coming home

Today was sunny and not too cold, a lovely bike-riding day. I went to the Y to get stoned. Yes - I watched a doc about the body, and one point they made was that exercise produces the same chemicals - cannabinoids - as weed. I texted my weed-smoking daughter that in fact I go to the Y to get high.

And I do.

My friends, I feel I'm returning to myself after an illness. In fact, I have been in the throes of an extended panic attack brought on by the renovation. It terrified me, pushed me into paranoia and resentment. December was a hard month. The fear does feel as if it's fading, though, and I'm regaining perspective and a sense of humour. The reno is an adventure, and I know it'll be worth all this disruption and expense. She said bravely.

Also, the sister of an English friend emailed when she heard about my misery, and she told me hers - she and her husband, with little money and six small sons, bought a wreck to renovate. She raised her boys in a house that had a plastic sheet for a wall and no roof at one point, had no hot water for years, no indoor toilet. When the house was fixed up, they sold it at a great profit and bought another wreck - and then her husband left her. She was left with six boys in a falling down house, and then suffered a life-threatening illness. But she came through it all magnificently, sent a picture of her grown sons visiting with their children - her many grandchildren.

Talk about gaining perspective! Thanks, I needed that.

I've started writing essays again - haven't written in that short form for years, after doing so throughout the early years of my writing career in the 90's. It's fun. Once I started focussing on books, I decided essays were a distraction and I'd have to leave them behind. But now that the memoir is on hiatus, essays are another way to say what I want to say. Or to find out what I want to say, perhaps.

Just came back from having Sunday dinner at Anna's, giving Ben and Eli their baths - well, watching them splash and shriek and squirt bathwater from their mouths - and then, while Anna put Ben to bed, I played Go Fish with Eli. I haven't played Go Fish for decades. I'm happy to say he won, 5 games to 4, but it was close. My daughter's house is a miracle of order and cheer. She had made a warm, safe, stimulating home for her family. She is a homemaker.

Is there any blessing greater than that? No. None.