It's been a little while and I'm sorry to say that that's just how this is going to be; I've never been very good at coming back to something consistently on a day-to-day basis. I've thought about sharing things like the books I've read recently (Braiding Sweetgrass) and other media I've enjoyed (Sandman!), or maybe the latest update in my fiber arts adventures. but sometimes it's nice to just experience things without also documenting them.
A friend of mine is moving away soon. I'm excited for the new things she's doing but I will miss her and our multitudes of picnics so much.
We've been trying to spend as much time together as possible, as if tallying up the hours now will somehow prevent us from feeling the loss of them later. This past weekend, we went to a historic mill: they have days that they actually run and use it, but we weren't there on one of those. The rooms of the little information center smelled like age and cold dust and I bought a bag of stone-ground white grits.
They gave me a recipe and instructions with the grits; I'm making it now. I had to rinse them with cold water and skim off the chaff.
We've gotten picnicking down to a fine art. I bring the quilt I made early in the summer for this exact purpose: it's durable and washable and easily mended (it has a couple of salsa stains). She brings rosewater lemonade, onigiri, homemade (vegan) meatballs. I bring tea and crackers and zucchini bread. Strawberries and cherries, some little plates to eat off of and spoons for serving. We've been caught in the rain more than once.
We settled in by a pond, this time, after visiting the mill. The weather was (for once) lovely, and a large family was hosting a joint graduation + birthday party just up the hill. We listened to their music and watched the geese and sat, chatting and laughing, for many hours.
Most of our summer activities have been outdoor, as we're both still avoiding being unmasked indoors with other people. But earlier this week she dropped by my home (it was pouring rain and we needed a place to shelter from the lightning). She gave me some cat hair to use for my spinning experiments and I showed her my button collection and a very small fossil another friend gave me, once.
I think what I'm trying to say here is: I like the Redwall books not for the adventure or the drama but the small moments of care: the way that every meal is treated like an act of love both by the cook but by the world that produced the grain and the berries and the fish. My summer of sitting in the hot, wet outdoors and watching the leaves of the trees that are providing us with shade wave lazily above while reminiscing about being a teen in 2011, these bittersweet weeks of reinforcing over and over that my primary love language is quality time (with a dash of acts of service): they've reminded me of that particular flavor of joy. Love in quiet care, in things that could easily be taken for granted or treated as a chore.
The grits are almost ready, I think. I'm not sure how I'll serve them, yet, but I'm looking forward to rinsing and skimming the chaff from the next batch I make.
← homeward