Every hour. Every single hour, he woke up (stomach ache? teething? All he kept saying was, "Hug! Want a hug!") Does the word derailed have meaning for you? Because that's how I feel this morning. Or like all of my cells are zinging, vibrating at some near out of body frequency, my pulse quick from exhaustion. I don't do well with no sleep. I would suck at those adventure races. Today will be a scramble to get back on track. A large coffee this morning, and then a long day. What do you do when you're this tired? Any tricks?
Motherhood
Little beansprout art /
We've been doing a lot of art lately. Bean often asks to paint, and I've been offering him various mediums--letting him be as much a part of my creative process a possible. First off, I've discovered that finger painting is much more fun if you put the paints into a cupcake tin. Bean loves to use brushes to mix the paint--he's almost more into that than putting it on the paper. But he also loves to get his hands in it. "Splat! Splat!" he says as he puts his handprints all over the page.
We also had fun exploring splattering with a brush. I showed him how to flick the brush across the page, and he had quite a lot of fun flecking page after page.
Finger paints are fun, but I find them to be rather messy in general, so I've explored letting Bean use water color paints instead. I have an old tray of watercolor paints I've used forever that I let him explore with. Once I showed him how to dip his paintbrush in water and then wet the tabs of paint, he became quite adept at it. Here is one of his more recent creations. Watercolors allow him to add layers of paint without having the pigments all mix together to into a dull shade of goop. They're also easy to wash off--and most colors come out of clothing entirely (stay away from some of the darker blues--ultramarine and cobalt in particular.)
The great thing about having Bean do watercolor art, is that I can use his work for the backgrounds for little pieces of my own art. I love this collaboration, and how his wild brushtrokes make me less concerned with details and more inclined to just have fun and play with the piece I'm creating. Today we broke out the stamps. He had fun with those too--learning quickly how to put them correct side down on the stamp pad. Then he surprised me by starting to sing the Alphabet song! The kid never misses a beat.
Lastly, something we've had a lot of fun with is collage. We look through magazines together an he tells me which pictures he wants me to cut out. After I've cut one out, he glues the back of it and then puts it into his notebook, exclaiming "YAY!" after each time he's successfully secured it in place. I was surprised he was able to manipulate the gluestick independently, but after being shown how to turn the paper over, and glue the back, with a little practice he was a pro. The best part of this activity was getting to see which images catch his eye. He loves animals and wants to hug and kiss the pictures we cut out of them. So much fun!
2 Years Old /
Happy Birthday Little One,
You are two today, bright eyed and full of laughter. When you woke up this morning, you called for Daddy, and he brought you to bed between us, where you snoozed dreamily for another hour, content in a cocoon of love and warm breath between us. When you woke for the second time, we sang happy birthday to you, and you grinned your sunny grin, your bottom incisors just cutting through your gums, and said, “Make birthday cake?â€
Birthday cake is what turning two is all about for you. Especially when it’s made with chocolate frosting. You call it “Chocit iting,†and tonight the three of us made your cake together: your great grandmother’s pound cake recipe with chocolate cream cheese frosting and fresh strawberries. You licked the batter off the whisk, and the icing from your fingers, and when it came time to blow out your candles—two, and one to grow on, you took the job quite seriously. Your eyes were so large, in the semi dark. Your breath so full with two year old wonder.
You have become such an incredible person this year, full of inquisitiveness and delight. You want to understand how everything works, you can use a real screwdriver correctly, and reprogram every possible item in our house with buttons (the thermostat, by climbing up onto the back of the chair; my laptop; daddy’s computer; the answering machine...) You are a nature lover, a collector of small quartz rocks and tiny acorns. You are tender, and you hate see me sad. You reach out for us now, saying “Hug!†when you want to be wrapped tightly in our arms, and you gather up your stuffed animals and cars and trucks and even picture books, to give them hugs as well.
It would be okay to have you stay this way for another year: so sweet and rosy and full of wonder, despite your temper tantrums which mostly leave Daddy and I hysterically laughing. You delight at the world. “So pretty,†you say, noticing the moon, the setting sun, the rising stars, with your arms outstretched, and eyes wide. We love you so much, your daddy and I, despite the fact that having you has stretched the fabric of our love for each other in a hundred new directions. You make us laugh a zillion times a day, and make us stop and ponder too, how great a gift our life is.
Love, Mommy
Birthday photoset here.
