4/4/05

Today I called my friend. She sounds sort of perpetually sad lately– low grade functional depression, I call it. She says the priestess’ new book is mellower and wiser now that Anne is 50. She says that leaves the field wide open for someone a neurotic and jesusy as her.

Phew! My pal was being funny. Funny is good. If my pal wasn’t being funny, I’d fly over to her right away to begin force feeding her paxil.

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The house is incredibly quiet. Sharon is giving a massage and the girls are at school. I cannot rouse myself to do anything. I had a level 7 migraine (out of ten) yesterday and now a familiar pervasive stillness has settled in. Migraine hangover. My room smells of slept in sheets and none-too-new carpet, and most of the shades are drawn. There is a heap of clean laundry as high as my thigh at the foot of the bed. My husband does not see this, but I do, every time I enter the room. It waits at the foot of the bed huffing and pouting that it’s yet to be folded.

Every mismatched candle we’ve been given dots our room, in various stages of meltdown. (The room, the candles, or me? All three I suppose.) I don’t want them, but I can’t bear to throw them away, even if their colors are too garish and their scents too false. The one I hate the most is a square glass jar filled with purple gel and plastic grapes – a wedding favor thoughtfuly passed to us by a visiting aunt. Who knew it would smell like kool aid when lit? Paul burns it when he’s eaten beans…when the children walk in and say “It smells like toots in here.” I will be glad when it is burned all the way low.

I want to curl in a corner of a clear, cedar-lined room with a huge healthy palm tree in one corner. I want to nest in a heap of earth toned pillows. I want to read a fabulous womanly novel filled with intrigue and mystery and magic. I want a brownie and an exquisitely made mug of chai. A burger and perfectly seasoned fries. A plate of dynamite rolls and ginger. I want the sound of the ocean through panels of bowed glass. I want a still evening’s fall by a frog ringed lake. I want dragonflies and slouchy sock that do not itch and the perfectly weighted sweater. I want my daughter curled up next to me with her lady bug slippers, reading a beautifully illustrated book, “The Women of Camelot.” I want Paul asleep in the hammock and Cate, sweet cheeked and dreaming on the couch. I want Bruce Cockburn plucking his guitar on the far side of the lake and a plate of chocolates on the windowsill. I want paradise, I guess