Evolution, revolution, gun control, the sound of soul*

My niece and her boyfriend spent the afternoon with me yesterday, and later my daughter and her boyfriend joined us, and we watched Property Brothers and the first round auditions of So You Think You Can Dance and lamented the dearth of anything good on television come summer. We ordered in Italian food for dinner, and the talk meandered everywhere, and I won't say it was just like old times, because these are definitely new times, a whole new frame on things, but these times together are as lovely as times past in their own evolving way.

Also yesterday, I was waiting for news of my friend, who was undergoing major surgery. She came through it all beautifully, and is now at home resting. Her son is there with her. He lives out of town but will be in the city until Saturday, at which point it will be my turn to be on call. She's groggy and in some pain, but considering she was terrified she would die, obsessing on that thought during the endless weeks leading up to yesterday, all is well. She gave me an orchid for my birthday at the beginning of May, and it's still blooming strong, and every day I took care of it and knew that it was telling me she would be just fine, despite her overactive imagination that so resembles mine.

In the evening, after the young people had left, ahnd before the man came home from his board meeting, I went downstairs with my laptop and set up at a table in the courtyard, in the dark, the night growing chilly, and I climbed into the glow of my computer screen and wrote 930 new words, not perfect words by any stretch, but it was an advance on the journey to 75,000 words, and today I can polish those imperfect words and make them better, and carry on.

It's gray and chilly outside. Some dear friends from Florida just texted me that they're in town for the weekend, and we made a plan for them to come over on Sunday. Their boys are with them, two handsome young men the same age as my children. I feel kind of melancholy that they might not see their age cohorts this time, and will have to put up with a boring visit with just their old aunt and uncle, and when did that become my story? I think I need to work on a new one.


*For some reason, this lyric from the 1971 Temptations song "Ball of Confusion" keeps playing in my head. Back in the day, I knew all the words.