Day Twenty-Seven: Joy

A cool night, and I’m on my back stoop with a pit fire in
front of me. I built it just for me. I took my time building it, meandering
around the yard to collect sticks. It’s nice to look for sticks by myself. I
don’t have to lay ground rules of what we do and do not do with a stick in one’s
hand. I don’t need to cover fire safety rules every five minutes.

“It’s just us girls tonight,” I tell the dogs before releasing
them to the backyard. It’s a risky move to do with border collies, each
quarter-trained that cars are not cows. But setting up tonight felt risky, too,
so I guess it all goes.

Matt is with the older two at a camp out, and it was supposed to be Tommy and me doing whatever a mom does with only one boy underfoot. But then I thought, I could make a call to my mom and have no one underfoot. That would set me on a new adventure – being alone in my house for a whole night.

Can I? Should I? This isn’t a new pair of questions. Moms ask these questions a lot, and oftentimes, they’re guilt-ridden. But tonight, they come from an ambitious place. Shoot! With everyone gone, I can finally finish the landscaping and after that, write my book. I can do yoga in the middle of the family room without a boy plopping on my back.

The to-do’s come faster than I can write them. Five minutes in, I have a nasty case of writer’s cramp.

That’s when I decide tonight is for rest. Tonight is to read someone else’s book. Tonight is for a fire pit and a glass of wine with leftovers. It’s to take my meal to the back stoop, which is wide enough for one, and eat while I listen to anonymous bird songs – at least that was the plan, until my neighbor started mowing his lawn at 8PM on a Saturday night. Honestly.

So, tomorrow I’ll take my coffee and the dogs for a sunrise hike. It will be different on the trails without the boys, but we’ve hiked them enough. I’ll see all three in our usual places. They will make for quiet memories. Maybe I’ll hear the birds.