"Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always."
~Rainer Maria Rilke
After the Ascension I am with the apostles, watching the sky, and waiting. Trying to avoid living in anticipation, trying to make each day new. Christ has borrowed my beads, I'll take them back again when the Spirit comes, on Pentecost and my table has a fresh image, the Trinity Icon; or when the baby comes, and I give all my saints flowers.

Cleaning house is not really anticipation, so much as an attempt to make each day beautiful. I can't stop the dirt from creeping in, or the spiders I won't kill from making webs on the rafters. I brush down the webs and wash away the dirt, only to see them gather back again. Only the dishes are a battle, the rest is joy.

Last night I thought over all the things we're lacking still: undone cradle, unplanted tomatoes, packed away diapers and I worried. But my husband was sleeping easily, and calm is contagious. I wrapped myself in his and dreamt of happy things, waking only twice in the night to listen to coyotes and check the path of the stars.

When we have friends out again, my wheel is coming out from the shed. I can't help move it, but my husband and a friend could carry it down the road and set it on level ground. I can still throw, and I look forward to throwing again, in the sunlight. I look forward to making things grow beneath my hands.

Our back garden is a joy to see, we're eating baby spinach and radish greens. We're watching beet greens grown, and helping the peas cling to their gate. Our herbs are small and flavorful, our beans are climbing. It feels sustaining, in a small way, to have a garden growing.