The Other Side of the World

Clearly, do not mess with the consumption of spoons!

Exibit A: apparently our child does not enjoy having her diaper changed on the front lawn of the Supreme Court.

I, on the other hand, have become inured to exposure now that half of the people in the nation’s capital have seen my breasts this weekend whilst placating unreasonably sulky fellow car travellers. Well, one on purpose, all others are merely coincidental.

All hail public tolerance to baby-nourishing, and clean lawns. Justice, indeed.

Today the love-nut and I, finding ourselves alone on a Saturday, set forth for the market with an inquisitiveness bound with skepticism. This latter thought stemming from the fact that our only proof of its existence was the lovely daddy pointing his wiry stems in the direction of a box store  parking lot in the middle of non-descript strip mall wasteland and proclaiming that on Saturdays there would be a market there. Given that the lovely daddy, in all his loveliness, is not what one would describe as a coinesseur of independent organic farms in quite the same way I am, I was holding my breath.

Having braved the onslaught of overly friendly bus-going denizens intent on engaging me in the same type of social flirtation that my baby seems to crave, we arrived at the large box store behind a gas station. Suspicion mounted.

It was then I noticed a small, worn path through the shrivelled road-side grass just where the bus had deposited us. Picking our way downhill, past the empty propane tanks and air pump and through the gate proclaiming entrance to clients/tenants only we braved on.

And then, rising like Atlantis from the pavement - vans and small trucks spilling forth wild, springy, good things. Fresh-shrouded in moist-crumbled dirt and rural dew and the magic of growing.

Thus we spent a happy hour strolling, picking through piles of greens, chatting (I seem to much prefer market-vendor chat to bus-stranger chat) and, since the love-nut was involved - lots of public nipple groping and grazing.

Tonight’s dinner bowl brimmed with the fruits of our expedition. Soup thick with last seasons red potatoes, deep-green stinging nettles, delicate tang of lovage and - the crowning acheivement - the sweet spring cream of fresh goat milk.

I mean, raw milk in Canada is illegal, and we only procured it to feed to our pets.

Fingers tingling with the brush of nettles, bellies warmly thrumming, the pleasant, happy happenstance of spring Alchemy.

Honestly, here’s the rub. There’s a reason my words are set to black, and it is this: they are surrounded by black in the reality as well.

I sit in the dark and let the inky opaque air deliver them to my fingers. And now my nights are pressed by other things.

By the shape of other bodies laid against mine like recently cooked clams. Moist, salty and cooling.

The shadowy scrape of half moon nails across my forearm in persistant request for milk, rather than prose.

There are still words there, gently clamouring for purchase in my wafting mind. 

But now, more than usual, they are left uncommited to real space.

Left instead to tumble back into night space.

Allo!

Spring is here, spoons are being consumed, posts of great import to follow - all when there are less people reading & shrieking over my shoulder as I type.

Apparently it’s beginning to sink in that I’m not alone anymore!

we wash lots of diapers and then bask in their post-dryer warmth

homemade pizza dough is perfected by the LD

sometimes we sleep

and sometimes, we sleep on each other

I woke up yesterday being eye balled by these giant specimens and I had to quickly go back to sleep for a minute. The cuteness, it is overwhelming at times.

There was snow smashed into every crevice of our street today making for an exhilarating automotive thrust through the ice ruts not to mention a thrilling bout of morning labour for the lovely daddy (I wonder if he’ll dig my car out in the future when I get called out at 4am? is this an unreasonable dream?)Red.skirt.lust. Please, someone, contrive for this skirt to enter my life in a more visceral way than me clicking on the Etsy store from whence it comes 18 times a day (it’s handmade! of recycled material! by a struggling artist! there is so much good to add to the world via this skirt!).

To sum: baby googlers, snowstorm # 28 of the season and Etsy.com
. . . dangerous things all

Also: to the person that stole my bag of groceries, or perhaps contrived to evaporate it unbeknownst to me, or who finds it in a deep snow drift: enjoy the prune juice and chocolate pudding!

I am not sleeping this night-time because we, this elegant little dyad of us - can sleep any time. Can curl up and sink our noses into each other’s folds that are scentless in their familiarity. Custard-silk creases. Luxury trimmed in richness.
I am also not sleeping because I’m not at home and everything is a quarter-turn past perfectly comfortably familiar. The realization of this is tedious because it reminds me how hard and long it feels before things settle into home-ness. And this, of course, juxtaposes with the back-to-other-side-world-ness that is forthcoming. And the thought of reworking that transition, yet again, is a little achey and sharp.
Perhaps tacking on an entourage this time around will rub the edges some.
I’d like that.
And I’d like sleep.

because today is Bach’s concerto for two violins on repeat, hand-knit socks, chicken soup -
and this is what you do for some vitamin D in mid-february-canada