morning, noon, night.

more soon.

xo,
tt

hi.
we've been home two nights now.
and home is hard.
but home is also the only place i know
that really means anything to me.

i've been holding onto tim as if i might lose my footing,
just like when we were hiking in the mountains.

i cry when i hang up the phone after talking to my parents,
partially out of relief, somewhat out of shame:
i feel i'm being chastised, always.
like a child who just doesn't ever get it quite right.

and yet i'm still loved.

two of my girls are gone for a while
and it almost physically hurts to think of them.

i can scarcely keep my hands off of little miss.
i think she feels my neediness and isn't quite sure of me because of it.

i need to pull it together.

i'll keep holding on to tim, in case i lose my footing.

and there are flowers, and it is summer, and there are friends.

and home.

more soon.
xo,
tt

friday happiness::

just under the wire, but this pretty much sums it up. (callie and tim are up here now. so. yeah.)

xo,
tt

the things i took away from the day.

i showed restraint in several antique stores.
i grabbed anna whenever she was in hand's reach. she's growing away from me this summer.
lindsey still holds my hand when we walk around town.
talking to people always yields positive results.
i love to cook; plan, shop, prepare, present, clean up. the whole shebang.
when a gentleman of ninety plus years offers to do the dishes, you let him.
i miss my husband.
i'm swimming in the visceral pleasure of having my daughters sleep near me, again.
i miss my husband.
two dollars is a reasonable amount to spend on an item in a junk store.
five dollars better be a treasure.
ten dollars means one of us is nuts.
i love cool nights.
i can survive warm days, after all.
and,
the biggest luxury of all is to just spend a day doing pretty much nothing.

more soon.
xo,
tt

i know that you are reading tonight, so i want you to see that things are beautiful for us, here.

and i can't wait to see you and my girl on friday.

xo,
me,
tt

missing you isn't such a bad thing, after all.

i wake and am not sure which room i am in.
but i am here,nonetheless.

next to me is the warm, supple body
of a baby who is growing.
she is twelve.
she has a mind all her own, unknown to me.
unknowable, really.

the thought that comes easily
is of sleeping with my mother,
my father, away.
always, it seemed.

me, sleeping. sleepily listening
to one sided transatlantic conversations
at three am.
the other side unknown to me.
unknowable, really.


::

today a woman appeared,visiting, on the porch
here in this house that's not mine.

i heard her shuffling,
awkwardly, slowly
around the corner.

when she rounded
and saw me,
she seemed unsurprised
to come upon a stranger to the house,
and sat down in the wicker
next to me
as though it were i
she had come to visit.


we immediately fell
into tender, familiar
conversation.

she reached out and held
my hand at intervals.
she reached up and touched
the skin of my face.

she cried when she saw the book i was reading.


she said:
it seems we have a lot in common.

she said:
oh, what a life you've had.
i can see it in your eyes.


she said:
i live in the yellow house with the yellow barn,
if you're out walking.

i said i would be.


::

no wonder i woke just now,
not knowing if this warm body next to me
belongs to my mother, my daughter.
today i saw that we are all the same woman.
this woman i met here on the porch
knew how to talk to me,
for we are all the same.
we know things.
we know that it is hard.
we know what we love.
we know even in the fog of the last years of our lives
that all of these years make up who we are.

i knew her and she knew me.
we are all the same.
unknowable, really.

::

hi from up here in the north.
xo,
tt

checking out. (for a little while.)

heading north for a while. might check in here and post a photo or two, if the circumstances allow.

but, maybe not. reserving the option to check out altogether.
pretty sure when i come back i'll be well rested and reinvigorated.
i love where i'm going.
that's a good feeling.

see you soon.
thanks for reading.

xo,
tt

friday happiness::

there are two things out there, among so many good things, that i need to point out tonight:

heather smith jones' new letterpress venture, blue sparrow press.

and the goodness that is kinfolk.

both pretty much knocked me flat. and then when i got up, i was completely inspired.

as it should be.

happy friday!

xo,
tt

ps:: these photos are from a really nice hour i spent at blue hill cafe yesterday.

well, hello.

sometimes it's hard to get back into a rhythm here, and the best way i know to fix that is just to say hello.

so hi.

i'm up absurdly early again, but what that means is that i'm alone, and the house is cool, and quiet. first things: open the doors, refill the water bottles, feed the cats, make a pot of tea, chug a glass of tomato juice, start the computer up.

yeah, i know. that last one there. i've been spending more time away from not just here, but everywhere online. it feels good.
but still. have to check in first thing in the morning. see if anything momentous happened overnight.

anyway.

::

my geraniums and vinca look as healthy as can be in the window box; i bought a bunch of herbs and some sweet potato plants at the union square market last week: i ripped out the leggy pansies in front, and tim put the new plants in.

the cutting bed he made is in full swing;
the other day at the market, anna asked if we could buy flowers and i looked at her incredulously.
are you kidding?
she was.
no shortage of flowers around this house right now.

::

i think the word jerk is underused. there are a lot of uglier, more fashionable things to say about a deserving someone, but really, are any of them better than jerk?

::

i'm going out for tacos tonight with two of my favorite people, and i can not wait. these people make me laugh, for real. and tacos. enough said.

::

lindsey and anna are sleeping together for the first time in a long time, and i actually stood there and looked at them for a solid two minutes, just soaking it in.
the funny thing is, when anna's sleeping, she looks older to me these days; when lindsey's sleeping, i can see the very baby she was almost a.decade.ago.
that thought right now, those words, a decade ago, just stopped me in my tracks here.

::

obviously, i've recently learned how to type in italics.

::

and with that, i think i've said hello.

more soon. enjoy the day.
xo,
tt

hi from sunday night.

a whole lot of happy stuff around here tonight.

xo.
tt

friday happiness::

high summer.
these are the days that we think about when we think
summer.

what did we picture ourselves doing,
when summer came around?

i'm going to think on it,
and then
i'm going to do it.

::

a teacher in high school once told me something
that rang so corny, and stunk of regret
to seventeen-year-old me.

but i get it. now i get it.

this is not a dress rehearsal.

::

so, what did we picture ourselves doing,
when summer came around?

xo.
tt