Paul Simon Says It All

Well, Blogger is intent on me showing my picture first so I bow to superior strength. I know I'm a little late for February, but I've been having so much fun having my son home for my birthday that I didn't get it uploaded until now.

One of my favorite quotes is: Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.
—Elizabeth Stone Once your child leaves home for school or to start their own lives is a profound life change. Every minute of every day I'm aware that, even though I'm still at home, my heart is wandering around out there. I wouldn't want it any other way--I'm proud of his independence, his courage and his determination to make his life amazing. (And he's doing a superb job of it.) But there my heart is, out there with him. It's a colorful house (perhaps more-so metaphorically) and there's always a cat in the window, but Evan's always there with us, in our hearts.

But, getting back to Paul Simon...all day I've been singing "Have a Good Time" in my head:

Yesterday it was my birthday / I hung one more year on the line. / I should be depressed, / My life's a mess / But I'm havin' a good time.

54's not so bad! I wouldn't go back to my 20's or earlier for all the money in the world. My 30's were nice, but really busy. My 40's were even busier. Now I'm busy, but it's a good busy. More elements of play. Less fretting over things being perfect. (As Anne Lamott says, "I was 35 years old before I realized that a B+ was a good grade.") A much smoother life with less radical ups and downs. My mom is still declining but...each day is pretty darned good. It's a happy little house, getting more colorful all the time.

Snowday!

I work at Washington State University, an institution that very rarely closes, no matter what's going on. They didn't even close the libraries when we were covered in ash from the Mt. St. Helens eruption. But evidently what it takes to close the place down are 2' of snow (virtually overnight) and high winds. We got the day off, and here's what it looks like.


In celebration of the day off (even though the grocery stores are running out of essentials like milk because all the roads are closed and nothing can get in) it was time to make snowflakes. They'll be incorporated into my January page for the bead journal project and they're very fun to make.

Sorry they're a little blurry--I need a tripod.

Field of Diamonds In The Sky

Finally. I have to roll my eyes, even at myself. This page was *supposed* to be easy to do (in my imagination, anyway) and it took forever. I'm getting faster at beading, but I'm still slow. The page looks pretty amateurish, but it turned out more or less looking like my vision.

During the month of August my mother was in the care center of her assisted living facility and was so unhappy that I went to visit her each week. Occasionally I came back into the Palouse (the area of Eastern Washington where I live) after dark and while I was driving through the wheat fields at night the Johnny Cash song, "Field of Diamonds In the Sky" kept going through my mind.

Field of diamonds in the sky, like the night you pass me by.
I could touch you if I tried, fields of diamonds in the sky.
Am I just a star in some crown?
Or someone's life sun going down, down, down?

To live in the Palouse (with wheat fields and rolling hills going for miles, whichever way you look) you have to appreciate the area for what it is. I find it beautiful and dramatic.