Back from the road. After more than a week and a half in Chicagoland, we have returned to find the sunflowers in full bloom and more cucumbers than most zucchini harvesters care to give away.
The time away afforded Jen some quality time with her dad who was going through some much needed physical therapy after a complicated end to his summer. We got him squared away and they got to spend many hours a day walking, talking and playing cards. Some simple things that the space time continuum between northern Minnesota and northern Illinois have rarely afforded. It was good.
Not shockingly, we missed home, though and it is good to be back. Good to be able to enjoy the first day of Autumn here. Home. Home for Hobbit Day (Bilbo and Frodo’s Birthday, Sept. 22), home for our Sept. 24 anniversary and home for my birthday to follow.
The weather seems beyond fortunate and although it won’t hang on forever, it should afford time for some projects that got away from all of us as this complicated, frenzied and unusual summer progressed. As usual, we are as busy as the squirrels and chipmunks and other small mammals who are frantically collecting and hiding seeds.
I need a new storm door. I need to do some painting, staining, caulking, wood replacing, window maintenance, lawn mower fixing, garden weeding and flower watching. I need to do some serious sitting and thinking. Something(s) always need to be put off and others prioritize themselves.
You know how it goes.
If only autumn was an actual season instead of a sneeze within the confines of transition towards Winter. When one of the needed resources is the most valuable (time), the demands for it can become overwhelming. In short order, nothing will be accomplished.
I have to admit that these things were on my mind while we were away. Why not? I was making lists in my own head that would have to be amended before they were even finished.
Lists that bored me and haunted me and woke me too early in the morning along with the unaccustomed sound of roaring jet airliners. I researched and visited the multiple Half Price Books around the suburbs where we were staying. While Jen was with her dad, I worked, I swam, I read, I watered the flowers and walked and I wrote a little. The days were incredibly slow for me.
Of course, one of the only days that moved fast was the afternoon and evening that I spent with my best friend from childhood and high school, Brian. We ate, hung out and talked about everything under the sun but especially books and stories just like we’d been transported back in time. We went to the bookstore like we used to when we’d go hang out at the mall. It was raining and we ended up spending much of the afternoon with him teaching me how to play cribbage and just recollecting.
After dinner we did more of the same. It was the same exact kind of “doin-nothing-together-hang” that happens when I visit my son in St.
Paul. We just spend easy, no-nonsense, uncomplicated, enjoyable time together. We don’t make a lot of decisions about what we should do because neither one of us is really that interested in those decisions, but in the time spent. Correction. The time shared.
Like fishing with Lucy or Jen. Like watching a movie with Juliet. Like Christmas break when we’re all together. The time with Brian made me simultaneously long for the past and the future. It also helped me focus on something I’ve been trying for the last couple years to share with all of you. That’s the invaluable quality of being able to enjoy the present, while you are living it. The lists, the seasons, the responsibilities, the potential, my novels, poems, antiques, deals, finds, and the hunt -- all those things would be waiting. That afternoon and evening were excellent.
I think it was for that reason that the ride home was as enjoyable as it was. We allowed it to be its own fun and not just something that had to be endured to allow us to return. It became more refreshing with each mile.
