Where it Falls

Virginia writes about it in her diary, and so too does Rilke, and countless others, I suppose - this fickle life we shun at times for its unpredictability.  They don't linger though, as I do these days, fretting about how to "fix" it before it happens (control is more directly the word I'm meaning, though); their words are more focused on the regrouping and gathering of the bits left over when what we wanted and expected is instead a naive memory of an unmeasured wish.

There's been a great deal of change lately, some large and some small - a new job for one of us, new responsibilities and shifting priorities for both of us, and most days we're just happy to sink into the one unwavering foundation - the base of "us".

We're making it through though - hopeful of what's just on the other side of this and thankful to have the option for something different, for the possibility of better.  In the glimmer and worry involved in the anticipation of better, I'm taking the words above to heart and taking more time in this act of living that includes the curation of days and the arrangement of the pieces (an act I adore), but more so, remembering to take them as they come, not simply as I want them or need them, but all of them like a mother who loves without bounds, these pieces of life.

So we went blueberry picking and I mastered the grasses and needy branches with red ballet flats and felt warm and silly and happy.  My sister, a mouth full of blueberries and a bucket rattling with the few that made it in, laughed and took photographs.  Andrew washed dishes and I dried, and the record played the soundtrack to The Big Chill and we sang every lyric - most of them correctly.

In a few hours we'll walk a block over to the local theater to catch a documentary I've been waiting months to see, and then tomorrow we'll return to work once more and just maybe I'll be a touch better about the pieces...as they come our way.