note origami giraffe my son made me last night
Christmas: baking sewing knitting gluing designing meetings cleaning washing cooking phone-calls cookies candies emails
Today my son hired his first employee: our friend J., employed as Nels’ “nanny” on the weekends. He has this whole plan to shoe-shine on Fridays so he can pay her. It is this whole weird area because while he enjoys the aspect of the nanny getting to boss him, technically she is his, and not his parents’, employee.
My arms ache. My head hurts. My feet have been restless. I have this inertia, I find it almost impossible to rest. I keep thinking, as soon as I finish the lining in this coat or some such thing.
Only one more gift to mail out; and then counting up all the change we saved over the year and deploying it to someone, maybe the Mission, maybe someone on the street. Sweet potatoes through the food mill; steaming hot tea & freshly baked scones. My son’s flushed cheeks coming in from a walk with the dog. My daughter’s hair falling into her pretty face as she leans over a book. My husbands hands on my body. Hot milk with honey.
Two candle flames, lit for friends who suffer. My heart along with them.
Faint music, the whirr of the heat. Keeping us warm, keeping us safe.
Almost like being there. Especially like remembering it.