Kiddy pool, the morning after

So of course, I didn’t take any photos during the party. I did wander around this morning a bit, picking up dead balloons and bottle caps, looking for a picture that could say it all. The magic wand in the kiddy pool comes the closest.

Candles, tentacles, foil hat on cedar bench

This is a good summary as well.

Foil hat, the morning after

And this foil hat remnant, apt commentary.

The east wall of the break room at nancyland

This started out to be a simple post about how the weather changed, and I got to cut some of the first flowers that the thunderstorms flattened. There had been a week of evil weather — warm, 98 percent humidity, suffocating fog — that finally resolved into gusting winds, thunder, lightning and full-on rain.

The downpours  — and it took several —cleared the air and drenched the ground, and the gathering of flowers that would have otherwise been mushed felt like a just reward for enduring this oppressive climate. I rinsed the mud off and put them in a vase on the woodstove in the living room. They were so cheerful it seemed significant enough to document with a few photos.

When I looked at the pictures a few days later, my first response was: this looks like the room of a crazy person. I don’t know why I thought this. Then I thought: this needs an infographic. Because every single object has a history, tells a story, and all are meaningful. There are the letter “N”s, gifts from my beloved husband; the blown glass pear from my baby girl; a lime-colored enameled rock Jane brought back from India? or London; the beaded bird from Suz; a mermaid bottle opener from Claudia; the pre-production supermaster mold of a popular doll from the ‘80s, the really heavy slab of granite Mr Speed carried out from a quarry we discovered on a walk…

rescued daffodils and tulips flattened by the weather, granite slab and baby head

But this is about the daffodils. The flowers are beautiful, worthy enough of focus. And yet, looking at them in the context of an object in a setting, well, I see how important stories are. I see the slab of granite and I remember the walk, the big striped feather we found, the hidden quarry, the sense of adventure and exploration, and the fortitude of my husband carrying back a ridiculously heavy rock because I said I liked it. Mementos. Reminders. Bits and pieces of our lives, kept and displayed, because of the stories they hold.

That day, as I ate my lunch in the break room, my living room, I was looking at the daffodils, enjoying their pure expression of yellow, their pleasant, heady scent, the fact that the weather had changed to something glorious. Looking at the photograph, I notice all the objects sort of equally, each one a little doorway to a another time and place. I feel a bit like a Myna gathering shinies, or one of those bowerbirds that decorates with only blue-colored items. Sometimes, all these things I’ve gathered and carry with me feel like a burden, especially when it comes time to move. But today, they make me happy.

second-floor non-smoking level

Last night after the awards ceremony for VolunCheer 2011, at which Mr Speed and a group of his musical coworkers were recognized for benefit events they put on to support the family of one of them who contracted and died of ALS, a few of us gathered for drinks at the bar. This is when the reality of life goes on, for those of us who are alive — survivors — and reverts back to everyday concerns, such as finding common ground and entertaining one another.

The entire second floor of the casino / event center — which is huge — is (thankfully) smoke-free, and coincidentally, sparsely populated. Still, the ambient noise of repetitive, demon carnival slot machines and pop music, combined with the thousand points of light of neon signage and whateverthefuck those ceiling fixtures are made of, not even beginning to think about what all these people are actually doing here? adds up rapidly, for me, to one of the circles of hell.

On an unexpected redeeming side, however, was the ceiling above the bar, an enormous, undulating map of Rhode Island — which has a lot of coastline — painted in pleasant blue and yellow. I enjoyed studying it, zoning out of conversation dominated by workplace talk. By the end, though, we were talking about our kids, milestone birthdays, and the small details of the satisfactions of life.

It had mostly stopped raining as we drove home, largely in silence, comfortable, to the ecstatic dog, the house in the woods, the welcoming bed, the whispering reminder to remember, what is important, what matters, while we can.