I have four singles in my purse, and one week until payday. Oddly though, I am not panicking. I have paid almost every bill we owe – well anyway, I have paid all I could. If we can keep gas in the car and food in the fridge we’ll make it to another check.
Another check. Yes sometimes the whole thing seems pointless. I hear you. I hear you.
So of course a feast is in order, a feast with friends – tomorrow. I juggle three separate cards with meager balances and buy: flour, dried beans, oranges, two kinds of pepper, zucchini, milk, eggs. Home and I bring out the elk burger T. brought me; thawing for tomorrow’s tacos. I knead up a double-batch of pan de los muertos. Making bread for my friends, for my children. My son zests and juices oranges, then eats the messy remains, sighing with pleasure. Baking feels very good. I cannot do all things but I can soak yeast in sugar and milk and need in anise and make an orange glaze and little tiny bone-shapes on top of delicious round loaves.
Small blessings, luxuries more meaningful than the ones people chase. The glittering sun outside and our pristine fall weather. A box of fabrics for clients’ projects; delicious yardages I now pretreat and hang, ready for sewing. My children remove the dog to the bedroom so we can give our little bunny a run in the living room. He is oddly handsome and I wonder, Is Bun Bun especially cute or are all rabbits beautiful? This little rabbit, five months old and the prettiest snowiest white and dusted grey, he has a new home now and is warmer and fed fresh things – broccoli, today, and carrots. He chomps down his fresh vegetables with a gusto you wouldn’t think a rabbit would have. He saucily lopes through my living room like a BOSS.
The kids bash the porch’s pumpkin to bits; home from a walk and the dog steals a bite, quickly. Nels makes himself a salad with romaine leaves and roasted pumpkin seeds (a simple recipe and the best I’ve had – butter and salt only). Going through the kids’ clothes and sorting, the children growing so fast: homesewn hand-me-downs off to friends, less well-made clothes off to the Salvation Army, a few things tattered enough to be thrown out. My daughter reads through her book again lazing on the couch, long legs in jeans and tennis shoes up on the coffee table, frank brown eyes following along in her quietude. I read a lot as a child but now it is my turn to wash the dishes, fold the towels, rinse the tub.
Practice, practice, practice.
Small Stone #1
White rag polishes the soft wood
Scent of fir
All these years later