The last week of my life has been...turbulent. I can't even begin to describe it all, but it involved abandoned animals needing sanctuary, a thirteen year old who has never owned a pet caring for twenty animals and everyone lived through it, 8 hours of driving, my son's wedding, falling in love with his wife's family, chopping off my hair and finding this book.  It is one of the books I would take to a desert island, or a dessert island for that matter. With cherries on top. I want all of you to go read it right now please.

I have this problem when I go to the optometrist and they make me choose things - "better here, or here?" - and the little lens flips back and forth and I'm all, like, well, they're both kind of interesting....or worse, "they look about the same". And this poor person has to say, "no, they aren't the same. Try it again." And then after awhile I just pick one to make them happy and  to get them to stop asking.  I'm pretty sure this is a metaphor for my life. 

It's a little daunting to want to know everything, but I don't let that cause me to have some kind of seizure of common sense. 

I am playing all the time in my life. Sometimes I play in other people's lives a little bit too, but I try not to be intrusive about it. Is there some other way to be? If so, the instructions must be written in a very foreign language and then they got lost in the mail. 

That's what I said. Those big brown eyes and this look that's weirdly like a house elf. Which is why we started calling him Dobby. I had no idea what I was doing.

I'm never sure. I suppose I should know, maybe get a map or make a plan. But I think that kind of thing is a little bit of an illusion - I can pretend that I know where I'm going but where I actually end up is very often unrelated to those plans. I've made friends with being an explorer in the world rather than relying on plans and maps. I respect the usefulness of intentions and maps are darn handy but I find that they are often, for me, just a guideline for what I should deviate from. 

Wherever I am. Not meant flippantly, but in each moment, wherever I am is exactly where I belong. Sometimes I tell myself that I don't belong here or there, I don't belong in line at the DMV, I don't belong in the sad low-life grocery store just down the road here, I'm better than all that. And then I have to remind myself all over again to stop being a snob and stop being semi-conscious and to really be in the moment I'm in, in the place where I am, with the people around me. And what I find kind of amazing and magical is that once that transition happens I get my magical powers back. I can make the grumpy and unhelpful person working at the DMV smile and have a much better day, I can transform the weird old lady at the store into a charmingly eccentric person, I can transform the world into what it's been all along, which is actually quite an advanced magical power. But available to everyone, because all of us are exactly where we belong, all the time.

Recently I've been procrastinating about pretty much everything in my life except making this door that's going in our kitchen. I didn't want it to look ordinary and it needs to have a cat door in the bottom and it started as a wooden screen door so I cut pieces of wood to frame out the cat door (which is lockable so the cats can be banned from the kitchen while I'm cooking, which is one of the reasons for the door) and I had this ornate metal grate that I found at architectural salvage place a long time ago. I'm going to suspend it in the top screen with copper wire. But before that, there's been the painting. Primer, mottled black acrylic, two washes of burnt umber the second one streaked with a little black while wet, a transparent bronze glaze, then the torn pieces of handmade banana leaf paper then a thin wash of umber again to age the paper then the sealer. Then the same thing on the other side. Paint the hinges and the mending plates I decided to use for the wood frame around the kitty door - now they're old looking, copper and brown and they got just as many coats of paint as the door and then sealer. Drying time for each step. Paint the kitty door black because everyone knows that makes things invisible (?).  Wood everywhere, sawdust, the dining room table covered with paper and hinges and metal plates for days now, the living room table used as a work surface for the door. The kitchen piling up with dishes, nothing else getting done except going to work for half of each day with Little Bit and doing my notes. Monday night I took time away and played cards with Krissy and Albert. I felt a little guilty but I've gotten over it. Last night we went out for dinner at our favorite dive and played pool. Night before last I only slept about an hour. It's gone from "let's put a door on the kitchen" to this insane art project obsession now.

I love all of my minutes, and I especially do love waking up, cozy under quilts, dogs tucked in and cats piled on top, hearing the first birds outside our window, the early birds out getting their worms, and looking over at Krissy who is always still asleep at this  point, all sweet and warm. Sometimes I prod her a little bit to get her to start sleep-talking and sleep-singing, which she does every time even though she doesn't believe me when I tell her about it later. She sings these little mumbly hard to identify melodies in her sleep-voice and keeps right on sleeping. She is a very good sleeper. I am a very good waker and I love those first morning moments a lot.

What was your happiest moment of this day?