Head in the game.

The question is which game? 

I have been

• playing with grandchildren.
• putting together a Star Wars Lego ship with C3PO and R2D2, as well as a couple of menacing stormtroopers.
• building a house for Buzz Lightyear.
• helping with packing, mainly by playing Zombie Grandma with the children in the backyard.

• eating the leftovers from a family (farewell) party.
• watching the weather in Phoenix/Tempe. (pro tip: it will be very hot.)
• watching endless episodes of The Killing.
• making gestures at other work--writing a very squishy outline for a chapter, for instance, or going to a meeting and nodding my head at the work I know I need to be doing, and will be doing, at least I think so.

I have a window open on my iPad to an article about Caedmon, who it turns out was in residence at Whitby Abbey before it was called Whitby Abbey. Caedmon, of Caedmon's hymn. (Dear reader, if it happened to have been you who clued me into the Caedmon/Whitby connection, I hope you will remind me that it was you.) I think I might write about this. I might make a digital story. I might write a draft of that chapter, with or without the outline, but definitely with my colleague.

All of this will wait, though, until I have driven to Phoenix in a UHaul with my sons, eaten road snacks and listened to road music, and helped to see them start in their new place.

[here, please insert the apt and fitting words I am not composing, even though I have tried, about all of this, about them going.]


This is the order of things, and this is where, pardon my preposition, my head is at.

The very last.

 

"It's coming to an end," said Miriam, turning away from the middle of the Eurovision final competition.

"Let's not say that, not yet," said I.

And thus you see, in this single interchange, both the melancholy and the denial. Ta da!

It goes without saying, I suppose, that there are so many more things I could write about here than I have. For instance, the Queen's 60th Jubilee is happening right now, and in all the shops there are special, limited editions of all sorts of products, particularly cakes and fizzy drinks. Today, I had a diamond sparkle berry drink, just such a limited edition. The juice was filled with food grade sparkle, which, I must say, dramatically enhanced my juice-drinking experience.

"You could replicate it at home, if you were able to put your hands on some food-grade glitter," my daughter pointed out.

 

"See, there you go. I wasn't even aware that there was such a thing," said I. Well, I wasn't. And somehow, I don't think it would have the same effect in America, where we have no queen and no jubilee, among a number of other things and people that America lacks.

But let's not say that, not yet. Instead, I will tell you what we did today.

 

In the little village of Daviot (same village that has the Loanhead of Daviot, recumbent stone circle, that I wrote about a few posts ago), there was a summer fair today. We all went, including another set of grandparents, and observed feats of strength and skill:

 

There was a village church.

 

 

There was face-painting.

 

When we came home, we had a swell party. This was Miriam's idea from a few nights ago. We barbecued and had candles and flowers and we made special cookies and watched a pile of Eurovision. I combed out the girls' hair after the hair-washing. We had prayers and good night hugs and kisses.

Hugs and kisses, prayers and good night.

 

From Rilke.

" In the end, those who were carried off early no longer need us:

they are weaned from earth's sorrows and joys,

as gently as children outgrow the soft breasts of their mothers.

But we, who do need such great mysteries,

we for whom grief is so often the source of our spirit's growth--:

could we exist without them?"

(go with God, John Fritz.)

List.

If I am going to be gone for awhile, I should

• change all the sheets for all the people who will be in and out of this house taking care of things and cats and dogs.
• clean the bathrooms.
• clean the kitchen.
• consider how much cleaning could go on on a more regular basis at my house.
• water everything.
• make lots and lots and lots of lists of things to bring with.
• go to the library to find that the new Elmore Leonard I requested is there for me. Score!
• contemplate which poets will be the best advisors for my manuscript revision. Donne? Frank O'Hara? Alice Notley? the Psalmist?
• bring all the cameras.
• take my own oatmeal, oat bran, sugar, tea, oat flour, regular flour, salt.
• contemplate if I need all my computer accoutrements, or just some of my computer accoutrements.
• upload relevant files to my cloud.
• mail off stuff (done!). Manuscripts, Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls (to Singapore), birthday gifts.
• don't forget my external hard drive.
• add more necessary songs to the iPod.
• collect dvds to watch: The Wire, In Treatment, first season of Weeds, Deadwood. Oh yes! we will watch dvds!
• try not to hyperventilate.
• try not to freak out about forgetting something.

In short, the people, I will be in Idaho, working on my manuscript, chilling out with the historian, watching dvds, taking naps, and in general trying to cultivate a mind like a river. Wish me luck on the manuscript. There will be updates. Oh yes! there will be updates.