Catching up /
So much in the last week. Among the busyness, these moments: Thousands of crows flying overhead in a snowstorm. Looking up from city streets to see their dark silhouettes darted through the falling snow, like shadows above the lamplight of early evening.
The moon rising, gibbus and golden, smudged with snow clouds. Its bright disk filling up the winter night sky with pale yellow, like painted rings on an opaque piece of glass. Just below it, the hilltops were dark and scraggly with pines and the thatched branches of a hundred maples, birches, and oaks.
Driving back from a long, but too-short trip to NJ, two red balloons were caught above the highway in the bright arboreal green of a hemlock. Above them, the sky bluer than song, bluer than a china bowl.
So much, and in between also this:
Starting a clay throwing class tonight, with DH. Sitting side by side, but apart enough to be entirely separate. Seeing each other from an outside slant. Sinking in to the center of each piece of clay, the rhythmic circling of the wheel, slip gathering between fingers, the hum of the heater turning on. On the wall, glazed shards arranged like multiplication tables. The laughter of people together for the first time. Working in a tank top, like summer, utterly focused for a few clear moments on the supple piece of clay at hand.
So much, and I’m still trying to get back on track. Two weekends away from home, laundry piling up, papers at work in stacks inches thick, not enough sleep. This week I’m trying to catch up, and also to shift towards healthier things: earlier to bed, earlier to rise; regular exercise, and baking bread.
(Also, planning Bean’s birthday. What kinds of party favors are appropriate? We’re hoping for sledding weather, to make things simple. Then carrot cake cupcakes with buttercream frosting. And balloons. But party favors? I have no clue. Help, please!)
Underpants! /
His first pair! He ran around the kitchen wildly, high stepping, stomping, grinning. He asked to inspect Mama's underpants and Daddy's underpants. He pulled his up, and pulled them down. We took a special trip to the mall tonight to purchase them, as it seems, Bean is ready for potty training.
Gasp. How did we possibly get here, from here? All the cliche's collide in my mind. How quickly they grow, really. I'm still having trouble picturing what diaperless is like. And of course I need advice. Spill please.
The details: after the gym two nights ago, waiting for DH I gave Bean a cup and showed him how to work the drinking fountain. He was in heaven, and six cups of water and a wet shirt later, DH showed up, we drove home, and I striped the little guy down to his birthday suit. But then, being the utterly lazy mama I am, I decided that the forty five minutes of dinner and and playtime before bed were not enough to warrent the hassel of daipering, so I put him in longjohns and showed him the potty. Causually, I mentioned, "If you need to go potty, you can sit on this one like a big boy." Then I went about cleaning up the living room, and holy crap, the kid was sitting on the potty and GOING.
He was wildly excited. I was wildly excited. He proceeded to go like six or seven times (all the water!) and each time was delighted to show me his production, and to flush with abandon.
Since then, both nights we've had successes--and an amazing poop on the potty! Really. And he wiped. (Apparently all of the times he's made himself at home in the bathroom while we're occupied on the white thrown have paid off...worth it, but still. Just once it'd be nice to do my business without having someone try to shove toilet paper down behind me before I'm through.)
Of course, there were a few accidents, but what a way to start, right? What should I do next? For car travel? Night time? Trips out?
You web mamas rock my world.
Happy new year! /
I cannot think of a better way to toast in the new year than to hurtle downhill on a sled. Wild, silly fun. Bean’s grin spreading like sunshine across his face. DH laughing, truly in the moment and content, just before he bites snow for the hundredth time. The heat of our breath rising up against the cold air, and in between our giggling, how quite the landscape is covered in snow.
I am ready for a new year. And if I had to distill my resolutions for this year into one pure wish, it would be this: to bring loving devotion to every single moment.
I'll probably write an uberlist over here, tomorrow. In the meantime, if you had to pick one thing for this year--one theme, one goal, what would it be?
Also, happy new year to all of you!
22 months /
Dear Bean, As though your heartbeat were the metronome of my time passing, your growing marks my aging. You’re so big now, tousle headed and bright eyed. You stand mid-thigh to me. Two months shy of two years old, you carry rocks and cookies and other small treasures in your pockets. You are passionate about tractors and backhoes and mud and books. You take long walks with us along the muddy dirt road, stomping in puddles and pointing at birds. Recently you began speaking in sentences, stringing syllables together, like so many bright beads on the sea glass necklace of language, and it’s a wonder to hear what you have to say.
