It's cool today. Jeans and no shirts for some, simple linen sundresses for others. I'll let you figure out who's wearing what. The pool and the air seem to be the same temperature, the skies are a pale blue that remind me of Jacob's eyes. The clouds persist, but just a little. There's a blanket folded on the back of the swinging bench on the porch and one on my favourite egg-chaise by the pool, just for me, just in case I get cold and want to wrap myself up like a burrito.
I've been strolling the neighborhood picking blackberries and picking up litter, petting everyone's cats, dogs and children, talking to Ruth on the phone half the time and my dad the other half. My dad has gotten old suddenly. Gone is the stubborn, unfeeling mean giant of a man and in his place is someone shorter, frailer and more understanding, somehow, as if the wind has been taken completely out of his sails. He's almost fun to talk to now, and I almost want to go back on my vow to feel nothing when it comes to my folks, as they never felt anything about me, other than some sort of smug satisfaction that they could just lie about my life instead of being horrified by it.
But as I said, I have made the choice not to care.
At all.
Cole's anniversary came and went. The clouds came and went. The rain came in briefly and then went. I watched like seven dozen movies and documentaries and true crime dramas on Netflix and I don't think I liked any of them. I loved the mom in Run Rabbit Run but not the story. I'm watching American Psycho now just to remind myself that Patrick Bateman is a construct of a construct and Caleb took some stupid cues back in the day, though I feel like men like Caleb are more then inspiration for the writers instead of the result, especially since this movie is only twenty years old.
I haven't 'done' anything. A little gardening. I stalked a very big beetle yesterday. I cleaned out one of the Jeeps since it was downright filthy and I scrubbed the inside of the pantry (shelves too). I hung more lanterns. I cleaned some baseboards and windowsills and I painted an old set of bookends that my grandfather made and I have carted around ever since and they're holding the cookbooks. I found a copy of Kim's Cookbook for Young People, a treasured first cookbook that Bailey and I studied and copied and cooked before I was one of the boys. I bought it and am waiting for it to arrive. I'm going to send it on to her for her birthday.
I haven't made much progress in my own reading. I want to do a lot of sewing and painting and reading and resting but the dog is dying and he needs me. I can't leave a room without him anymore and it's breaking my heart. Fifteen years of having an ever-present shadow and when I don't have a shadow anymore I don't know what I will do. This dog is my constant and my comfort, even sleeping up close to my head when the boys moved here and I was left behind and I watched 30 days of night and got weirdly scared.
I needed him and now he needs me so if he needs me to sleep up by his face I will do it. It's the least I can do for him. His spine is sharp and his eyes are cloudy. He has no idea what his name is anymore and he rarely eats. But it's okay. He can live out his days on love.
I didn't mean for this to be sad. I meant to sit down and tell you how reluctant I have become to be reasonable. I'm back to living in my own head and maybe it's the pills, maybe it's the dog, but it just feels like someone dropped a concrete block between me and life and only Lochlan and the children can get around it.
That's not a bad thing. Just a thing that I see. But my eyes are cloudy too. Cloudy and rainy, more often than not.