So here I sit, again, on the veranda*. It’s seven twenty p.m., Saturday March 1 on my antipodean side of the world though for you now in the Northern Hemispheric Seattle, slumbering peacefully I expect, it’s only been March 1 for about twenty minutes. I was sitting here working on that project we spoke of earlier, the photo album, when suddenly I recognized the rareness of the moment and the fact I wanted to describe it to you to give you a sense of things.
I’m sitting at the table covered with that purplish print tablecloth from Gujurat in India (my how this textile has traveled!). A light, steady rain is falling, the gentle pit-pat sound of it a sweet counterpoint to the music I’m listening to. Both the music and the rain are periodically interrupted by the very-familiar-to-us raucous squawks of cockatoos flying from tree to tree around the house, screaming their displeasure about who knows what. I have lit a candelabra and also the lights, as usual, and am enjoying, on crackers with good Australian Brie, the Lumpfish caviar (a welcome and tasty surprise) you left me.
A few minutes ago I finished skyping with A and E. They’re well and it was good, as always, to check in. I am thankful you and I skyped a few times today, too. I’m glad you’re there doing what you’re doing. It’s important. I wouldn’t want to change that. But I’m describing this sweet, dusky moment I’m now enjoying to let you know how much nicer it would be sharing it with you. The world is a beautiful place, as is our veranda right now, and I can peacefully enjoy it all on my own but even so, something’s missing. Or rather, someone: you. Rich moments like these can only rise to a certain level of good without you here to share them. I’m grateful for this moment and that I am, essentially, content, but that does not change how I’d so much rather be enjoying this rain, this candlelight, the cheese and caviar and music and even the screeching cockatoos with you.
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*I feel sort of elitist, smarty-pants-world-traveler calling it a veranda which, as you know, is exactly what the Australians would call it. Of course, we both know good and well that it’s really just a back porch. Nothing more, nothing less, though as back porches go it’s a pretty nice one. Still, in my defense, the word veranda ennobles what it is and reinforces it’s niceness and homespun elegance and the fact that it would be so much better with you here with me on it.
