The rattan valise or Chinese lunchbox or clearly most charming thing ever arrived last week.  It was the only item that I purchased on our vacation other than food and newspapers.  From a high shelf in one of my favorite shops, she winked at me and I did think we had a lot in common.  Bill and the boys agreed, “You have to get it,” they cheered.  So I did.

She arrived by post and the newly-teenaged middle boy had to wait while I rescued her from the box.

     “This is so silly.  I have no idea what I’m going to do with it,” I confessed as I pulled it from the popcorn.

     “Do you love it?” he asked.

     “I do,” I admitted, sliding the pin from the latch and opening it to peek inside.

     “Are you going to Instagram it?” he teased.  “Hash tag ‘swag,’ hash tag ‘YOLO’?”

     I looked up, “YOLO?”

     “Mom,” he rolled his eyes letting me know how truly hopeless I am, “You only live once.”

Indeed.

There are days that begin like any other – wake the boys, fix the breakfast, pack the lunches, drive the carpools – that then unfold with the most unexpected delight.  Not all surprises are good ones, I know, but sometimes the unanticipated delivers a burst of joy.  Last week a friend, a good friend who will not flinch at the mention of either silver polish or faltering faith, sent Meyer Lemons from California with no warning.  I sliced the top of the box with the kitchen scissor and unrolled the stiff paper bag releasing the citrus scent laced with sweetness.  I tipped them into the box and bent at the waist to breathe it in.

Careful not to waste the bounty, I plotted and planned, flipping pages of cookbooks to look for recipes appealing, yet unfamiliar.  I hadn’t baked with lemon before, though I love it.  Lemon Marmalade? Well, I’d never, though now I have and will again.  The fact that no one else would like it made it better, bore the same satisfaction that ordering Milk Duds at the movie did as a kid.  (My sister didn’t like them so I didn’t have to share.)

A little left, enough for muffins, surely, though I saved it for cocktails and toasted the giver.

And then, as if the universe knew that winter had ground on a little too long, another gentleman pressed a bouquet of flowers into my hands as we parted.  I can’t be sure that this is so, but I do not think that hyacinths and I had been previously introduced.  I’m pretty sure we never met (though perhaps our cousins went to camp together) and now, I cannot imagine life without them, so heavenly is their scent.

I carry them with me from room to room, nuzzling their rubbery blooms.  I am intoxicated by them.  The idea of hyacinths comforted me through the lines of a poem I kept tacked to my cubicle wall a lifetime ago:

I thought it was the beauty of the blooms that inspired the poet, but now I realize they delight the soul not only at each sight, but with each breath.

Fruit and flowers and friends are carrying me through to Spring.

The poem, above, and the one secured with push pins to my wall, was attributed to John Greenleaf Whittier.  In searching for it today, I see a very similar version is attributed to Moslih Eddin.

We have been getting together for dinner with three other families for a while now. There is a total of thirteen children and when they are all in attendance everyone has a friend present and there is truly nothing better than having a friend present.

It has worked out that each family’s dinner lands in a different season and we are winter.  Winter is difficult for me, sun worshipper that I am, so this bit of manufactured warmth in the form of a house full of friends is nourishing.

I feel that the house is just starting to come together, is just starting to feel like mine, and a party always brings a burst of energy for the filling in.  I had originally painted this hallway a light blue and it never felt right.  Experimenting with colors for our bedroom doors I fell in love with this saddle-leather shade.  Not right for the doors, it seemed just the thing for the hallway, a bridge between our room and Bill’s Calke Green study.

An old bench, one that had not even found a good home in the old house, held space here. The painting was my wedding present to Bill, and if it’s not something that we would buy now, it reminds me of where we were when I was so much under the influence of other people.

I had seen this chest and it kept knocking on the back door of my consciousness.  Readying for the party I decided that it was, indeed a good idea.  When I went to buy it, it was out on approval with someone else and, I am embarrassed to say, I had a temper tantrum.  A small one, but a tantrum nonetheless.  I called a friend in full froth and as I was finally winding down I said, “I mean, I get that’s it not a kidney,” though I was behaving as if it were.

I just wanted the house to be pretty.  Just wanted to do a little less explaining and apologizing.  Just wanted things to be right for this crew that I like so well.  The shop called in the middle of one of the boy’s basketball games to say the piece had come back; it hadn’t worked for the other buyer.  A few friends said, “karma.”  But I am not sure this cosmic kick-back is what my bad behavior earned and I am looking over my shoulder wondering what the universe might have in store.