Mornings, noons, and nights. My girl and I are early risers. Up around 5 a.m. (which is when Andy gets up to go to work), I take my shower by Christmas-tree light, and bring my trusty coffee pot and my fake candle back up to bed on the tray. Then I wait for my lady to wake. When she does, I go in and unwrap her from her swaddle and she smiles at me. Her big huge darling smile. (That's been happening for about a week. Still just can't believe she does that. It's my favorite moment of the day.) She unfolds her tiny arms and reaches up with her fists and down with her tiny toes and stretches everything. She makes her little blustering noises, tiny snorts and snuffles — it's hard to wake up. I say, "Good morning, my dear lady! What are we going to do today?" Then I pick her up and she buries her face in my neck and puts her warm hands on my chest. I kiss her neck where it's warm and soft (well, where isn't it warm and soft) and we linger here, only minutes (before she wiggles and yawps and calls for her breakfast), but for as long as she'll let me. The day begins. These lazy, busy, soft, warm, long, lovely, lovely days at the end of the lovely year with our sweet, funny, silly, snuggly, adorable, adorable, darling girl. I look into her beautiful navy blue eyes and make a wish.
***
Just a minute ago it was "snowing," small almost-flakes that Greta (miracle Posie assistant, who comes three afternoons a week and who has kept everything running like clockwork, running better than when I ran it myself, quite frankly) and I, both of us Midwestern girls, watched from the windows with pure longing. I can see why they call them flurries. Such a pretty and capricious word. The flakes swirled and fell, invisible as they hit the ground. Inside, we are cozy and keeping warm, piled under our various piles of calico, wool, and goosedown. We seem to have so many piles like that here. A pile for every room. We don't do much (well, dear Greta does, but the rest of us don't). Just sit, and snuggle, and drink, and sometimes rock in the rocking chair, maybe make some tea or hot chocolate, maybe watch Downton Abbey, maybe light a firelog or add some wood to one that's already flickering, and then go back to the downy pile. I like to turn all the sounds off and listen to the furnace sometimes. Last night, late last night, I finished The Long Winter. That book was awesome. I can't believe I'd never read it before. The scene where Almanzo and Cap are trying to make it back across the frozen slough with the sixty bushels of wheat and the horses keep falling through the snow? Ouf. The way she described Prince standing in the snow hole with his head down, waiting for Almanzo to help him again almost made me cry. MAN do I love pioneer lit. I still have to tell you about my other books. But I am so lazy.
New Year's Eve. A goodbye to the old year, even as everything here still seems so new. I still haven't really found the words to describe most of how I feel. Part of that is probably just plain old tiredness. I was
generally worn out by the holidays when I didn't have a
three-month-old baby. Part of it is (still) just plain astonishment. Even when I'm just thinking to myself, hearing my own voice ramble on inside me and not even trying to talk out loud, I'm still just mostly thinking, "I am astonished!" And that feeling looks like a big blue Montana sky.
Part of it is that gratitude just floods me moment to moment, and humbles me speechless. I think in prayers now, and I guess they have a language all their own.
I wish you a very, very happy and fun New Year's Eve, and a really wonderful new year.
