a day…

wake to the feel of my girl touching my arm
turning and she's smiling

right into my eyes



chickens at the back door, where's breakfast?

padding out over still damp grass to feed them

they cluck and follow, cluck and follow


hanging clothes on the line, bare feet on still damp grass

soft brown moth on a clothes peg

cicadas whirring

birds calling to each other, tree to tree to tree


eggs for my boy for breakfast
make him a lunch like longago school time

then he's gone all day, helping out at Robocamp

back home and

my girl saying, don't look! as she does another writing project

at her beloved desk.

dog splayed out on the cool tile floor

cat in a box


smoothies and books
my girl says, well that's our whole summer holidays right there!

wandering the garden

 

it's lovely out here


quick visit from my mum, just popping in and she's always ready to listen, read, share.
so beautiful to me


quick visit to two girls we've missed all summer—they've been sick with whooping cough
my girl when she sees them—her face lit with love
sitting on a rug in the sun
hearing all the stories they've written while waiting to get better
it's never long enough when we're with them


now we're

picking up my boy
he's in a crowd of boys
circled around a bunch of legorobots having a sumo challenge
all the boys laughing


and when we get home


my girl goes to her desk
my boy goes to his book


and mum, what's plight mean? (my girl who's writing) What's an anecdote? (my boy entranced by Nanny Piggins) What does bodily mean? (my girl) What's the Theory of Relativity? (my boy)

so we go to the computer and watch YouTube videos on Einstein's Theory of General and Special Relativity. yeah. we do, and my brain starts to go 'round and 'round trying to understand.

asking my boy, "Are you getting this?"
"Yeah," he says. (Like, Yeah, Mum, of course I am, aren't you?)

then it's

pancakes for dinner
made with extra eggs and dolloped with homemade, just-this-minute-made strawberry jam

except my boy has to have a heaping plate of pasta and lentil bolognese first
then a big ol' pancake for dessert


and it's time for a walk

sunset walk with the dog—old dog—plodding behind
happy happy

across the park, sun gone behind the mountain, clouds spinning gold

racing kids—who's first to the soccer posts?
bolting across just shorn grass
Oh, I think I've sprained my leg running too hard, could I have sprained my leg, mum?
how about a hopping race along the cricket pitch? says my boy


home and showers and reading reading reading reading
and Dad's coming home tonight!
(5 days away is too long)
and deciding who's going to sleep where on the big family bed and it's getting late

and his lights come down the driveway and the kids,
bouncing on the bed like toddlers,
Dad! Dad! Come upstairs!

And cuddles and more cuddles
and goodnight

and time on the couch with just my husband
hearing about his week at jazz camp and all the stories

and then
warm milk and honey
to try and quiet my mind
and tell it:

you can stop planning and thinking, just for a little while,
just for a time

Pause and reflect
on these small moments

as you have been,
already,
all day,

stopping and noting and holding close and taking photographs with your mind

embracing each small thing

that has built this day,

with Reverence.