I awoke this morning to a gentle dusting of snow on the trees and ground. A faint melencholia settles around me, the same sort of gentle shawl that the trees are wearing... light, smiling a little sadly, a protective coverlet preparing us both for the winter to come.
Tony sits at the table with his coffee, the inevitable book propped in front of him. My own current tome resides on the bedtable, its call to me unanswered.
In a strange way I want to let this feeling drift over me completely, wrap up in it, and let the tremendous changes of this past year really sink in.
So much... so much.
In many ways, life here is lonely. I mean that not so much as a complaint as perhaps a comparison to the life I led before. It is a contrast so great I am not sure how even to describe it.
From a constant surrounding of people to a solitude of just a few, or more often, of the one.
I have no desire today to look forward or back. Today, I would rather allow that sense of reflection give me pause, a moment in time to catch my breath, take in the enormity of the new path I travel. I feel a great need to get my home in order, paint the rooms that still wait, prepare them for the people in my life I hope will be here soon.
It is not really MY home, but as long as I am here on this ranch, it is mine to make home.
Such changes.
Such changes.
A time now to heal perhaps, rest my soul, allow that ache to come through finally, so perhaps, just perhaps, it will abate and move on.
Just a little snow...
4 comments:
This is beautiful, Steph!
You have such a way with words and an understanding of feelings to compliment them.
I know exactly the melancholia you speak of - light and almost welcome...
Your life has changed drastically from the busy people-oriented way you had here. Welcome it, too.
This is a perfect example of living in the moment - and embracing it!
xo
Lovely melancholia Stevie (sorry, you have always and will always be Stevie to me). Not sad, but much like the autumn, it brings a nostalgia with it for the year that has gone. You have been so brave to plunge into this new life, so very different from what you had before. It's inevitable that you will need to explore the feelings in moments such as these. Really beautiful. I felt it with you,
Dale and Val... thank you for saying such lovely things... I feel sometimes like I have been terribly selfish, a hard pill to swallow.
And Val, Stevie is just fine with me! My beautiful soul child and stepdaughter Hayley (and her equally beautiful mom Rache!) has always known me as such, and it is a name that warms my heart!
And I will always know you as Steph, Stephanie. ;)
And please don't feel you have been selfish.
Our patriarchal society has put that upon us as women and, especially, as mothers.
I know the ache when my children are away and Jenny wasn't with me for two years while I was living at Eugene's. It hurt deeply and I felt so guilty for being "selfish", too.
But my happiness in the end triumphed.
Jenny is happy to be back with me and I am so happy to be back with her. We were only down the street, but it felt like miles. I cried myself to sleep so many nights while I agonised over my children.
Follow your heart Steph!
The world will be a better place for it.
xo
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