New tiny later daffodils in the stump garden.
We're having a quiet week so far, even with the college folk home. They are doing a lot of sleeping, which I imagine they really need to do. It is nice to have people to send to the grocery store at intervals -- people who actually want to get in the car and drive and go there.
Yesterday afternoon was so warm that I sat out in the backyard and got sunburned. Today's high again is supposed to approach 70, and I'm not complaining. The older I get, the more I think that summertime can just come on and get here, because I don't like being even a little bit cold. This in contrast to the version of myself who landed back in Tennessee in August, six months pregnant, after four years in England, and thought she was going to die. That version of me swanned around declaring that God had never intended the American South for human habitation. The current version of me thinks that 65F is a great winter temperature.
I woke up this morning thinking, for some reason, of a taxi driver in Cambridge. He drove us a couple of times while we were there -- he was memorable for being kind of young, as in roughly our age then, for driving a station wagon, and for always having a book on his dashboard, to read while he waited for fares. On at least one occasion he was reading Harry Potter. In chatting, as one does, from pickup to destination, we found out that he was a vicar's son. We never really found out much else, like why he was driving a taxi. I also remember him vividly because once he picked me up by myself, from a maternity appointment at the Rosie Hospital in Cambridge, shortly before we moved back to the States. It was a relatively long drive for Cambridge, with a lot of traffic, so we had time to talk. I guess we were talking about my impending move, about which I felt emotional for all kinds of reasons, on top of being emotional anyway because I was pregnant -- anyway, I started crying in the back seat of the taxi, and he said kind things like I'm sure it will all be fine, and when he dropped me off, wouldn't let me give him a tip.
I've never forgotten that, and from time to time I do think about him, wonder about him, hope he's all right, and say a prayer for him. I have had experiences with strangers that I truly believe were supernatural, and this wasn't one of them: it was an all-too-human encounter, with a human person, which is why I think to pray for him, a person about whom I know next to nothing. There is something about someone's telling you their father is a vicar that makes you intuit that that person has not made a particular point of pursuing the Christian faith -- yet the kindness of Christ can work in that person just as well as, if not better than, it has ever done in me.
Sometimes I wake up thinking random things. Sometimes it's a relief to do so, because the dream I've been having just before I wake up is a dream I'm happy to be out of. As it happens, I remember what I was dreaming before I woke up this time: I dreamed that I had elected, for some reason, to be burned at the stake in the middle of some gigantic church-fellowship kind of dinner, attended by all kinds of people I've barely known in the course of my life. I remember a woman from our Episcopal church in Salt Lake City, who said something like, "Well, it's nice seeing you."
I was thinking, hm, this burning thing is going to be really weird and unpleasant, and I don't see how these people can go on eating their dinner, and I sort of wish I could get out of it, but I said I'd do it, so I guess I will. It was at that point that a fire engine drew up, lights flashing, in front of our neighbors' house (I don't think anything was wrong with the neighbors -- the firefighters seemed to be consulting their GPS or something), and I was mercifully released from the consequences of my inexplicable dream decision, to start thinking about this taxi driver instead. The adventures you can have, without ever leaving your own head . . .
What with all that, I was glad to see the sun come up. I am bathed and refreshed and clothed and more or less in my right mind, and glad to be there.
I machine-washed my charcoal-heather wool Sierra, shown here, the other day and decided to risk drying it in the dryer. I'd shrunk my Camellia a little, but not that much, not too long ago, and it occurred to me that my longer-length Sierra, which has hit right at my knee, might benefit even more by the same treatment. It has shrunk a couple of inches, I think, and I'm happy about that. It seems more the length of a regular Sierra, and I think the fit is a little more flattering. I've always loved my Sierra, but I do like this result, especially with warmer weather coming on. I'm wearing it (for the twenty-first time this year) with my fairly old thrifted Pierre Cardin periwinkle cotton cardigan, which I hadn't yet worn in 2022. I love everything about this cardigan: its soft spring color, its crocheted delicacy, its lightness. It's been a terrific spring-summer top layer, and I've gotten many times the three dollars I paid for it in wearing value. Purple Xero Oswegos again today, to keep it Lenten. Also, they're just comfortable and good for walking.
Spot the Dora -- I'd forgotten she was with me when I took the photo above. She does manage to make herself ubiquitous. I still need to put my shoes away, but note that I have hung up all the clothes that were on the drying rack. Go me.