Skip to main content

sweet tea and other perks

We've been back in America for just over 2 weeks now. For some reason, I decided that caffeine doesn't really count in sweet tea and I drank too much, too late yesterday afternoon. So now at 3:29am, I'm up and totally awake.

Running here is such a joy. I love running through the neighborhoods of Dover. There is this one super steep hill that is so hard but once I turn to run back down, there's this great view over the houses and every time I rejoice in what I can see. I get this really satisfied, happy feeling as I'm running past light pink dogwoods and this one bright, bright purple azalea. I look at the sky and no matter if it's cloudy or sunny, it's so beautiful to me. I'm really glad we are here.

Madeleine and Lilian are in and out of the house all day. It's amazing how much a yard does for a kid's spirit. Yesterday evening, they were in the front lawn spinning and laughing as it drizzled. It was so sweet.

Life right now is relaxing and calm. I really like the calm. That's something I really notice about living here. I feel calm and life around me does too. I know it's because of my experiences in China, where there are people everywhere, all the time. Even the littlest task outdoors often feels hurried and full there.

We like going to the Dover Elem. school playground in the evenings. It's a nice walk from the Steiner's house. We were there yesterday evening and towards the end of our time we were the only people on the whole school grounds. It's like I'm taking a big sweet breath in and releasing slowly in contentment. Living somewhere that's been really hard for me over the last 2 years, sure makes me appreciate the little, ordinary things of American life.

So good to be back.


Popular posts from this blog

It's simply  the break in the clouds the huff up the mountain the cover of yellow leaves the toast of the sun that brings the swell of the spirit.
Read more

Fickle ol' solidarity

At some point in March when this virus deemed that it had spread so far that it could be called a pandemic, I told the girls they should do video journals to remember the days of living in a pandemic. Here now in the middle of April, I realize that I need to write for myself and the girls can just have lots of regret when they're older because they didn't do what I said. When the whole world started moving to stay-at-home orders, I felt such a strong sense of solidarity.  I looked at all of us (literally all of us - okay, most of us) in our different areas of the world facing this beast together.  Jimmy Fallon's wife filmed him hosting from home.  John Krasinski started SGN in his home office.  Everyone was joking about toilet paper, sweatpants, and cutting your own bangs. Italians were singing from their balconies.  Wuhan folk were singing from their high-rises.  Hospitals in NYC were being surrounded by patrol cars each evening with lights flashing and ...
Read more

All these posts

Somewhere in space are all these posts that people write.  I've had this blog for years now and I hardly ever use it but it's still always here.  Who is that person that finally says, "Okay, enough is enough. Your blog is gone."? I'm tired.  It's Saturday afternoon at 4pm.  I'd like to nap longer or watch a movie.  I don't want to play chu chu train and I don't want to take a slow toddler paced walk outside.  I don't want to start making pizza but I should, which means I need to go buy tomato paste, make the sauce and make the crust.  I'm feeling lazy and a hard thing with being a parent is that when you're lazy, others in your life have the potential to starve. We're looking at buying a house.  It's not an easy thing to do when the house is on one side of the globe while you're on the other.  When I want to get something done, I want it done now.  So, that's making this process hard.  We're at the mercy of east...
Read more