I have some catching up to do in my journaling life. Stuff has been happening that I don’t want to forget. Let’s start here.

I am in North Carolina, waiting for my daughter to give birth to her first child, a little girl who is already named Gwendolyn Ruth.  I am also waiting for the most accurate words to describe these new experiences since the husband passed away.  I want the new normal to start soon. The word “normal” suggests that something happens often enough for one to become used to it.  Nothing like that is happening yet. 

I have been busy most of the time since arriving. I have picked blueberries, beans and tomatoes. I have vacuumed centipedes and cat hair off the basement floor, and washed bedding and helped set up beds for the company. I have given half of a donkey a haircut. I have washed dishes and helped with meal prep. The work is distracting and it is nice to feel useful.  I keep thinking that I should help Julia so she can rest but then I go looking for her and find her out pulling weeds in the 90 degree heat. Her very pregnant self seems to think things will happen faster if she works harder. 

Yes, it is hot and humid here in North Carolina.  North Carolina where dirt is orange and tobacco fields are everywhere. North Carolina where roads are never straight and every other one is named after a church or chapel.  North Carolina where there are fireflies at dusk. 

I’ve been watching life from the sidelines a lot lately.  Words to describe it all don’t come easily, or they come all in a jumble and don’t get themselves in order to make sense.  At the moment the words are flying around in confusion because I’m sitting at  Julia’s kitchen table where there is commotion.  Julia has friends who are visiting from Florida for a few days, camping out in her basement. The five active children want to go shooting, no, they want to take the ATV on the trail, no, they want to play a board game, no, they… the parents tell them to go brush their teeth. Parenthood is in full swing.  

My daughter keeps thinking of things to cook and bake.  She likes to experiment with sourdough and has made bread, muffins, doughnuts, and pancakes in the days since I arrived. I have always been in awe of her ambition in the kitchen. There are dozens of appliances, several pantries full of ingredients, three full refrigerators and a large freezer, also full. The trouble is that she is just as interested in a dozen other things as she is in cooking and baking.  Preparing meals and eating them are often not priorities and so get done at odd times. Even so, no one is starving here.

I’m observing and doing the work of learning other people’s routines, seeing what things have changed in the years I’ve spent preoccupied with the husband and his disabilities. Now that I am not his caregiver, who am I and what will I do with myself? Time will help sort it all out, I’m sure.

Meanwhile, everyone here is waiting. Waiting for the little girl named Gwendolyn Ruth to make her appearance. Waiting for things to get back to normal.  I can already see the trouble with those expectations.