At the far end of the courtyard surrounding the pool I make my way up a concrete stairway. I continue heading north for a block or so before turning east and looping through the neighborhood on Peace Haven, then south on Sappington Barracks Road, turning west again and heading home along Barracksview… my one-mile loop. The smell of honeysuckle comes and goes as I walk, my eyes enjoy the blooming color of delightful flower gardens, bushes accentuating well-manicured lawns, the intriguing 5 3 1 of the numbers identifying the house painted on metal buckets overflowing with fresh growing things! I think of my daughter and her husband, their house, something clever … though 3 1 3 2 will be four buckets and that even number is just not as appealing. I tuck the crumpled idea away for another time. My daughter and her husband are already gathering ideas that inspire. My gardening, painting, mulching, porch decorating days are behind me. I walk on.
On my right is the blue house, its magnolia tree fully green now, having dropped its magnificent blooms some weeks ago. I pass under a towering oak tree and am reminded of the trees of my childhood. The evening is a warm and inviting 79 degrees, which (to a girl from Wisconsin) feels like mid-summer… not spring, not the first week of May… Summer! Returning to the apartment, I open my patio door wide to welcome the breeze.
I am restless… weary of the required reading for the real estate licensing exam and the self-imposed foray into a Cloud and Townsend book on boundaries and motherhood. I put down my highlighters –- yellow for the boundaries book; yellow, pink, green to organize the seemingly endless minutiae to be memorized for the real estate exam. I rise from my chair, stare at the wall calendar and contemplate… when do I want to take the exam? Resignation to the keeping of my promise takes me to the computer and soon I am scheduling. 9am May 17. $62 please.
Well, that's a stretch. Please was not displayed on the screen.
I exit the exam vendor page and log in to my real estate email. I add the appointment to the online calendar I share with the broker who employs me as her assistant and note the expense in the register of my checkbook.
As I commit to taking the next step all that I am doing-pursuing-experiencing brings images of a Spirograph attempt gone awry, or skeins of yarn twisted and knotted, the colors endlessly intersecting.
I put my fingers to the computer keyboard and type chaos-yarn-tornado and a few other words seeking an image that speaks to the current state of me.
As the setting sun abandons the sky, a gentle rain begins to fall. In the quiet of this night I breathe in the damp freshly washed air and embrace the immutable widowed sadness within me.
R
image credit
No comments:
Post a Comment