In the past two months, the trees have turned into skeletons of bark and twigs and on cold mornings you put your own boots on. You have learned to climb up onto the stools in the kitchen, and we spend many family meals there, the three of us in a circle of yellow light around the butcher block island, passing forks and trying to carry on conversations. With words, you now have the ability to express that you want specific things, right this second. Mama, more milk please. Mama, mama, mama, milk!
The past two months have been difficult though. Not because of you exactly—your beautiful smiles fill up our hearts with heady glee and wonderment—but because your presence makes our lives full to saturation. Since you, there have been few moments for downtime, and fewer moments when your Daddy and I have a chance to gather each other up in our arms and really look at each other.
Parenthood took us like a storm at sea. Together our small red boat of tenderness , we threw ourselves into the process of staying afloat, and have somehow lost track of who we are for each other. The compass of our life trued towards you; your needs so primal and huge pulled our hearts with fierce gravitational tug. But gradually over the past two months, as you’ve become less needy and more independent, we find ourselves trying to redirect the vessel of our love. Often, we find ourselves flailing about, clutching at the driftwood of who we were. So much has changed. The raw fibers of our selves have been stretched and pummeled utterly.
So the past few months have been drenched with moments where we face each other on the shore of our love and find ourselves unbalanced and hesitant at the edge of the rubble-strewn tide line that stretches out between us. Invariably, you are right there, asking for more noodles, or “Mama, read book, now†and we only manage jagged interjected sentences. Or it’s late at night, and you’re finally asleep, and we’re so exhausted that everything we say comes out slanted and biting.
It’s hard to be in this place. Here, where we can see how the routines that have grown up out of necessity, have made deep grooves across the surface of our lives and love. More than either of us would like to admit, things have become for granted. We spend days hip deep in the mud of surviving; arguing again and again about the things of daily life that accumulate with great banality and abundance day after day. The dishes, the bills, dinner, laundry.
I’m writing about this because someday you’ll be tall and you’ll be shaving, and also, because someday you’ll be in love and you’ll be trying to figure all this out for yourself. I’m also writing about this because I want you to understand how loving travels the full arc between passion and deep despair, and how a lot of the time you’ll find yourself somewhere in the middle of it, flailing like a fish, one moment in the sweetest water, and the next on the harshest sand.
Just now, as I was writing you and Daddy burst into my studio, full of morning excitement, ready to do things with the day. It’s 10:30 am, the weekend before Christmas, and there are cookies to be made, and shopping to be done, and decorations to be hung. Daddy wraps his arms around me, and right away you climb onto my lap, grabbing first at the pencils on my desk, then going for my keyboard. In the three minutes you are in my studio, you scribble in my notebook, collapse my easel, and climb onto the futon, wanting to be read Good Night Moon. You are like a sudden rip tide; when you’re present, you fill the room up and make it impossible for me to do anything but swim with the current, keeping track of the horizon in the distance.
But I’m grateful for this. For the struggle of it. I realize how easy it would be for me to succumb to simply letting life change me gradually and unintentionally, were it not for the latent urgency you bring to my life. When you woke up two mornings ago, I carried you into our room and tucked you into bed between Daddy and I. There in the dark, while both of us were trying for a few more minutes of sleep you began to sing, ever so softly. Suddenly I realized you were singing all the words to the lullaby I sing you every night. Go to sleep, you sang and stroked my face, and goodnight, and tomorrow will come soon. You sang so sweetly and off key, but you had every word right, and I could feel my heart start thudding with sudden awe. You learned to sing over night, and here I am barely able to get around the width of my ego to say I’m sorry when I’ve hurt your daddy unintentionally, or when I’m so tired that I have nothing to say beyond the superficial.
I opened my eyes and realized you were watching me as you sang. This is what I mean about urgency. You’re watching me. Being your mama I am reminded daily, again and again, of our need and our capacity to grow, to learn, and to become.
I love you, Mama
Mama, get out /
Bean spent the weekend with his Daddy in NJ, leaving me to a blissful empty house to finally get some serious writing done. Six hours at a stretch, uniterrupted. Going to bed in the wee hours of morning and sleeping in. Time to actually revise what I write. Oh lordy, it was good. But man, I missed those two! On the way home tonight, DH called and then put me on speaker phone so I could talk to the little guy. I told him how excited I was to see him and how much I loved him, and DH said he started grinning, and then looked at the phone and in a plaintive voice said, "Mama, get out."
