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pecuniumShakespeare said that parting was sweet sorrow... he was right.
But sorrow it is, though have the consolation of knowing it isn't meant to be permanent. I put Maia, and a friend of ours (who arranged to visit for three days on her way home from China, where she has been for the past ten months) onto planes to Amherst, for an annual Quaker gathering.
Now, even if I'd had the $1,500 it costs to attend (that doesn't include airfare), or if they for some reason (as they did our friend) were so enamoured of me they chose to offer me a guest rate ($150) I still would be here, at home, alone... because I am not alone.
The horses need to be fed, likewise the mice, the geese (of which we have one less, sigh... she ought to have been good for another 6-10 years, but all flesh is grass, and some returns to dust sooner than others) as well the dogs, the chickens and the parakeet. The snakes I can afford to not worry about, unless the eggs, due any day now, should choose to, then I need to find a couple of dozen pinkie mice; with immediacy (though I have a probably source... so I'm not likely to have to send an order for next day shipping to Canada).
But it still sucks.
I have things to fill my time (and with a modicum of careful questions I got most of my plans approved with her mother before Maia left, so there shouldn't be too much heartache when I do them).
I have trees to trim, and one to remove, I have ground to till (for late corn and tomatoes), I have roses to water, photographs to take (one of the trees is being removed because it is dying, and the bark beetles have given it great (and wonderful) excrescences of hardening sap... incipient amber, all of which glows in the afternoon light, so I have 20 minutes or so of time in which I can see it all in the frame of the lens, defined by the magnification of the bellows, abstract and intimate, at several times life size, inner fire and bark to capture on film.
So I am not full of empty hours, but I am lacking in company to share the house with. It's been awhile since we had space to ourselves, then again, it's been a while since I had time to myself.... Have to make hay while the sun shines, so I guess this is a week I can treat as time behind the cloister wall, "Introspection, thy name is solitude."
I hope that 10 days from now I shan't be cursing myself for not getting enough done.
Today the ruminations, tomorrow the tiller.
But sorrow it is, though have the consolation of knowing it isn't meant to be permanent. I put Maia, and a friend of ours (who arranged to visit for three days on her way home from China, where she has been for the past ten months) onto planes to Amherst, for an annual Quaker gathering.
Now, even if I'd had the $1,500 it costs to attend (that doesn't include airfare), or if they for some reason (as they did our friend) were so enamoured of me they chose to offer me a guest rate ($150) I still would be here, at home, alone... because I am not alone.
The horses need to be fed, likewise the mice, the geese (of which we have one less, sigh... she ought to have been good for another 6-10 years, but all flesh is grass, and some returns to dust sooner than others) as well the dogs, the chickens and the parakeet. The snakes I can afford to not worry about, unless the eggs, due any day now, should choose to, then I need to find a couple of dozen pinkie mice; with immediacy (though I have a probably source... so I'm not likely to have to send an order for next day shipping to Canada).
But it still sucks.
I have things to fill my time (and with a modicum of careful questions I got most of my plans approved with her mother before Maia left, so there shouldn't be too much heartache when I do them).
I have trees to trim, and one to remove, I have ground to till (for late corn and tomatoes), I have roses to water, photographs to take (one of the trees is being removed because it is dying, and the bark beetles have given it great (and wonderful) excrescences of hardening sap... incipient amber, all of which glows in the afternoon light, so I have 20 minutes or so of time in which I can see it all in the frame of the lens, defined by the magnification of the bellows, abstract and intimate, at several times life size, inner fire and bark to capture on film.
So I am not full of empty hours, but I am lacking in company to share the house with. It's been awhile since we had space to ourselves, then again, it's been a while since I had time to myself.... Have to make hay while the sun shines, so I guess this is a week I can treat as time behind the cloister wall, "Introspection, thy name is solitude."
I hope that 10 days from now I shan't be cursing myself for not getting enough done.
Today the ruminations, tomorrow the tiller.
