julierichmond

It’s been a quiet end of winter/beginning of spring season. The warmth, the sun, the first sight of crocuses, have not left my heart giddy and untethered, anxious for more, and joyful being able to walk a block in a tee-shirt and jeans.

With everything going on, my mood has been both somber and blessed. I have less to say than usual, I’m busy trying to make sense of the world and the people making noise in the world. I’m taking note of everything I have to be grateful for; it seems more important these days to appreciate everything I have to be grateful for.

The dogs make me laugh. Chanel is already upstairs waiting for me to join her in bed. Jack just brought me a moccasin he found in the back yard that looks more like part of a eviscerated rabbit than a shoe. Bernadette shimmies her butt every time I walk in the door, but only some of the time. I need to figure out what inspires her. Maybe she knows something we don’t.

There are the crocuses, the brave flowers of early spring. Ours are purple, and they are hidden behind a bush.

I’m not sure what to say to friends; we commiserate, we talk about our kids, how much sleep we’ve been sleeping, what we do when we can’t, a cold front, the temperature for the weekend and make gentle or barbed comments about the people in our lives. Whose husband stopped shaving. What seventeen year old only calls his mom “bro”. Which parent doesn’t want to move to assisted living but can’t remember to turn off the flame on the stove.

We promise to make time for a meal or a follow up call. There are pauses, long drawn out sighs, and things that aren’t really spoken about unless that can of worms opens, in which case we stay on the phone until we find an excuse to hang up.

There is food to be tended or a dog to be walked. Clothes to be thrown in the wash.

Yes, I am somber. But with all this gravity, there is also the weight and the luxury of blessings.

The obvious ones and the tiny graces like clean sheets, the upcoming Easter celebration at a friend’s, a call from Katy that I wasn’t expecting, coming across a poem I wrote a long time ago inside a paperback novel that I can’t decipher at all so it must be brilliant. There is the sliding my toes inside the sneakers that make me want to skip, the occasional amazing hair day, and the unexpected voice of Joe Cocker blaring out of my radio station, from a million years ago, asking if I’m feeling allright.

No, I’m not feelin’ too good myself.

But maybe I am.

I am somber and blessed, and brave, like a crocus. It’s early spring. Maybe giddy will come along, soon, for a while anyway.

I just need to make space.