comfort

I love bells. My latest picture book story mentions how chiming church bells make clocks unnecessary, and last spring I wrote a haiku in tribute to my West Philly neighborhood as well:

wind chimes and church bells

baptize us; in the gutter

blossoms blanket grit

Right now I’m sitting alone on a church pew on my cousin’s porch; she’s at a maker’s market downtown and her husband is out walking the dog. It’s just me and the birds in their sunny backyard and the breeze sometimes swells enough to trigger their wind chime. This is bliss. After a fairly intense week, this is just what the doctor ordered—24 hours of calm and quiet and communion with folks who take me just as I am. I tend to think of myself as being alienated from my family, but really I have families—or rather multiple configurations of family. Sometimes I feel invisible when I’m with kin, and other times I feel fully seen. My mother has seven living siblings; on that side of the family I have twenty-five cousins and they’re some of the kindest people I know. All week I’ve had friends and family checking in on me, asking about my mother’s health and offering assistance. Do you need to talk? Do you want company? Can I drive you anywhere? Witnessing my mother’s increasing frailty has been hard, largely because I can’t always make things better and she’s often embarrassed by things that are beyond her control. But it’s also humbling to realize the limits of my own generosity and capacity for compassion; we aren’t close and too many past resentments keep resurfacing. I mostly managed to push past those but after helping my mother out for just three days, I fled to Hamilton to recover. While my cousin worked on a project about designing better affordable housing, I sat out in the sun and read or dozed. The plaza in front of City Hall had Adirondack chairs and two cascading fountains; when I got too hot, I moved into the shade and used the free wifi to catch up with folks in the US. Then my cousin took me to a farm-to-table restaurant that serves comfort food; we had a delicious meal and speculated on alternate lives—what if you quit your job? how much money do you need to be happy? what if you left the country? We talked with our Jamaican server’s about her vision for affordable housing in Hamilton, and then walked over to a nearby donut shop and picked up dessert. The streets were lined with quaint Victorian homes, and for a moment I thought: “This is what I want.” And it’s almost what I have in Philly—a quiet neighborhood with pretty houses, a sense of history, shady trees, and good food. Those small brick homes cost close to a million dollars, so I won’t be moving to Hamilton any time soon, but it was the vision—how the picture and the feeling matched what I sometimes see in my mind’s eye. We came home and I got a tour of her beautifully renovated home, including the large garden. I padded around in my sock feet, plucking weeds and tasting flowers my cousin assured me were edible. Then we went back inside, plunked down in our respective comfy chairs, talked about our favorite films, debated the last season of GoT with her husband, and savored our donuts (mine was maple rosemary). When we decided to watch Chernobyl, my cousin’s sweet Labradoodle kept coming over to me for a head scratch or to show me one of her toys; finally she hopped up on the couch and just snuggled against me. This sounds so mundane as I’m writing it, but I could totally see in that moment why people get married, buy homes, and have pets. I don’t think the first two options are right for me, but maybe I could use a therapy animal! I went to bed realizing—not for the first time—that I’m not doing enough in my life to meet all of my needs. I spend too much time alone. I don’t do enough for others. I say I’m not a joiner and use that as an excuse not to get involved in my community—then I complain about feeling disconnected. I haven’t built up the emotional stamina to really invest in others…and that’s because I over-invested in some folks in my youth and got burned. And it’s the Scorpio way to swing between extremes, but that’s not the best way to live.

I ate the rest of my donut for breakfast. I’ve had too many donuts this week but I’ve hit my step goal almost every day and will get back to eating right tomorrow. We’ll be heading to the airport soon and I really need to think about building a fuller life in Philly. I’ve found a broker to help me with the apartment search and she seems to think we’ve got plenty of time to find the right place before my lease expires. But I don’t just need a space that’s big enough to hold all my belongings, I need to plug back in—spend less time in my head and more time engaged in the world. It’s easier to just keep moving than it is to stay put and build. Time to stop taking the easy way out…