She's Keen to Smaller Acts She Likes Honey in Her Coffee and Boys that Use Their Backs

I started packing today. We haven't chosen a place, but we have a month and a half, so I had to either get to it or every moment I sit not doing it is a moment that fills me with guilt and anxiety. Things will be fine, I'm sure. But things will be fine because I do things to make things fine. That is me.

I've almost finished in the living room. The bookshelves are empty, save a few talismans that I just want to keep in my sightline: a Janine glass cake box in emerald (maybe that's why it's my favorite color), a cathedral window pillow hand-quilted by my Nanny, a stupid pewter dragon, provenance unknown, I've just carried it around with me for a couple decades, so I'll just keep on taking it where I go.

I sorted the boxes in the basement. I'm going to have to buy more bank boxes, as mine vanished (I suspect I do know where) and I'm grateful that in this iteration, it's not a pinch to spend a couple bucks on a box. I've assembled what remain, a couple dozen, mostly already labeled for the kitchen. My eyes are itchy and blurry, my nose is runny from the dust and from a couple breakdowns, as I find things like my packet of name change information, a photo in a starburst frame, a pillow, the testament that neither of us could ever leave it alone. We had no choice.

Gabe walked back in the door with a pack of bank boxes. And that almost made me cry again. He's been a huge help since he got his license. I woke up this morning to two loaves of bread (his preferred and mine) that I neither bought nor asked for. It's that kind of thing that I appreciate most and notice and need. Leaving the porch light on for me, leaving Blanche a bowl of water when she's outside and won't come back in, a pack of boxes, and a few minutes on the sofa when he comes back from a trip. He's a good young man and I'm proud of his goodness, his kindness, his gentle nature, the depth in his heart that I recognize.

Brings to mind an extra sauce saved for me at cost to lunch, a change in tone speaking to me and then someone else, and me again, a note stuck for months on a keyboard, a disappearing certificate, smaller acts that add up to something else entirely. Tiny deferences. 

I've begun a stack of boxes to donate. The plan is to donate a quarter of this stuff. I really do not need it. No reason to drag it around with me. And I certainly won't have the space I have now. I may have my office in my bedroom or my easel in the living room. That's if I have that luxury. And that will still cost me about two grand a month. I regret so much not buying a house when the getting was good. I fear I'll never have a place of my own. I fear that I will.

I clumsily fell on the stairs again today. I'd taken some empty boxes to the landing, and for some reason forgot the three stairs at the bottom as I backed away. It's a miracle I didn't hurt myself worse, falling backward down stairs. I thank all the exercise I've done for the past couple of years. My ankles are stronger than they'd otherwise be, my balance and recovery speed are better. I did crash into the wall at the bottom with my left elbow. That's going to leave a nasty bruise, but at least it was my good shoulder. I didn't crash through the wall either, and if I hadn't smacked with so much surface area, I might have done. One more thing to fix.

I had an oblique request for oatmeal raisin cookies for the meeting at the shop tomorrow. Nothing as forward as asking the resident baker to make them, but disgustedly throwing a half-eaten one in the trash out of pure disappointment in front of her is a kind of solicitation. I do not like oatmeal raisin cookies. So I won't know if they taste good or not. My impulse was to add pecans and dark chocolate and soak the raisins in rum, but that was not the request. Maybe next time. I'd move mountains for that ragtag bunch, but they would and voluntarily chose to potentially take a bullet for me, so I think it's fair. So now there's a mountain of cookies that smell like cinnamon and make me a little queasy in the kitchen. Gabe says they're good. Use brown sugar and soak your raisins.

They grow edible plants at work. This season is blueberry and Asian pear. I picked enough blueberries to make a batch of jam. I made it the way I like: with chunks of fruit and a little softer than the sort I used to make for someone else. I guess it's another symbol that I'm living exactly as I wish. I'll have to remind the recipients to bring back my jars if they want them refilled. Glass is so expensive. Everything is so expensive.

I keep feeling like one day I get closer to being okay and then it all crashes down again. And the fall is always harder than the last. I don't guess I've hit the bottom yet. I kind of hope I have enough support that I'll get all the way to okay before that happens. But I get it. It's so easy to feel small and insignificant when the house gets quiet. The trick is to get to being fully and totally okay with that. Then maybe we'll talk about seeing if someone else wants to stop by from time to time.

Tomorrow is officially testing day for Wednesday's launch. Everything is fine except that the help files aren't showing the correct version. Not sure what's causing that, but we'll sort it tomorrow. There is nothing tonight that I can't sort out tomorrow. Including washing this hair. If I decide to bother. This heat just makes it feel like a blanket anyway.

Tuesday used to be my least favorite day of the week. I said "Monday with more expectations." And now it might just be my favorite. Funny how things happen like that and change it all. And if I decide not to wash my hair or wear makeup or any of the other things I do that make me feel like I'm presentable, no one will notice and if they do, they won't care. That's the good place and I know what I've got.