Spending the afternoon with May.

Today is the perfect day for a walk in the woods. The noises of the outside are great today. The wind in the trees, the birds. I love it. Z is sleeping...this is nice as well.

I read my post from last night. It seems so vague. I have so many thoughts that float through my mind all of the time and when I write, I don't convey any of them really. My writing has become very bland. As a teen and in my young 20s, I was so much more expressive. I try to keep things light, now. But, life isn't always light. On the nights when Z is down and J is gone...I feel my mind has time to wander. I think about my mother's thoughts. She has a lot of time alone and I know after she's gone...I'll wonder what thoughts she has as she sits alone. I think our parents are somewhat of a mystery to us. My older sister is as well. She's one to keep her thoughts to herself. My younger sister and I talk for hours about everything. It's those that are quiet that really make me wonder. I want to know more. Maybe we think similar things. Maybe we'd have talks that would enlighten us. Maybe we won't ever know. It's quiet here. My mom always comments on that. She loves it. Back home, I lived on a street with a dip and I grew up hearing the noise of cars scraping their bumpers on it. (I find it comforting now) Here...there's just nature...and some lawn mowers and leaf blowers. Hearing the birds and insects here reminds me of Kansas. At night...everything gets quiet in St. John and you can hear the crickets and the wind. I missed that in Chicago. It never sleeps there...and you hardly see stars.

I'm reading May Sarton's Journal at Seventy. My friend, Jeremy picked it up for me years ago along with many of her other works. That was one of the best gifts I ever got--a load of May's books. Anyway, I feel as if I get to hear her thoughts while she sits quietly. It's not for everybody. She goes into great depth at the nature she sees. She writes about her thoughts about evenings with her friends. Here's an example:
(in response to an evening with friends...)

"All I could do was bask in the loving atmosphere and go to Yeats to express what I felt:
Think where man's glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends.
I must say that hardly a day passes here without those lines running through my head."

I love that. She also spends a lot of time thinking about her parents like I do. After writing a memory she had and what it meant to her she wrote, "That is why we are never done with thinking about our parents, I suppose, and come to know them better long after they are dead than we ever did when they were alive."

I love that so much.


Thanks Jeremy. Miss you. Love you.