Chicken’s Corner: Outside

We are rolling into the last of our outdoor days. Maybe not quite, maybe a few weeks left, several, maybe stretched out into a bit longer if we bundle up, bring a blanket and a coffee out too. It’s hard to believe it’s October, the beginning of the spooky season, orange and black, another life celebration of our two striped cats.

With the cold weather, Chicken will spend more and more time indoors, which is lovely for me and Tuna, Chicken’s little entourage and cheerleading squad. He is somewhat more ambivalent, but what is a cat but ambivalence?

Fall is the time to come alive after the heat of the summer, and I am relishing all my school things, notebooks and fountain pens inked up with various earthy colours, freshly sharpened pencils as I attack a few Sudoku puzzles feeling triumphantly brainy and like my brain has stopped functioning by turns, squeezing a little turkey in my arms and on my lap. I currently have two giant boxes of the wrong size diapers delivered and now sitting in the studio shop downstairs. Clearly I had some vague notion that we were doing a lot of diaper changing, and yet who knew turkeys grow so fast? Even after already having had two other turkeys?

In any case, there is not much going on here other than the usual, various projects at various stages, various small and medium-sized fires to put out, an endless stream of appointments and check ups and teeth cleaning. I have, for better or worse, postponed my and Jon and Caleb’s teeth cleaning for yet another month, following two previous postponements, going for a record of some sort. This seems unwise, having only recently narrowly dodged a root canal, but life’s abundance must be pruned to fit into the lines. We all go to one dentist, while Naomi goes to another dentist, and Naomi, at least, still has an appointment at the end of this week (for now). I continue to make life as complicated as possible for us. Jon got an email from his accountant, with whom he has a relatively intimate relationship, with the subject line “Please call me when you can.” We are launching our journaling club tonight, and I’m full of ants and beans and gurgling.

Here we are with the odd warm days and the odd cool days, both managing to be a surprise for me when I open the door and consider how the children are dressed, as the season sorts itself out. Taking a breath out on the fire escape is solace and delight and I hope to do so for as many days this season and for as many years to come as I’ll get.