A Ramble

I'm just in from a Girls' Nite/ Happy Hour. It's a pretty good happy hour, these days, to keep me out till ten (not like the old days, when that would be nothing). Fun, too, to bring together women friends from different corners of life - work, church, family - to mark a milestone of a new beginning. It was fun; I think the friends were surprised that I could sing along to a couple of the songs played by the Irish music band at the first bar. How often do I get to exercise that dubious talent?

Still, I was beginning to look forward to getting home, to write a bit and put on my own music, which right now is Shemekia Copeland's Never Going Back CD. "There's nothing like staying at home for real comfort," as Jane Austen wrote, however facetiously, in Emma. Best of all is a balance: getting out for a while, but being glad to get home and finding that once again home is a place of peace, because for a long time it just wasn't.

I don't find that "I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself" (Samuel Johnson), in fact I enjoy my own company at least as much as most other people's. It was a good crew tonight, though, and good laughs.

I will be glad to pick up my boys from camp tomorrow, to hear about all their fun week and to bring them home for their own peace. The balance is that I've also enjoyed having the house to myself, getting some work done and some rest, too. It's a different world when I get up in the morning and am responsible for no one but myself, but even that reminds me that it is good to have children who steady me with a sense of purpose. There are times when no other purpose is as clear as the need to be there for the kids. My life has creative purpose; I'm just not always sure what it is or how to get to the next point. The kids keep me from stalling out while I'm figuring out what to do next beyond surviving.

It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and simply arranged; the only difficulty was, that she had not the smallest idea how to set about it.
-- Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

Thanks, friends, all of you. Sometimes it is good just to be puzzled together.