All day. All day. All day. All day.
Rainy Sunday
general
Dziadek’s Passing
Clean, Clean, Clean
“I wish today was Monday!” It’s rare for a six-year-old to say something like that on a Saturday afternoon, I would assume, but this Monday is not just an ordinary, begin-the-week blues Monday. Sure, we have the day off of school — a snow-make-up day that the county works into the schedule in case we have that rarest of rare snow days, which we didn’t this year. No, it’s not that we have the day off. Indeed, L is so fascinated with early dismissal that she was complaining Friday that we have Monday off. “I wish we had school Monday so I could get early dismissal!”
What would get a little girl more excited about a Monday, school or no school, than anything else? Mama returns, with little E, after three very difficult weeks in Poland.
K is coming back, so that can only mean one thing for a family with a Polish mother. Even without this post’s title, one could probably guess what we did today. L was in charge of her room while I did the rest of the house. Piles of art materials on her work table disappeared. Books returned too shelves. Some old art work got tossed out. In short, a miracle occurred in the corner bedroom.
Developing Spring
“Daddy! Daddy!” come the cries of excitement from the front of the house. “Daddy, you have to see this!”
The zinnias are sprouting. “Unless they’re weeds,” she says stoically as we head back to the front yard.
“It’s entirely possible,” I mumble to myself. But they’re coming up just in the center of the pot, almost certainly zinnias. How would I know? I couldn’t recognize them in full bloom let alone when they’re just sprouting.
More squeals from the backyard moments later: “You have to see this!” The snap dragons’ blooms are opening.
“Are they everything you expected?” I ask as I head up the stairs to inspect them.
“Well, no,” she says with her sly grin. “I was hoping they would snap!”
Beauty
Dear Terrence and Teresa,
Have you ever experienced true beauty? Your lives sometimes seem so lacking in it — the fruits you show in class make me wonder if you’ve ever been struck dumb by something truly, deeply, and unquestionably beautiful.
Listen to this if you haven’t experienced that kind of beauty.
Sincerely,
Your Teacher
In Bloom
Funeral
Flown
A single, sudden movement while standing too close was all it took. In a flash, the nestlings became fledgelings, though perhaps a bit prematurely. One by one, they leaped from the nest, fluttering down to the ground in a storm of molting down, landing with a thump, tumbling forward onto their chests briefly before righting themselves with an awkward hop. They went down in such a tail spin that it was difficult to imagine how they could possibly fly back up.
Sweet Williams
