Tired.  So very, very tired.  This is the worst time of year for me, the last few weeks of winter that seem to last forever.  By this time I’ve almost had it with being indoors.  I’m a child of the summer, of bare feet and warm breezes and green things.  I’m a child of gardens and picnics and barbecues; of hazy, humid summer nights lit up with fireflies.  Every year as the end of February approaches I become more and more restless, resentful, and bad-tempered.  I’m literally aching to get outside, to work until my fingernails are ragged and dirty, and the air around me is filled with the sound of bees buzzing and the lazy, sensual smells of jasmine.  I’m out of sorts, and anxious.  Spring just can’t get here fast enough.

Saturday was nice.  We woke up early, packed a spartan lunch and headed out to Arcadia.  The morning was spent cleaning and packing while the LOML installed a plywood subfloor in one of the bedrooms.  Due to the recent (unending) rains, the outside areas were literal bogs, but bogs make for very easy fence post removal, so the afternoon was spent pulling up old rusted fencing and cleaning up debris from recent storms.  At one point I took down a sign I’d put up last year to find an adorable little bat curled up, half-asleep and clinging to the wall.  I was very excited, as we’ve been talking about installing bat houses on the property to invite a few to live there and eat the host of mosquitos that swarm throughout the summer.  The LOML softly reinstalled the sign without disturbing him.   All over the yard he spring bulbs were blooming en mass, and I couldn’t resist taking a giant bouquet of daffodils, narcissus, and camellia japonica home so that, for a few days at least, I could close my eyes and pretend I was there again.  Good dreams that night.

This week stretches out before me into a jumble of medical checkups, car maintenance, vet appointments, and homework.  Not even sure if I’ll get to write.  Supposed to be cold and rainy a good part of the time.  I’m despairing and longing for Spring.  Just a few more weeks, I keep saying to myself.  Just a few more weeks.

Trying to work my way back into a routine of some kind after two weeks away from the keyboard.  It’s tough, sometimes, living the life I do with the standards I have.  I feel like I’m constantly juggling a million details of the lives of others, while at the same time carving out the continuing story of who I am and who I hope to become.  I take my responsibilities as a wife and mother very seriously.  I take myself much less so.

Still, I’m trying to do better – to take care of myself.  Small steps.  I made an appointment the other day for my first comprehensive health check up.  Ever.  I’m working on changing my diet.  I’m working on exercising.  I’m working on writing, on going back to graduate school and getting my PhD.

Last week I was sick with what I imagine was the flu, or perhaps some kind of sinus infection.  I felt horrible for days, but my pre-Apocalyptic paranoia dictates that I rely on my own immune system as much as possible, so I stuck it out instead of hopping over to the local clinic for an antibiotic.  Needless to say, not much writing got done.  I considered it an act of sheer willpower to simply be on my feet.

Mardi Gras around here was unusually quiet.  The kids went to stay with their dad, who took them on the rounds of the New Orleans suburban parades.  The LOML and I stayed home and took care of a huge project I’ve been drooling about for months, viz: retrieving my bed from my daughter.  By way of explanation, the bed is a 200-year-old four poster bed with a tester that my mother refinished for me when I was a kid.  I’ve had it since she died in 2002, but passed it on to my daughter in 2006 when we moved here to Lafayette, as the LOML had a queen-sized bed that seemed a better fit for us.

Just for the record, it is a BIG mistake to give a 200-year-old antique bed to an active seven-year-old child.  Through the simple act of being a kid, bouncing, jumping, climbing, etc, the bed was slowly being abused to death.  On top of that, with the tester and all set up, it was much too massive for her room.  To rectify the situation, this weekend we refinished an old twin Jenny Lind bed we’d come across in one of the storage rooms at the farm, painting it a bright, cheerful blue, and allowing me to move my bed out and back into my room. My daughter loved the result, loved how big her room felt.  And now, she has a place to sleep that is nigh to indestructible.

And I, of course, LOVE having my bed back.  It comforts me as I sleep, wrapping me in memories from my childhood.  It’s old, and wise, a great-grandmother among furniture.  I like to imagine that children have been born there, that perhaps someone once died in it, and that one day perhaps I will follow, and die there as well.  Its bones tell the tales of lives slipping in and out of this world, stories begun and ended, a secret doorway in plain sight.  My bed has permanence, and history, and one day, when she’s old enough to take care of it, my daughter will continue the story.

The obligatory photo, for those interested:

That would add to the emotional resonance this event has had on the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana?  So very often we are reported in the news media as having a firm hold on last place in any number of polls, be it health, education, obesity, poverty, mortality, blah, blah, blah the list goes on ad nauseum.   Because of those statistics, every year thousands of our best and brightest choose to make their lives elsewhere, places where the houses are bigger, the cars are shinier, and they can be sure of a job with security for them and their families.  We don’t blame them.  We miss them.  It’s times like these, though, that make me glad I stuck it out here, in the place of my birth, through all the joys and sorrows and extraordinary hurdles we’ve had to overcome.  It’s times like these when I’m proud to say, yeah, we’re the underdogs, but damnit, sometimes – just sometimes – the underdog comes out on top.