Garbage Day

…and hope

The tiny book is here. The daily sorting is underneath.

📚📚📚#

Once an Ostrich

Tiny book #85

💖💖💖

Today is garbage day. And if you’ve been reading this strange rambling newsletter about my day to day, you may (but likely won’t and nor do you need to) remember that I took over garbage duty from my partner.

They started taking the garbage out when I had my stroke, nearly 5 years ago. And then…they just kept doing it.

But every Wednesday night they would dread Thursday morning because it required getting up early to put out the garbage because the trucks are supposed to come around around 7am.

They don’t usually. (As of writing this the garbage is still out) but on a few occasions my partner slept in, and the garbage was picked up early…and then we’d have to wait two weeks to put it out.

Adulting (am I right?).

So I thought…I could take it over. Every two weeks I could get up early and then go back to sleep, and it would all be fine and dandy.

It isn’t.

I am laughing as I write this. Because it’s just a small thing. If I lived alone, the garbage would be my job. Everything would be my job.

I find that I can’t sleep thinking about having to get up early to put out the garbage. Some nights I just stay up until 6am, and put it out and go back to sleep.

(Sometimes writing about the minutiae of my every day helps me sort the big things I’m dealing with)

Last night I couldn’t sleep…and so at 3am I went downstairs, had a carrot (two carrots) and thought about life. With no phone or anything to distract my brain, except the nudging of my pup to pet her while I thought…I just thought.

In the dark. Alone.

I thought about how I’ve been on this planet for nearly 47 years. How many things I’ve seen. How much the world has changed since I was a child.

How I have two children. Been married twice. Am excited about my day to day (except when I’m not).

I went over my Wednesday.

A mum and two kids came to Curious & Kind for the first time. After I’d invited them once while they were in a nearby cafe. The kids were full of energy and curious about everything…and I wanted to provide a space for that curiosity. I had returned to the cafe that day and gave them two squishy fidget toys and a note inviting them to drop by the space.

…and then arrived, weeks and weeks later before I’d had a chance to get my dirty chai (and chat with my barista to re-engage my social muscle).

I only thought I’d be playing chess with my friend, and our new chess player.

The arrival of this wondrous family threw my day into an unexpected territory.

I let them into the suave, showed them the carpet for reading and the Lego table and the tiny toy-food truck…one of the kids grabbed the giant axolotl stuffy and I asked if I could leave them there.

I think the mom was a bit surprised. But she said. Go get your coffee…and take your time.

…and that gentleness was all I need to kickstart my own gentleness. I went and had a lovely chat in the cafe, and when I returned my chess partner was already arrived, and chatting with the family.

The space had taken care of itself.

I played a very distracted game of chess while I answered the curious questions of the kids, and set them up to make monsters. And my chess partner won…gloriously, though accused me of not paying enough attention. He was right. But I still think he won fair and square.

…and then a writer friend arrived, and the first wave of guests left…and my writer friend and I walked over to another cafe for cribbage.

…but I was hungry, and my friend who has a restaurant had invited me for her Italian worldly Wednesday…and I needed food.

So I went there…and I received the warmest welcome. I knew someone at every table. I felt like that idiomatic butterfly. Flitting from table to table to answer the same musing.

“We thought you were moving”

(PSA. Don’t tell people you’re moving, not even one, until you actually are, physically, moving because in a small town that news will spread)

I love this town. I feel like I can be my most vibrant self here. Real and caring. Quick to cry about lovely things. Colourful in all my outfits. And I feel loved. I truly do.

The food was delicious, and the community even more so.

OH! (I’m writing at the sushi restaurant, and it’s pouring rain, and I have to pick up the book shop key because I was asked to cover the bookshop tomorrow, and I’m OVER THE MOON…I miss working at the bookstore so very much)

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I’m back at Curious & Kind. I have my dirty chai (a chai tea with a shot of espresso), I’ve had my Thursday sushi. I picked up the book shop key and had a chat.

I know I was in the middle of some very meta-ruminations.

I put the garbage out at 3am was the crux of it. And I went to sleep and woke up at 11:11am, because our poor Heather with whom I make art, has the flu. But she is having a restful time at home, and I love that for her. This weeks prompts are full of birds, because she has a penchant for drawing them…and I wanted to thank her for her contagious enthusiasm. Her tiny books over the last three months has brought me an enormous amount of joy. Not just the outcome…but the process…watching her choose the prompt, then conceive of book, and if I’m lucky…having it read to me with effervescence.

I feel so lucky to have friendship, and wondrous Heathers (💖 Heather and Older and wider) in my life.

I happy to be a gentle person in their lives.

Yesterday monsters were made.

Monsters

Chess and Cribbage were played.

Chess & Cribbage

And I sat with a friend who was celebrating her birthday.

It was a beautiful and magical day.

For more reasons than I can write about.

Maybe at my next home the garbage folks will come a little later in the day, or I can make a fancy garbage box, or bins to protect it from curious crows and ravenous raccoons.

Maybe at our next home we’ll have a garden, with a table to sit at and drink tea while the birds sing.

In our next home perhaps we will have an open kitchen so my kids and I can cook comfortably together.

Maybe the yard will be gently enclosed so my pup can run about.

Creative club will be staring in 42 minutes.

I am off to prepare for whomever might arrive.

Heart,

Wake