D Day

All of July is pointing toward this day. All the tension in my body, the emotional disregulation, the mental exhaustion. After today my body and mind will relax and most of the tension will melt away. Most of it. Today is D Day. The day the flowers died. Cultivating new growth requires a strength and intentionality I do not always possess. Today I long for a home to which I can never return. Tomorrow I will in all likelihood be ready to pick up a shovel and work in the new "garden" again.

I had an absolutely fabulous weekend. On Saturday I went out toward Buffalo with my sister Priscilla. We went to Knox Farm State Park and walked the grounds. Free parking, free entry. I took a bazillion pictures. After a quick lunch, we took a peek in a pottery shop in East Aurora and then headed to Daemen University in Amhurst where we walked the labyrinth across from Curtice Hall. Coffee ice cream at Sweet Jenny's was next, followed by a walk in Glen Park just behind Jenny's. After our ice cream it was time to head to the airport and find Jamie, Priscilla's husband who had been stuck in San Antonio overnight due to the computer outage.

On Sunday I was invited to tag along on a Trejo family outing to Stony Brook State Park in Dansville. I hadn't been there since we camped when Hannah was five years old. We walked the Gorge trail from the bottom up and then back down again. Determination took me all the way up the never-ending staircase at the top of the trail. I had taken my shoes off at one of the waterfalls and walked it barefooted. Yesterday my calves decided to punish me and I find walking at all to be painful. Ha ha! Stony Brook did the exact same thing to me 24 years ago.

I am intentionally setting out new plants, making new memories, in hopes that the old ones will one day not throw me off balance over and over again but today I miss my old gardens. I miss my house on the farm, my spacious kitchen full of my own things, the oversized couch where I took afternoon naps, the breezy back porch, and someone to enfold me in his arms... Tomorrow I will stand firm again, but for today my heart is achy.