cold morning

waking up the first morning when the amazons go away is always so strange and liberating.

this is the first day i've had no kids since last summer. oh no - they were away at new year's.

i get up and then realize there is no real reason to get up and go back to bed.

then i am irritated with myself and get up again and hover around the apartment like a ghost, wondering what to do.

i feel sorry for myself. abandoned. old. tired. poor. cold and achy.

i am lonely.

i am calm.

so serene and self-absorbed. what a luxury. what an incredible, vast space of time and sound to indulge in. all to myself.

i am immersed in joy.

i get going, make beds, wash dishes, put things away with the satisfying certainty that all will stay like this - tidy, organized, clean - until they are back.

then, midway through a task, let's say, pulling out the dead flowers from a vase and re-clipping the live ones and adding fresh water so they will last longer - something i would never have the time or attention to do normally - i am distracted

and i wander over to the newspaper and read a few articles

or i pick up a book that's been lying ignored and potent with ideas under its dust-covered dust cover and read a few paragraphs

then perhaps i make a cup of tea

or sit in my favorite chair and stare into space.

or meditate. (well, i try, but patience is not amongst my strengths.)

the sun gets brighter and starts to splash rainbows on the walls. and it is so quiet. so deliciously and voluptuously quiet.

and i am so happy. like a 4 year-old surveying a collection of jellybeans. counting the colors and the flavors all just waiting to be eaten.

so incredibly greedily grateful for a day that is all mine.