Needless to say, I kissed every square inch of his face when I got to finally pick him up and snuggle with him tonight.
He is utterly obsessed /
With wearing our shoes. Remember these? They're being put to great use these days!
Preparing /
Bean and I spent the day outdoors under wintry skies. Alternately stacking wood and lying supine, our faces soaking up sunlight as it shone through torn clouds. Bean loves to lie like this, head to head with me, watching the clouds pass. The trees at the edge of the meadow made a crown of twigs at the periphery of our sight. Then we rolled down the hill, listening to crows call overhead.
Later, when we were hungry, I brought out a thermos of milk, graham crackers, peanut butter and honeycomb and we made sticky sandwiches and ate them on the grass. Bean tiped his head all the way back to drink from the tall flask, milk dribbling down his chin; a mustach of white spreading wide with his grin.
We’re hosting thanksgiving this coming week, and Bean and I dragged fallen branches from the woods and heaped them high in the upper meadow—for a bonfire with friends and family gathered round. DH does most of the cooking around our house—because he has that innate sense of which flavors go together, and can work calmly in the kitchen under pressure, without a recipe. I’m content to be the sous chef, watching him wield knives.
What are you planning for thanksgiving? Any good recipes or traditions to share?
milestone /
Bean has mastered the fine art of the temper tantrum. Exhibit A:
What else should I be gearing up for? And also, any tips on fun games, toys, or activities, etc. that Bean would be into now? We're feeling like we've used up our repertoire of late.
Two kinds of prayers /
Praying
It doesnt have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch
a few words together and dont try to make them elaborate, this isnt a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.
__Mary Oliver
Fever induced nostalgia /
It is amazing how a day on the couch has made me wax utterly nostalgic. I don’t think I’ve had this much time doing nothing since, oh, a really long time ago. Today I had time to trawl blogs I’d long forgotten… and found, oh gloriously, Catherine Newman’s relatively new blog! Now this woman is almost single handedly responsible for my belief that one can parent a child lovingly and firmly while still having an occasional good laugh at his expense, and for this I am eternally grateful. Catherine used to post at babycenter.com, and it was her weekly essay there that made my pregnancy bearable.
I was terrified that I was pregnant, and DH was oh, at least eighty times more terrified than I was, that I was pregnant. We were not convinced that a baby could ever grow up to be anything more than a baby—which, according to most of our friends—ruined your sex life, your sleep, and your social life, and that was pretty much it as far as perks went.
Then I started reading Newman’s essays aloud to DH over breakfast, and we started laughing, and the terror gradually started easing. This essay was our all time favorite, because I do believe Ben has finally and forever gotten to the bottom of why the Grinch is so grinchy. But back then, neither of us could really believe that anything so astute could come out out of the mouth of something that came into the world via a birth canal. We had so much to learn.
Only a slim 20 months into this whole parenting thing, it's a whole different story. Granted, Bean may not yet be making such insightful literary references, but still, he’s doing his part at keeping us entertained. (Sitting in the bath the other night he let one rip, and looked at me wide eyed in surprise. He then spent the next ten minutes trying to SEE exactly where that small eruption had come from, by first craning his neck around and trying to look behind him; and then by standing up in the bath and peering with determination between his legs.)
It seems so funny to me to remember myself there, at the kitchen table in a different state, in a different house, anxiously surfing the internet for information about what to expect from the cashew sized Bean in my belly. I didn’t know about blogs. I had no idea I’d find friends through the internet, and if you had told me that, I most certainly would have told you how utterly creepy and ridiculous and lame that sounded. Because honestly, when you put it that way, it does sound just a tad lame, doesn’t it?
But it’s not. Oh, no. It’s been so fabulous to find blogs, to find YOU. To be able to lament to other mamas about the latest perils and pains of toddlerdom, and best of all to ask, and to receive answers. My “real life" friends who know about this blog think I’m kindof ridiculous when I admit that I get most of my parenting advice from a bunch of moms I’ve never met in person—but it’s because of people like you, and people like Catherine, that I’ve stayed sane these past 20 months and also, remarkably, fallen in love with being a mom.
