Tuesday 16 July 2013

So Summer, So Shameless, No Judgement.

"So yeah  I suppose you're missing the children by, you know, now?". "Eh, well,  um. Nope. No. Not. At all"  I gain in assertion and heart  in this reply to my drinking companion, another mother, whose children, like mine are dispatched  for the holidays to be enjoyed by  their respective and well rested  fathers. "Well....right...I mean,  yeah. Um  I don't..really.. miss mine either" and we laugh ruefully, outed..

The thing is that  I don't know myself in this second week of absence. I'd swear my speech has slowed, tone dropped an octave. In fact, not having multitasked for all that time, reality has expanded around me to reveal all sorts of vistas, normally blurry and postponed. I have, ie cut a swathe through nagging bills and paperwork; applied on line  for a course in Philosophy long hankered after; had my teeth cleaned and polished; put in evening hours in the garden reading and chatting to my gratified husband whose project the garden is. I have bonded with the dog.

My husband has restored his beloved Internet Radio, my last year's birthday present, to its pride of place on the kitchen shelf, the WI FI being permanently on in this absence of the Facebook enslaved.. American, Chinese, Australian accents sing and chatter in podcasts,  a backing track in our kitchen as he puts together piquant gourmet offerings for two .No, really.

I tell him that its hardly decent to delight so in one's childrens' absence. He asks me if I realise that I never make it through a meal, a TV programme, a shower even without a  burning question, a warring escalation,   an urgent demand that cannot wait, will not wait,.must not wait. And as one of them  is done, the others, barely, lie in wait. . "Sure ",  I say," its either an arse or an elbow always"  I am a juggler of three slippery sticky balls, and that's the way they like it.

My phone is heavy and blinking  with unanswered Call Me's!  Requests for money, adjudications on disagreements with Dad, an accounting as to what exactly I am up to in their absence, no doubt. My heart is light, my head is lighter, "and after all Dearheart" I tell my wallowing spouse, "the summer's short, and life is shorter and soon, oh so so soon the autumn bounces in and  THEY'LL BE BACK"

   

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