Found, Day 28

I play sometimes with a not-quite-local community orchestra. On scattered Tuesday nights throughout the year I join Husband for a 180-mile round trip plus 2 ½ hours of rehearsal. It has become part of our routine over the last few years, even though the first year we lived in this Midwestern town I did not play violin at all. That first year I thought I had left music behind me.

That first rehearsal—after such a long break, after thinking my life as a violinist was over—it was like finding a piece of myself I hadn't known was missing. I won't say that reincorporating that piece has been easy, but it seems to be necessary. And it has grown—more than I thought possible.

I have maybe—hopefully—grown with it. These Tuesday nights are tiring but invigorating. The schedule an uneasy thing, but the music more enjoyable than ever before in my life. Because the thing is, the music is still the music no matter what the circumstances, and I get to be a part of it. There was a time I would have viewed my part-time community orchestra member status as a failure, but given what I found getting to this place—what a find.

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Found, Day 27

Made it through the Monday after Spring Break, extra-tired and extra-energized all at once, gobbling up my alone time and gobbling up time with my kids, alike. My brain is a little mushy tonight, but not too mushy for this magic over at thisiscolossal.com. 

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Found, Day 26

We found our way through the maze, but I wasn’t in much of a hurry. Slow wandering has been a favorite pace for as long as I can remember. It is good like sleep, and water, and making a chocolate bar last as long as it possibly can.

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Found, Day 25

We went to the Museum of Science and Industry today—and let’s call it today still even though it is already past midnight. I’m not quite ready for it all to end.

The museum was so cool I almost cried several times. It took us until close to closing time, but we finally found the Chick Hatching exhibit, Middle and I. She had been talking about it all day, but there was so much to see and do. By the time we got there we were tired, brains bursting. I wasn’t expecting much.

It turns out I had forgotten what I know about hatching chicks. All day I imagined fluffy yellow things, even though I knew better. The fluffy yellow things were next door to the hatching and newly-hatched. What we walked up to was a scene of devastation. Eggs, eggs with cracks, and broken eggs. A few sprawled wet creatures that hardly seemed alive except for occasional great lunging out-of-control efforts to lift up their heads. Mostly, though, they were resting, wasted. And of course. According to the plaque nearby it can take up to 10 hours for a chick to emerge from its shell.

And I couldn’t help wondering: what if we expected every birth, every rebirth, every breakthrough, to leave us like this for a while? 

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Found, Day 24

I often hear poetry in the way children talk:

"My eyes are always bright. I mean, the way I see, whether it's dark or bright I can see. My eyes are always bright."

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Found, Day 23

My three favorites from the zoo today. Two seemed as curious about me as I was about them, one couldn't be bothered. But their eyes—

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Found, Day 22

I have to say, the view out the window on the way to Chicago today was awfully barren. Maybe it had to do with the fact that getting ready for vacation requires its own kind of recovery before you can enjoy your actual vacation. Maybe it was just the dregs of winter, weighing heavily. But I almost accused the landscape, the broken battered trees, the small towns, of deliberate ugliness. It took about 30 minutes of driving and a turn east to start seeing beauty instead of post apocalyptic landscape. Maybe something in me is becoming more patient. Maybe. But my eyes softened some, and the magical was there after all, just hiding:

        in the sun hitting a roof just right and turning it gold

        in willow trees that hinted at something alive running through their veins

        in dead grass, bare trees, pale sky that washed soft over my eyes

        in a bright green barn, a royal blue roof, crisp orange storage shed doors

        in the rectangular skeleton of a new building

        in a curve of road

        in swaths of fire-blond grass.

Then there was this:

in the extraordinary quiet that sometimes fell over us, the beauty of my children’s faces, the most beautiful faces I know—

and this:

string cheese, having sat and warmed itself in the car with us for a few hours, is sad, and limp, and makes us all laugh.

I’m ready now.

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Found, Day 21

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Found, Day 20

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Found, Day 19

Does it matter

how it got there?

Sometimes things bound by the earth

break free

and perch on wires.

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