breastfeeding/sleeping on my chest/mispronouncing words is anything to go by.

Comments

I entered August without you.

I won't visit you this month. You won't call. I will raid your garden and you won't get any of the vegetables. I will make plans without telling you about them. We'll go to the store and not buy you one single thing. Whole books will be read and I will not tell you which ones. I will watch movies and not inform you. The nasturiums will ripen. Last month was different. I changed my schedule and took time off work to be with you. I dropped all kinds of plans for us to be together. You sent me messages, I received them. I picked up food that I thought you would like at the store and sent you pictures of every beautiful thing I saw. I sang with you. We watched the Great Canadian Baking Show. You chose the recipe for the garlic scape pesto and gave me instructions for making the gooseberry jam. I am in August without you. You are in July.

Keep telling yourself that.

We talk to ourselves everyday, all day (and night) for the whole of our lives. We started talking to ourselves before we knew we were a self, we forget what we said because we forget everything from before...when we were too young and busy developing our brain to remember those early years. There is still lingering residue of long forgotten conversations I have had with myself as a toddler sitting around in the crevices...sloughing off occasionally into words I tell myself still. We talk non-stop, and not just with dialogue. Our goosebumps communicate to us, our tingly feelings, our neurons, our peripheal vision. They are all submitting data into our self and expecting us to react, respond or all to often, expecting what they are sending us will be ignored. After all that talking, you'd think we'd know what we think about most things, but occasionally we are stumped. Unless we stop what we are doing and really concentrate sometimes that voice(s) ...

Vantage Point

She sat in her chair in the living room. It was the right structure so that she felt supported and aligned. The vantage point from her chair was and still is ever changing. Through the picture window the flowers budded, the leaves fell and snow drifted, day in and day out. In the evenings she would watch Jamie Oliver and Great British/Canadian Baking Show with my dad, in the mornings, she would have a coffee and make a plan for the day. It was the place she returned to time and time again throughout the day , for a rest, for a phone conversation, to read. Through the months of her illness, she continued to recruit volunteers, write letters about causes she cared about, write notes to friends, check Facebook and plan meals to try from that spot. She and dad did a lot of adventerous cooking during that period and still brought food to share with neighbours who were going through something or needing extra help. As her illness weakened her , gradually her worl...

Growing Versions

Search This Blog