You’ll have to forgive me for the ramble-on quality of this post. Like I mentioned, I’m feverish, and before I put him to bed, Bean spent his entire bath trying to hold on to either one or the other of his buttocks. I know you'll understand.
Exhausted /
* My best friend showed up on Thursday, and like usual, she made me smile THIS WIDE, knowing just exactly what I mean...offering the best cup of coffee, perfectly sweetened...and waking up at a cheery 6:29am when Bean hurtled down the hall and let himself into her bedroom calling her name with glee. * Bean slept through the night last night (thank god) but I still woke up in the worst mood ever, and had to lie in bed staring at the sky changing from soft pink to blue for a very long time before I was certain I would not bite anyone's head off. I took a nap later, and it didn't help. I still felt like I was trailing myself by a good two yards until noon.
* This afternoon we hosted a get-together for a half-dozen newish friends with toddlers. We sat on the floor. People brought snacks. None of the kids cried. There was lots of chocoalte cake and beer and laughter. The floor was scattered with toys. People stayed for hours. And when they left, we were smiling, but I felt like an eighteen wheeler had run me over.
* I am now certain I'll be sick tomorrow. I'm not much of an extrovert, though I love to be with people. I need down time, re-charge time, quiet time. Anyone want to come to the mytopography house to be my stunt double for a week while I escape to Canada for somenonstop solid alone time? Life has been kicking my butt lately. Even though it's sweet, and full of moments like these:
Sleep deprived and feeling it /
This is winding up to be the fourth night of inconsolable wailing at bedtime, and then again in the middle of the night. The fourth night of rocking until my but is sore, until I’ve sung every song I know, twice. The fourth night of staring blearily at the green lights on the clock at 12:30am, at 12:36am, at 12:48am, and so on until about 2:03pm. The fourth night where DH or I ends up in a compromised sleeping position with a small foot to the jaw. I’m exhausted. And totally at a loss. At first, I thought Bean was teething—and his incisors are coming in. Then I thought it was because he was sick—and he did have a fever. But then his fever went away and his teeth seem fine and he’s still a terror at night—and he’s never been like this. Usually, we have a great little routine: a bedtime story or two, a bath, a warm sippy cup of milk, and then we rock until he falls asleep which is usually about 10 minutes into the program. But for the past week he’s wailed ferociously whenever I move to put him down—stirring from what seems like a deep sleep to protest the transfer from my arms to his crib. And he’s been acting like this for everyone, not just me (for his Gran at nap times, and for DH if he’s the one to rock Bean to sleep.)
I’m not sure what to expect at this age (20 months). I know he’s become suddenly more verbal, and also more exploratory in his defiance (he climbed INTO THE FIREPLACE yesterday which resulted in his first ever time out), but somehow I haven’t quite been able to connect the dots. The fact that I’m sleep deprived hasn’t helped that any, either.
So I’m turning to you yet again, internets—what should I be expecting at this age? I'm at my wits end right now. And. Must. Get. Sleep.
Advice, please /
So, here's something about me: I'm shy on first meeting. No one believes me when I tell them that, but it's painfully true. After the first introductions, I'm great. Anyway, why you needed because: down the road a short distance live two teenage girls who I occasionally wave to as we drive past each other, or once in a while, pass running. They look like very nice girls--and definitely potential babysitters. And we NEED a babysitter. Like yesterday. Also, I've talked to their parents once or twice already (and mentioned that we'd love to have their daughters babysit--but nothing came of that casual suggestion.) So here's my question--how should I go about approaching them about babysitting? Call? Stop by? When?
And also--what is the going rate for high school age babysitters? How late can you ask one to babysit? And in general, please provide any other babysitter tips you may have, oh Internets, I implore you.
1st snow /
It snowed this weekend. The first flakes started to fall in long slanting streaks just as evening tucked the valley in. We were inside with a fire going, hanging pictures (finally) on our walls, listening to a Mozart symphony. The next morning, the world was white and golden: a patchwork of the last bright leaves on the trees, and snow in icy piles along the side of the road. Enough for a snowball fight, and full Bean snowsuit regalia. (My camera is still in for repairs. This one, alas, is crap. But you get the idea. It was pretty, and a mostly restful weekend except for an unidentified allergic reaction on my face yesterday. That, and it was about a week too short.)
