Outdoors the cool crisp air smells of rain as a cloud has settled down into the valley. The leaves are all shades of amber, gold, green, and red. I feel winter calling and I wonder just how much longer we have until the snow flies. Today is the perfect day for soup and sandwiches and the smell of corned beef wafts through the house as my husband prepares dinner. Yes, it is just afternoon and he has started working on it. That is how it works with a large family. Preparation starts early. I ask if I can help but that is generally met with a polite "No, thank you. But, here try this." Instead I try to busy myself with some other chore. It again is met with a polite denial. "Please stop, I will get that."
Today he knows that everything hurts. That isn't new. It is the same story as yesterday and the day before. Thursday I got to help though, ( I swept the floor) as we shape the house to fit our family. Friday I needed to take a kiddo to a doctors appointment. There is such beauty at this hideaway in the middle of national forest. It means that drive to the doctor was long though. So today the pain is extra. 2 days up may mean several days down and I have yet to find the balance between mobility and immobility.
Oh, the thought of sitting down to write and get it all out at once in one day. It never happens though. Saturday as I sat to write, a stream of children trickled in the room. It was really the first quiet moment I could recall in quite some time. I was sitting down at the computer because I wanted to, not because work was calling. The stream of children is what happens when they know I am not working. Saturdays, if I am not working, are not for me. Neither is Sunday for that matter, or realistically any other day of the week. I opted to step away from the typing rather than be frustrated that I was trying to get this post out there... I don't know where there is... out into the universe I suppose, but the kids were wanting my attention. I relocated to the Livingroom. This action must have scared them, they all scattered back into their bedrooms.
The end of another fall day has come. The air is now brisk and cold. Stace is working on one of a few projects that have pushed their way to the front of the line. I look around and there are so many projects started, each of them important but trailing back further and further on the list of what must get done. I look around and there is much to be done. Changing seasons or seasons of change have left me with more to do than I can physically or mentally can do.
Truth be told this changing of seasons has been a bit of a struggle for me. My Momma always said if you can't say anything nice then don't say anything at all. So... So I haven't been saying much of anything these days. It isn't that fall is here. The crisp cool air seems refreshing. It is that quite literally life keeps changing, just when I am used to it, just when I am comfortable, just when...
When I worked at Glen Valley Care Center as a CNA there was this woman whom I loved. She was the most cantankerous old woman. Every time anyone walked in her room she would just start swearing at them, me included. At the time I wondered just how it had come to be that she was the way she was. I didn't really blame her. I saw how most of the residents had felt abandoned and scared. I can even imagine what it is like in a nursing home during the current situation. Anyway, I loved her. I loved that I knew she was just putting a voice to what others were not. I am quite certain just one too many times this woman bit her tongue. For the sake of family, or professionalism, or just because her Momma said if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Finally she had had enough.
I was recalling her memory the other day with the kids. The oldest chimed in that I will never be put in a nursing home. I just told him it wouldn't bother me one way or the other. He just needed to brace himself for the cantankerous, swearing old lady I am likely to become. The memory of this woman resonates with my soul.
