Turning New Leaves

The earth and air are pregnant with spring. The plum tree is budding, and my seaberry bush has set forth 1/2 inch of new leaves -- green! -- with a brazen hope for warm days ahead.

According to my blog, we started this remodel at the end of April, and now we are surely in the last lap. Drywall, plaster and paint are up, floors are down, and the way is lit with genuine electricity. The composting toilet (many prayers offered for its correct installation) is nearly taking seats. The clawfoot bathtub, elegantly arching its white swanlike presence in our jewel of a bathroom (provided the composting toilet does not perform to the standard our building inspector predicts) rests serenely in a sea of blue marmoleum. So what if we still haven't figured out how to plumb the faucet?

For almost ten months, we have worked this remodel and our thoughts and feelings for each other. We have laughed ourselves to tears, cried ourselves into laughter. We have held each other and taken space. The children have come in close, bridging the gap into adulthood with hammers, shovels, and screwdrivers. They have taken in more screentime than we enjoy so we could finish one last thing on the building outside.

And finally, here it is: the inside. We can take shelter in this space, find quiet (!) and safety in the walls we have built. How much math went into its calculations? How many words kept us connected, reminded us of our commitment to each other within this work? How much have we learned?

The blossoming always seduces me from around the next bend. When, exactly, will it be spring?

Today, I am expected to fill in the trench that now houses a storm drain. The sun is out, the rain has lifted. The banker is awaiting completion, rapping his pen on the table beside stacks of unsigned documents. Still, I am not inclined to go out just yet. Four Bosc pears sit on my drainboard, softly reflecting the late winter sun. Four golden pears remind me that food can be cooked, one dish at a time, and not always pulled in meal-sized portions prepared weeks earlier, from the freezer. Four pears tell me that art is now.

I find myself flipping through cookbooks, furtively, as if I could be caught and hung for such a momentary sweetness. Smiling wistfully, I decide on a recipe for poached spiced pears in honey syrup. As they cool on the countertop, I whisk fresh eggs -- the chickens are laying! -- into goat milk. A baked almond custard will accompany the pears.

Dessert. Perhaps, like the seaberry bush, I stretch too much of my neck into the sun. Perhaps, in the ecstasy of imagining spring spaciousness, I lean a little too hard into creation. Is this the wisdom of a fool? Only time will tell.

And until then, we will eat dessert.