Tuesday 10 July 2007

A Tale of Two Days (The Vents They Are A-Blowin' Or, Feeling Sorry For Oneself)

Yesterday the day started off clear. Clean house, food for the day, zipped up with Safiya on the bike to the post office to mail a congrats-on-the-baby package to an acquaintance and an Etsy order, picked up peanut-butter-chocolate soy ice-cream (mmmmm) on the way back. The weather was super hot and muggy so we just shlepped around. Sitting around on the cool playroom floor, we reverse engineered the one smock that Safiya has; the one from Katharine. It was fun (never done it before!) - we made a pattern - Safiya helped by drawing all over the pattern with white tailor's chalk....


Safiya's great-grandfather on Mr. S.'s side was a well-respected tailor - a very good one, apparently, so her pose above makes me smile....so natural...

Then in the afternoon we took a large sheet and a basket and foraged for white mulberries down the street. That little slice of a summer's day, with Safiya shaking the branches of this huge mulberry tree, laughing, is one of those family-slide-slipping-through-your-memory-moments that will stay with me until I'm old and (much more) grey...


We ended off still hot and muggy, no relief, but a good day (the night was a bit too hot for the babe to sleep, but eventually she was in that sound sleep that mamas only dream about...)

Today started off late because of a late night. Dishes to put away. Still hot and muggy, but a bit better. We did have fun going to the farmers' market:


Seriously, way more practical than a stroller :-) But then, then I pushed it. Tried to sew and play. Tried to sew some more. And twiddle with Etsy. And take some photos. Crafty greedy guts I was, but there was something else...Some kind of feeling about "why is it that I've found something that I love to do at exactly the time in my life when it's probably the most difficult to do it?" and, I quote, "Safiya, getting frustrated doesn't actually help you do what you want to do" Upon hearing those words come out of my mouth....well....

I'd like to say that I took it down a notch. It happened, kind of. She had a blast filling up beanbags with buckwheat hulls (child labour - ha!), climbing all over my back as I pretended to be a mountain, some reading....but there was also t.v. and more t.v., too hot and unmotivated to walk to the park, and this day has left me feeling a bit guilty, a bit isolated, and in the middle of it, like I wanted to roar...

One day there's that I-can-do-anything feeling and today finger-tied-and-frustrated....

And really the only difference between the two days? Just me....


So tonight I'm going to sit here with the rabbits and embroider a little on this smock...in the knowledge that that rhythm calms the soul...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

isn't it amazing how the winds can sweep in and change the barometric pressure from day to day, minute to minute? thanks for sharing both the ease and the struggle, marnie.

those berries look magical, and that hat makes me crave watermelon!