A List.
(This is my kitchen when the sun is shining.)
1. I want to paint something for you, something so beautiful it would have you reaching for the computer screen. You would get up and move your arms like a tree, you would stretch toward the ceiling, you would actually grow taller, and taller, and taller, until your head broke through the roof and you could run off as fast as you've always wanted to.
2. It's very early on Saturday morning. I wish I could fly. Instead, I walk down the street and listen to the birds and the contented morning quiet. People buying strong coffee from the coffee cart, rice soup from the rice soup cart.
3. We have a new Thai friend, named Sam. He comes for visits and laughs about me being pregnant again. He's interested in renting a piece of land to us with the possibility of buying later. I followed him on my scooter yesterday, drove up into the mountains, into hilltribe villages. It's breathtaking. We will have to wait and see what happens. Still following the thread.
4. Sometimes I think that staying put and loving your spouse, your family, or just the people around you, day after day, talking siblings through fights, making meals and cleaning up, is the bravest and strongest thing you can do.
5. The baby in my belly continues to grow. I look much farther along than I am, which seems to be the way, with the last three babies. Leafy is planning his playtimes with his baby sister or brother. We are all planning the ways we will hold and kiss this baby, who is of yet so blissfully unaware. And yet one day she will talk to us.
6. My studio is a mess. It's tiny, and I need more shelves. I have sewing things, my manuscript, and all my art supplies in here. Also, the wooden Ibex head, which I rescued when Chinua took it down from upstairs. I love him. He can watch over me in here.
7. Our shipment arrived from India. It consists of books, more books, even more books, and a bunch of instruments. My very favorite part? My Indian spices and my garden seeds.
8. I made brown masoor dahl the other night. Then I couldn't stop talking about how much I loved it after every bite. "This is so GOOD," I said. "THIS IS SO GOOD."
a) This is how the breakdown of our family's taste in food goes: YaYa likes Indian food better than Thai, Kid A likes Thai food better and Laos food best of all, Leafy likes wide noodles and pasta, as does Solo. After cooking and eating Indian food for four years, it is comfort food to me, though I love Thai food as well. I prefer South Indian food over North Indian after the last couple of years of eating more from the South. Chinua still prefers his palak paneer and aloo tomato curries over idli sambhar and coconut dahls.
9. I can't keep myself fed. I eat and I'm hungry twenty minutes later. It has become a full time job, just keeping food in my stomach.
10. Solo wore Superman jammies all day yesterday and I let him. They came in the shipment and he was ecstatic.
11. Kid A woke up early with me and he keeps coming into the room, showing me things he can balance on each other.
12. I have so much planned for the day. Almost too much, but certainly, certainly, it's time to get going. I'll grow a lot taller, so my legs are really, really long and they can cover more ground. I'll shake the earth. Let's get up from our chairs and shake the earth, okay?