Sunday, July 8, 2012

OUR EMPTY CASTLE


It was a mad, mad, mad week here, full of FULL, full of hugs and giggles and screeches and running and endless, endless snacks.   The days were packed cram-bag with every game and toy and book and story and in and out the house had to offer, and I’m still brimful myself, with all the fun and the TIRED.

I cannot tell you how wonderful and exhausting it was.


I’ve slept fourteen-hour-nights the past two days, and feel as if I’m recovering from an ecstatic illness---sore to my bones and still without a thought to my name.  The house is in fair repair, for I made sure to have the dishes done, the laundry finished, and our bed made up fresh, for I knew I’d collapse the minute we got back from taking the children to their other grandparents.



Neither bedroom door upstairs has been opened, for I don’t intend to do any bed-changing or cleaning until this oppressive heat subsides.   Besides, if I don’t go LOOK, perhaps all those pillow-pets and snuggles and needfuls and dropped shoes will still BE there, and there will be more time, more time.

Looking around at the slight disarray---the few mis-matched bits of art and toys and cameras and sweets still on the dining table, the couple of dishes in the sink, the kitchen counter with its peanut butter and cereal boxes, I’m comforted in facing the let-down of the small, enormous absences.

I’ve thought a couple of times in the past few days of a house I saw once, and I don’t know why those images still crop up---I'd driven with a friend WAY down into MS to pick up her niece, for friend’s Mother had broken her hip, and needed assistance.    I’d only met the niece and her mother in my own territory, and so was astonished that two grown women could live in such a state as their house was in.

I don’t remember a scent, which would have certainly been expected, for such a chaos of take-out containers and fast-food wrappers attested to their days and months of casual neglect.   Trash bags ringed around the room to the windowsills, like sandbags for a flood.   I thought that since they knew we were coming, and it was about a four-hour drive, perhaps they'd had time to pick up/scrape up everything on the floor, either in our honor or for pride’s sake.

That still wouldn’t account for the dozens of Col. Sanders buckets, or five ashtrays overflowed into the dust under one long-legged bed,  or the extra-large-size pizza boxes stacked head-high in one corner, like a cardboard chiffarobe. 

  I’ll never know if the scene was better or worse than usual, and that tiny, haunting jangle of a memory still surfaces at odd times, when I look around at the messy state of my own home---by comparison, I guess my unkempt is Martha Stewart.


   So today I’m grasshoppering the day away, as I have since that last car-door slammed and we waved our goodbyes after such a full week.

I’ve wandered WAY off track, as usual---that's just the state of my jumbled mind.  Of our week and our doings, from towering castles and fruit stacks to sprinkle-yells and swallowed princesses, moiré non.
 

4 comments:

  1. If you're like me, I have a split personality when family/friends leave after a visit - part of me is full of tears and part of me if doing a high five that YES I have my house back. LOL I like your idea of keeping the doors closed until later....

    Hugs,
    Kat

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have been keeping my grandson some this summer and on the days he is here, I do nothing! Well no housework that is-it takes all of my energy to entertain and keep one eye on him. In the afternoon when he leaves, I just sit and enjoy the silence for a while-and then the dogs and I pile up on the sofa for a much needed nap!

    ReplyDelete
  3. "...more time, more time" - that gave me prickers in my eyes, my friend!

    I admit to sometimes watching
    'Hoarders' just to feel better about my house. It isn't working this week.

    ReplyDelete
  4. After spending a week in the mountains with our little ones, I can relate to your keeping your doors shut to hold on to all the sweet memories just a little longer. I can still hear Avery Grace's laughter and Maddox's baby babblings and cherish the time spent with my family ... and wonder where the time went. And how my heart longed all week ... for "more time, more time."

    I loved reading about your adventures with yours, and I know they will always hold a special place in their hearts, as well as yours.

    ReplyDelete