Bliss

Recently, due to a situation not entirely beyond my control, I’ve been on an emotional roller coaster. This past weekend, I dropped virtually everything. Instead of doing any of the “Important” projects that I have, I spent Saturday helping put up a trellis to train our climbing roses. Evidently the fishheads she put down when planting them made them really take off. The next day after church we came home and blew bubbles. The neighbor’s daughter and I sat blowing bubble after bubble. She seemed to take a perverse pleasure in popping them before they even took off, so my face and beard were soon covered with sticky, soapy bubble mess. And then we drove to Barnes and Noble and just sat around. Lily, our two-year-old, fell asleep on the way, so I sat in a comfy chair listening to their music reading a Neal Stephenson novel, with Lily sleeping in my arms. Stepping back and reprioritizing like this — dropping everything else I had planned — helps me a lot.