I wouldn't need to talk about the roller coaster ride/heartwarming feast that was Thanksgiving, and the detox that actually happened at the beginning of the year and the discovery and obsession with proper bagels about 2 miles from my house (a hard feat to find great bagels in LA) or all the waves and twists and moments in between. You would have read about these things already due to my consistent and disciplined updates. But that is not how my life works.
Over that week of blissed out nothing between Xmas and new years, when we could just sit and rest and eat and play and rest some more, I discovered the plethora of blogs out there, mostly drifting towards the ones of cute mamas and vintage finds and patchwork quilts and covet worthy shoes and picture perfect living rooms.
I dove in a little too deep, finding my thoughts consumed with how I could improve my EVERYTHING. My house, my wardrobe, my unruly hair, my Pyrex collection, my photographic and artistic outlets. I was also secretly disgruntled in the perfection these bloggers seemed to paint their lives. It's a great snapshot they take, and I found myself comparing my wants and possessions and style abilities to theirs. This is dangerous territory, and nonsense I have no time for.
I am trying to be open to inspiration, to ideas, to creative instincts and impulses.
The blogs I love the best are the great writers who share a moment or story so beautifully and awkwardly that I immediately get up and live my life or bake some crazy cookies or at least clean out my closet. I have no idea what turmoil or efforts or heartache these bloggers experience, unless they share it so gently and simply that I am invited into to look, to take a seat and share their lives for a moment.
So in this post, I want to catch up, to relay the all the heartache and divine eats. I have the urge to tell you about the moments that make me fall deeper in love every day, the dawning I experience that are carving out something old and making room for something new and pertinent. Life goals and mandates crystallizing.
The list of blogs have imparted some good on my life. I could tell you I now use more bobby pins in my hair and less rubber bands, that I hand made some valentines for maybe the first time ever and sent them off with the living breathing postal service. That I have made some kick ass meals, many of which I forgot.
I will tell you someday soon about the loss of our dog Spider. He was not so much my dog as my boyfriends, for the full 14 years of his glorious adventurous life. I only met him last March and became his roommate last September. I didn't know him in the years when he could leap onto beds and couches and had a straight spine and buddied up with the neighborhood dogs and cruised the streets on his midget pug legs. But I could imagine. So it was an honor when he would nap on my foot, or lean into my side or walk with him on the street. And it was even more of an honor to get to be there with him and his human colleague/best friend when he passed.
But I can't go there right now. Things are too fresh, that coil is still unfolding on the house and our hearts. And I am trying to avoid feeling overwhelmed for the first part of the day.
This morning I am feeling lost. Well, I was. Then I saw my breakfast in my minds eye, and that gave me the tiny bit of guidance I needed to start the day.
The broiled cheese sandwich of my youth. Where you toast the bread under the broiler for a moment on one side then flip it over and add (too much) cheese and broil till it becomes bubbly and crisp. White sharp cheddar. Cracked wheat sourdough. Slices of avocado. A squeeze of lemon. Hour old coffee reheated with some almond milk and half and half. And a shake of cinnamon.
This is my breakfast on my messy desk. No cute patterned napkin, no perfect light, no dollop of cappuccino foam. Just Sundays breakfast, the necessary fuel to create my day and shift my mood and write (and complete) the first post in months. I'll take what I can get.
