Monday, November 11, 2013

spin-drifting to god

Today was magical.  It was the kind of day where you roll out of bed and straight-away step into the glass slippers.  This was our third day in a row of fifty degrees and sunshine.  The snow has melted everywhere but northern shadows and mountain peaks.
(Juniper on the trampoline: "I like the way my hair bounces on my head.")

There was nothing particularly extraordinary about today--Juniper awoke early with a runny nose and Hazel was clingy (a sure sign that she wasn't feeling up to par), but still.  I was glowing.  The tiniest gifts--gifts of the world--lit my day and my soul.
(I really love that my zone 3 garden can still grow vegetables in November, with no other help than an old sleeping bag on the coldest nights.)

My husband had the day off from work.  First thing, after a quick breakfast of granola and yogurt, we clipped the chickens' wings, let them loose in the yard and it felt so homey just to have them pecking about our feet, catching the last hoppers of the season and finally exploring this space they'd been eyeing for so long.  Later on, I opened the nest box to discover our first sage-green egg (we've been getting two brown eggs a day since the beginning of the month).  Juniper!  Juniper!  Hazel!  Girls!  Come look!  You won't believe it!  There's a big surprise in the nest box!  
(This is Banana ^.  The runt who is now our largest chicken.)  

I felt like this plethora of mid-autumn warmth was more than my body could bear and I was overflowing with exuberant sunshine.  A green egg!  Every tiny thing felt like a miracle and further proof that this was the best day ever.
(What I awoke to this morning ^, after sleeping-in for a few minutes: Commando-girl.)

My man worked on a play structure he's been building for the girls; I puttered around the garden tucking-in plants and making up beds for the winter.  In all reality, it was just a lovely, perfectly ordinary day.
(The slide is fast; Hazel launches out the bottom.)

Juniper wanted to "nap" (she doesn't any more) in the playhouse with a sleeping bag and I couldn't bring myself to go inside for naptime--not even for twenty minutes to get Hazel down.  So papa stayed with Juniper while I tucked Hazel into the old single-seater B.O.B stroller and the whole time I was saying, "Wow.  This brings back memories.  Juniper, did you know that when you were younger I tucked you into this stroller every afternoon and walked while you napped?  You loved it.  So did I."  
 I walked.  Hazel slept.  Hawthorn berries glowed red in the low-slung afternoon sun.  I walked along a residential road that runs through the middle of a huge, open field and I saw the tiniest spider dangling mid-air, as though its web-line ran all the way up to god.  I was so astonished I plucked it out of the air, just to be sure.  I'd heard about that, of course.  But I'd never actually seen it.  When I got home and told my husband about the spider he said, Oh yeah.  Kiting.  So today I saw a tiny spider kiting, spin-drifting, eye-level in the middle of a field.  Or maybe it was me: floating, drifting, spinning, high on this ordinary life.  
            

5 comments:

  1. I totally know the feeling! And man that play structure is amazing!!!!

    Wish I hang out where you live, its picture perfect x

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  2. I love that kind of day. Kiting? I am glad to know it has a name, I am in awe of it, too.

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  3. First eggs and sunshine and little blondies. Too precious.

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