Slow Start: Noticing

I sit here, thinking about the day. Always the weather forecast. Snow, then rain.

This tiny cup of regular coffee, the last 4 ounces in the French Press, is really pretty great. I don’t feel well on coffee, so I limit my habit to decaf or miniscule amounts. I picked the smallest mug in our cupboard, the pink one with glaze drips and a heart on the front.

I am in my office. My son is clomping through the kitchen in his leather boots, opening doors. “Thanks for making me a sandwich, Mom,” he calls.

I see the neighbor’s kid dawdling at the end of their lane, hands stuffed in pockets, beanie pulled down tightly, waiting for the bus.

My own school-kids are still sleeping. I hope Olivia’s cold is better this morning. The other two are cocooned in sleeping bags in their camper/playhouse. They were going to cook soup on the hot plate for their bedtime snack last night, and I feel certain they took enough provisions for breakfast too.

Oh, there’s the bus. How our lives would have to skitter into high gear if we needed to catch a bus! I savor the calm: only the whoosh of the furnace forcing hot air through the ductwork, and my felt-tipped pen making tiny scritchings.

This office is a mess. Everybody stows homeless things in here and shuts the door. Somebody really should do something about it. That Christmas wrapping paper- is it worth storing for a year? There is a stack of thrifted books, titles we love and some we never read but they have familiar authors. The shelves are full, but for a quarter a piece I have no resistance. There’s also a pile of Dr. Seuss and P.D. Eastman, because we have had short visitors recently. Then there is the yarn basket, shoved in here for safekeeping from the short visitors, and the completed tests that need to be filed, and the hamper full of extra blankets from overnight company in December. Really, somebody should do something about this stuff.

In my office there is not one pen I do not like. I fire them into the trash can if they so much as falter or sputter. I burn nice candles in here, not too highly scented because the room is small.

On the walls I display my children’s art- the detailed zentangles my oldest son gave me and the block prints the girls made in art class. There’s the cellophane-wrapped watercolor Gabriel brought me from Puerto Rice, with that brilliant tropical street, and the acrylic painting I attempted at a ladies’ activity. It’s not that good, but it’s the nostalgic view I had out my kitchen window in Osterburg for years, my garden and Gabriel’s barn.

I should organize and declutter in this room. It is the least-finished of all our remodel projects, but it’s my spot and the pens are good.

I pick up my empty coffee mug, slip out, and shut the door.