Last night as I lay on my side looking at the silhouette of my windowsill plants, a voice told me I need moon plants.  Gotcha.  Nearly a week ago, through silent pictures of my dreaming mind, a voice said I am working on transition, there is change coming and there is yet more change needed.  Will do.  Last night I held a a six month old who’d been stuck in a car seat for 12 hours, his parents unpacking and taking a few much-needed breaths of silent, babyless, cold air, and I had hoped to hang on to the little guy for a long while.  But he is teething, and his moaning shifted to tragedy quickly, his baby pain full bore.  I didn’t want to drag his mom back here, knowing her own nerves were raw and exhausted, but a woman knows when a baby needs mom more than auntie crazy lady down the hall.  (Must say he did pause at the little brass bells that tinkled on my   )0(  symbol hanging from the ceiling fan.)  I surrendered him and paced my suddenly-silent apartment for awhile.  No longer cat sitting or holding a suffering little one, I could hear the condensation dripping down metal-framed windows. The wheel turns.

I’d been having a competition with myself to see how long I could keep the thermostat off.  I don’t recall freezing in the apartments as a city kid, but I do recall ice caking on the inside of the windows of that other house where I lived as a teen.  I discovered the short-lived joys of the thermostat, able to run around the house in shorts all winter long, that is until my dad took out the thermostats, leaaving little round holes in the wall where the wires stuck out. I guess he’d had enough of telling us not to turn up the heat.  God damn it got cold in my bedroom.  The house I lived while raising our family had warm hearts, like the living room, but really cold edges. Only way to keep the kitchen warm was to cook in it!  ‘Magine that. And now the father’s “doom,” that one day I’d have my own place and have to pay for heat, see how I like it THEN!  Well wunt he just too right?  Almost made it to Thanksgiving, which was my goal. Maybe next year. The wheel turns.

All this leads to transition, change, and the need for more change.  Time to return all my precious shells, rocks, and candles back to their ledges now that the cat is gone. Time to remember how it felt to hold my son when he was a happy little guy, vibrating with words and curiousity. I want to clean the house top to bottom and be ready for solstice, but that’s getting ahead of things.  First I want to finish an essay, and prepare for a bus trip to DC to stand up for women on inauguration day. God damn I hate being cold, but you know?  Every Body counts.  Keep the wheels turning.