Because I always root for the underdog /
I'm so happy Jeffery won on Project Runway! (My one tv watching obsession is hereby revealed.) I loved his couture dress, and that green striped dress with the exquisite detail. I could ever get up the guts to really let my hair down and dress my inner wild self, I'd wear his clothes. (Stop gasping. I know I never where anything but jeans, and an exciting day for me in fashion is a pair of heeled boots. But just imagine. I'm good at imagining.) Another good thing? I have off the next two days, and am thrilled to have time to hang out with my little guy, and make food, and play with friends, and in genral, catch up on life. Bean seems to have been missing me big time tonight. Every time I'd stop rocking and prepare to put him to bed, thinking he was sound asleep, he'd roust himself and say "grock! grock!" I didn't quite get what he was saying at first, but then I realized it was "rock!" as in, 'keep rocking me mommy." And so I did, humming songs in the dark, and feeling emotions rise and then ebb away as my mind gradually stilled.
Here's to quiet moments, good wins, and long weekends.
Making meaning /
My camera, which over the past year has become something like an extension of my eye, is in the shop for repairs, and already I've gone bumbling around the house twice looking for it, forgetting it's not here. It mysteriously started giving me 'error 99' messagesm and I am mourning it's absense. So much to capture with the lense right now. T rain-slicked backs of the water buffalo down the road; the trees, almost leafless, and bending in the wind; the moon like a splash of milk against the gray tablecloth of the stormy night sky. I'm also struggling this week to process the issues that have surfaced around all the school shootings that have happened recently--the one I was in, and the others. I'm trying to find a context for forgiveness, and trying to understand the purpose of such violence and evil--if there is indeed a purpose. I find myself grappling with faith. On one hand, I believe deeply in the intrinsic spiritual nature of the universe, but on the other hand, I feel like the weft has been pulled out from the tapestry of meaning that I've constructed over the past twenty years. I'm left with shreds, and faith is a poor medium for mending rent cloth.
One thing I know: that there is a remarkable power in forgiveness. I've written several posts about the connection I see between forgiveness and generosity. To forgive is a profoundly generous act, and I try to live by this daily, in whatever way I am able. Yet it is hard to have this be enough, when all around me people place blame, point fingers, become angry. I don't know enough about Ghandi, but I'm thinking about him tonight.
In my house, the person who teaches me endless lessons about mindfulness and abundant love, is my son. He's so fun and wild and sweet. His smile is still unadulterated and pure as sunshine--no alterior motive, no secondary list of items to accomplish with his grin. He simply is.
Tonight, it was just the two of us at home with the wind whipping rain into the windows. We painted before bed. I recently bought new tubs of acrylic paint, and used the lids from each container for him to dip his brush into. He made a wild mess. A glorious blur of streaks and color, all over his hands, the page, the floor. I love watching him do this--watching as he tries the color, or explores the way the brush spatters paint.
Being with him asks me to be more. Maybe being a mother it isn't the entire reason, but it's part of the reason I keep coming back to this hard stuff again and again, trying to make meaning, to grow beyond the very small boundaries of my self. Or maybe, being a mother has simply ripped my heart wide open, so I feel everything a little more.
Thursday mosaic /
“Mama!†he calls out, and a smile as bright and pure as the flight of swallows, arcs across the room from him to me. I reach out for him. DH wraps his arms around both of us, and for a minute there we are, just breathing. Then we wrestle on the bed for a while, feeling the weight and warmth of each other.
When we go downstairs we are a flurry of arms and legs and knees, making snack. We’re a tall family, the three of us, and already, Bean’s head comes up above the dining room table. He’s standing on the rungs of the stool now, by the counter, wanting to help me make chocolate milk and peanut butter and jelly tortilla roll-ups. The light outside is perfect: the last of the maples are the most exquisite hue of orange in the late afternoon sun, and the light falls across the room in long slanting rays.
We go for a walk along our dirt road which is thick with new mud from the first real rains of autumn. They say snow is in the forecast for tomorrow, but I can’t believe it. Today the air has that perfect crispness to it, not too cold, but sharp enough to make you feel alive. We walk a little over a mile to where the cattle are grazing in knee-high mist. Among them are two water buffalo that are quite friendly, and when they see us, they amble over, grunting in their earthy way. They lick the salt off our hands with their rough tongues, and eye Bean curiously in his running stroller. We promise to bring them windfall apples next time.
On the way back, we walk with our arms around each other’s waists the way we used to do in college and it makes me smile.