When we flew home on December 28, I was feeling pretty low. The Orlando airport, predictably, was a zoo, and I felt like we barely made our flight (15 minutes at the gate before boarding feels way too close for comfort to me!). I was lying on the floor at Dulles, sick and tired, gearing up for the ride home in the 12 passenger van, when a friend from church showed up. She had had a four-hour layover, and was finally getting back to Charlottesville on our flight. The regional airplane wasn't full, so we sat together and chatted for the quick flight. Her roommates, some of our friends, showed up to pick her up, so I was greeted by two other dear ones. Welcome back, Amy!
There was no hope for making the 9am service the next day. With as much sickness as we'd had, we just laid low. Caleb was extremely needy, and I think I nursed ten or twelve hours that Sunday. I'm sure he wasn't eating, but he just needed to be sure of me.
That was fine. I read the shockingly good Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson. It was a balm to my soul, and I can hardly imagine a more restful day, to read and feed my baby and let my other boys (Phil included) enjoy themselves with a full day of Duck Dynasty. So we were all happy!
Monday Phil woke up with "the plague." And that is really all I have to say for him for the week. It wasn't until Saturday that he was ambulatory. Vomiting, fever, cough, exhaustion. He was in bad shape.
Caleb and I had a good time with long-time friends to welcome the New Year. Phil was sick in bed.
Our return was somewhat traumatic for me. A few of the exterior walls on the new building do not have insulation, which means that we have some condensation on them. I pulled out a wicker basket of blocks and found that the blocks and wicker were covered with mildew.
Actually, all seven of the wicker baskets were covered with mildew.
I moved them to the barn, to deal with at a later date. No need to keep mildewy things inside. Gross!
The next day, I glanced at the pictures leaning against the wall. One seemed a bit more wavy than I remembered.
When I pulled them off the wall, the tops of the frame backs felt saturated. Thankfully (truly thankfully), none of the art was harmed at all, but a few frames I think I'll have to replace. That is much easier than a pencil drawing of a son ... those I consider priceless.
A section of our floor bowed while we were away, too. Presumably, the bamboo floors did not have quite enough flex room at the edges, and so is bowed in a spot. Randomly, it's between two doorways.
It felt like a limp to the close of the year. A limp slows one down. It's annoying or maybe painful at every step. But it's not a death. And so closed the year. Painful, frustrating. And yet ... only so far, and no further. The frame is harmed, but the art is not. Part of the floor is bowed, but not destroyed (at least, not yet).
Sunday, January 12, 2014
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If you loved Gilead, I would definitely recommend Home. It's a parallel novel from Glory's point of view. A beautiful work in its own right, I found it especially poignant because I'd read Gilead first. I love Marilynne Robinson!
ReplyDeleteI actually started Home yesterday, but I had spent an hour skimming again another luminous novel, My Name Is Asher Lev, and after about five pages of Home, I thought, "I don't think I can bear another book that so vividly portrays the beauty and the brokenness of the world." So I'm looking forward to it, but not quite yet.
ReplyDeleteGreat recommendation, though--I think you were the one who first suggested Gilead. There's that line where the boy and his dad have just spent the day clearing the grandfather's grave and the sun and the moon both bathe the site in light, and the dad says something like, "So even this place can be beautiful. I'm glad to know it." So, so lovely.