Just Spring

We've been getting the typical spring weather, an ever changing mix of sun, rain, snow, and sleet. It was sunny when I woke up and then it was gray. We left the house in the afternoon to run errands and it was rainy and then we had some sleet and some snow and finally a bit of blue sky, all on a forty minute drive. It seemed to clear up, but in the evening it became windy again and then there was more rain.

I describe all of this just to say that the weather seems to match my mood recently.

Saturday we met my mother at a furniture store in town and bought a couple of chairs, one for her and one for us. My brother's birthday was last Sunday but we did not see him on that day. My father's funeral was the next day and we did not go. We sent flowers that we ordered before we met my mother on Saturday. On Tuesday or Wednesday, a letter from the insurance company came in the mail. On Thursday I had an appointment with the nurse practitioner because my sinuses have been sore for days. After that, we stopped for dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant that we haven't been to in a long time. I had forgotten it was Ramadan. When I got home, I got online and ordered a death certificate to send to the insurance company.

I am actively looking for a new therapist. I think I've run the course with the one that I've been seeing for a long time. It started to fall apart about the time I started calling her on how much time she was spending talking about her own issues during my therapy time. I have an appointment with a new therapist on Monday morning.

I've been writing and drawing and cooking and doing laundry. I have not been doing any sewing, though I have some ideas for some new projects. My sewing area is a mess because I've been using my cutting table for painting and drawing and my art supplies are piled high. From where I'm sitting, I can reach four journals, a container of brushes, a small bin of pens, five sets of colored pencils, four watercolor sets, a set of inktense blocks, washi tape, acrylic paint, watercolor pencils, watercolor paper. I started by making small sketches in my journal and transitioned into making cards. That led to picking up my larger art journal again. I hadn't worked in that journal since January. 

Next to me is a stack of books about sewing, all of which I've acquired (used) in the last month. I also have the copy of the book that the dental hygienist lent me and two others that I ordered, one about loss and grieving, one about the German children the British saved from the Nazis. I've not been reading much. I have been having trouble concentrating to be honest. 

The plum tree in the courtyard bloomed a few weeks ago, but the wind and snow and rain have taken care of all the blossoms and the tree is mostly bare again. Birds have built a nest under the porch just outside the door to the courtyard. Spring is here again. Life goes on.

Tonight we had an early dinner with lots of vegetables (vegetable and tofu stir fry over quinoa). Healthy, yes, but I had to have a snack (baby carrots and ranch) a few hours later and now I'm hungry again.

Here's an e.e. cummings poem about spring that I have loved for almost forty years:

[in Just-]

in Just-

spring          when the world is mud-

luscious the little

lame balloonman

whistles          far          and wee

and eddieandbill come

running from marbles and

piracies and it's

spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer

old balloonman whistles

far          and             wee

and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's

spring

and

         the

                  goat-footed

balloonMan          whistles

far

and

wee