Yesterday I saw it. My cashmere robe Ross had bought me for Christmas about seven years ago, was full of holes. He had sent me to a discount shopping place, TJ Maxx. I had found it and wasn't sure because even for there it was expensive. It was a short robe, plain in color, and very soft.
Anthony's weekends away with his father are a mixed sort of thing. They are hard on me emotionally. It's never once gotten easier. The damage has been done. I can contact our son now, discreetly, by text, but the years of not being allowed even to say goodnight because of his father's stubbornness and orneriness have made the damage to my heart.
Ross makes it a point for those weekends to be ones where we work on our relationship. Some weekends I'm 'in the game' and enjoy Ross' company. Sometimes others, like last week, I'm just too far distressed from outside things...to really be present at all.
The robe has made an incredible difference, the warmth next to my skin, the lightness of it, the softness.
Here it was full of holes.
I knew what to do. Even though the holes were many, I took out the sewing kit, and put on my reading glasses. I was surprised to be able to thread the needle. And I fixed every hole.
Ironically, the one spool of white thread I had bought in the 1980's when I went away to college, was finally out of thread when I finished the project. It's been a lot of holes I've mended over time.
Even though there is a sense of 'nothing is happening' spiritually, geo-politically, socially, with the pandemic, take the time to fix what's broken.
In Japan, the concept of Wabi-Sabi lets us cherish that which has been 'loved' and 'worn from use'.
I went to move the teakettle on the stove yesterday. I like an old fashioned one. I don't want electricity in my water, if you know what I mean. And I heard a pop of metal, a clank, and it dropped. The handle had come loose. I was able to look under the grate in the stove, find the pieces, and put it together. The color it is is dear to my heart and hard to find again. It's a Le Creuset.
Mend things.
Fix things.
Try something new.
Last night I cooked venison for us. It's special venison, we've eaten this one at a restaurant before. With a coffee sauce.
I had no clue how to cut it or cook it or make the sauce. But I jumped in, and did it. Some of the 'chops' were a little too thick, but Anthony was patient with me, and I opened the meat to cook it better. I had sliced the ribs apart, and created the chops, but I wasn't sure exactly where to slice.
For the sauce, and for some reason Ross wants me to mention its recipe, its:
- sliced mushrooms, brown ones, about one cup
- one sliced green onion
- one tablespoon guava jelly
- one tablespoon espresso fine ground coffee
- water about two cups
