And I will find you although I wonderThese hairpins are digging in to my neck.
If I will climb through this rock I'm under
I'm turning the page for something new
I'm finding my way through life in bloom
I opted for a low chignon today, fastening my sterling hairpins just so, and forgetting I should give them a little twist to keep them in now that my hair is shorter than it used to be, now just dusting against my collarbone again instead of almost to the waist which is when these pins really come in handy. I can pick locks with these ones as well. Well, I could if I needed to, I mean. I really should have worn the pins with the poppies instead.
Next time I plan to cut my hair to my chin, hold me down so I can't get to the hairdresser. It's been over a year, I still have regrets.
This is the final day the children are home before they begin school. We're having hurricane-like weather with bright skies, wind coming from every direction and episodes of torrential rains. It's kind of sad that their last day wasn't nice enough to go for a long walk and play outside in the sun but it just didn't seem to be that kind of summer, with only a handful of days with which to soak up the warmth and squint our eyes tight against the blazing sun.
Oddly, fall is still my favorite season. An endless autumn would be the perfect match for your Bridget but it always has to rot, degenerating into winter without so much as a backward glance. Turning cold, just like I do.
I have paid for the tree-banding and the school supplies. We've packed their gym gear and snacks. We've brought down the hanging baskets and brought out the mitten basket. The gardens seem to be in final bloom and some plants have already gone into dormancy. The garden tools have been cleaned and put away and most of the heavy fall cleaning has been done now, thanks to a magnificent effort yesterday to rearrange the entire ground floor of the house to make it more liveable and people-friendly and get rid of several large items that no one had sentimental attachment to, namely, Bridget. It took hours, but it's finished and with it I have a fresh outlook going into the next season.
It's inevitable. Fall comes, then winter comes. The children begin grades 5 and 3 in spite of the fact that I'm going to miss them dearly. My days are my own again to keep up with chores, errands, work and the care of fragile miss b. In the rare moments when there's no one around I'll have the dog to talk to. We'll walk out by the tracks again like I used to do with Butterfield and I'll let my head off leash, marinating in the isolation of train whistle while the dog trots along with a stick in his mouth like a prize. The house will always be clean, I'll have less guilt because the kids will be too tired to be bored for another ten months and more worry because they are just big enough to walk together but alone to and from the schoolyard, something that has me checking for them down the sidewalk for several heartstopping moments twice a day as I wait for them to come home for lunch and then home again in the afternoon.
I'm getting used to it. This will be the fourth year for us, and it's been beneficial in the way that homeschooling never would been to introduce them to the actual abrupt and exciting roller coaster that life is. I haven't gotten used to it yet. It always takes a few weeks of change for change to sink in for me. It takes a few precious days of not doing much of anything to get to know myself again and how I function with everyone away and busy.
It'll be okay.
That's what everyone keeps telling me. I hope they're right.
The external fall preparations are complete, excepting anything that will be affected by Indian Summer which had better serve to redeem the entire year all by itself. Now it's time for the internal preparations. Somehow not everything gets done. I do what I can though. I work hard at it. I have my hair put up so it's off my neck when things heat up and I'm ready for just about anything.