Bread

I meant to post these pictures a week ago but got so caught up in Lytton's illness that I forgot about it. I haven't made bread in a long time, but Mike told me that he had done it and it inspired me. Besides, it used up a few eggs. The girls are so productive I am constantly looking for ways to use them. I forgot about this bread both times I let it rise, so I think it's colossal proportions are due partly to over-rising. Nevertheless they loaves are beautiful to behold. They taste good, too.

The Shovelled Walk (and Flamingos)

I do believe this is a momentous occasion in my life.......I shovelled the walk for the first time. The new snow is light and fluffy even though there is a lot of it. It seemed like the perfect time to find out what it's like to actually clear the path to the street. My usual approach is to stomp the snow down until I can get where I want to go. There is a great sense of satisfaction in doing the job in a "proper" way, yet I imagine that once will be enough for me.

I also shovelled behind the car, but only after I had rammed the snowbank by driving back and forth over it several times. My work made it look neater, though I had a "why bother?" feeling of wasted energy. I had already got the car out, which is, after all, the purpose of removing the snow.

The picture of the flamingos records a sight that has entertained me for weeks. I keep planning to bring them inside, but they look so funny out there I've put it off. I will do it after this storm, though, before they get buried and ruined.

Well winter is here, and driving to the post office on the slippery road through heavy snow reminded me that its coming is not the disaster it always seems to be as we anticipate it. I welcomed it as part of the natural ebb and flow of things. I careened down Water St, sliding one way and then the other, like a kid with a new sled. The extremes of our climate here are such an adventure. We get a chance to live two completely different lives.

Recuperating

Lytton is getting better now, but I have been preoccupied with him for the past several days. He was in a lot of pain, crying out every time he moved. I called the emergency number for the vet in Perry and braved dark and ice to drive him there after hours. Once we were there, Lytton acted as if nothing were wrong and the doctor dismissed us. At my insistence, he gave me some pain pills and muscle relaxers. We (all the dogs and me) were awake most of that night because of his misery, which returned as soon as he left the clinic.

The next morning I called my sainted vet in Bangor, who diagnosed him over the phone as having a slipped disk. He approved the medication he was taking and asked me to call the next day. All I could do was hold Lytton in my lap, listen to him whine, and wipe the tears from my face. Always disaster-oriented where he is concerned, I envisioned paralysis at best, death at worst. As the day wore on he improved enough to stay quiet unless he moved. That night he slept better and so did the rest of us. Since then he has improved each day and is now almost back to normal.

As he regains his health, my thoughts shift from his impending death to relief that he is better. The relief is shallow and skewed, tainted by the the ever-present cloud that seems to taunt me with the whisper, "Not this time."

Anniversary

It has been 28 years since my father died. It was probably the most life-altering event of my life. Before his death, I was his daughter. That was my identity, despite the fact that I was married with two children. Everything I did was influenced by my perception of his reaction to it. Every thought was measured by what he would think, whether he would approve or disapprove. I twisted myself inside out trying to anticipate how to please him, to make him happy and proud of me.

When he was no longer there, I had to invent myself. It was a difficult searching, trying to find out if there was an independent being lurking somewhere that I had not noticed. I had trouble, trying on different persona's to see if they fit. As I remember it, most of them were unpleasantly hostile. My mother suffered the brunt of my instability, never knowing what to expect from an angry and indifferent daughter. I made many bad decisions that I remember with increasing regret as time separates me from them.

I think that eventually I invented a person I can accept as being "me."