38

My mother had to explain to me recently how it is that I am actually turning 38 today. It doesn't actually feel like a huge deal, 40 might be. Felix gave me birthday hugs today and I've got a few hours alone at home this morning - Hamish is doing preschool pickup. I'm floundering though in the blahs and heavy body and frumpys and fluid retention of the first day of my cycle and a grey day. And as always, overwhelmed by time alone and a huge list of things to do. Bake, slog through month end family accounting, wash dirty fleeces from spring shearing, lay down, darn, wash the floor, do some wet winter gardening to prepare for midwinter sowing, battle some blackberry, yoga, spot treat laundry, watch bodywork videos, write this blog post. It's not that I can't do things with Felix, it's the constant interruptions that kill all productivity or at least add 50% to the total time required to complete any project. Husband and I are enjoying a stretch of good days, a lovely birthday treat. Being able to fully relax into a hug and feel his warmth and enjoy his smell, or actually kiss, even cleaning up the kitchen together in harmony or, god forbid, joke together, these are rare things. He woke us up early on Sunday morning, the truck already running, jackets laid out, and drove us up the forestry road to a trailhead and we came out of the forest on the bluffs at the exact moment the sun rose over the hills, copper and gold, while the full moon was sinking at the other end of the sky over the okeover inlet and desolation sound. Felix was energized as he always is when H and I are good - he ran almost the whole length of the trail in and I could hear hamish behind us both, laughing his real laugh, watching felix's little legs like pistons over roots and sticks and rocks, like a little steam train. We had actually been imagining we were cantering on horses through the forest in the predawn light and for some minutes it almost felt like it. My mama is cooking an austrian knoedel dinner for me tonight and it'll be the first time hamish has been in their house since Armenio died. I'll always remember hamish's deep grief one night, sudden sobbing, a month or so after his death. Felix still talks about him and we say goodnight Tio when we blow out a candle. Ten years, we were robbed of. A new friend, Lucy from London and it's funny how I am immediately very comfortable with European girls compared to Canadians. There's less superficiality. Straightforward but not necesarily bluntness. Education, an awareness of the world and other cultures. We discussed her canadian crush and mercilessly psychoanalyzed him, we went mushroom hunting and examined mammoth vertebrae in Robert's house. She promptly moved to the island today. Maybe I'll connect her with Kevin, maybe she'll move back here for this red flag man. A brief flare of friendship and a new mushroom to pick.