Tuesday, October 22, 2013
8 Years On
I'm sitting at my dinning room table (where I prefer to write when writing in the house), facing two windows. One faces south, and the other faces west. Through the south window I see the golden rain tree that I planted after we built the privacy fence in my back yard...that was probably during the summer of 2003...it's grown tremendously, but right now it is just a dark, giant, many branched shadow in the twilight...I spent hours trimming that tree this year. Through the west window I see the top of the privacy fence, the thick posts of a pergola that we built when the new deck was added in 2008, and a solar lantern that I purchased earlier this year that dangles from a hook on the nearest post gleams brightly through the top left window pane. (The lantern is supposed to shine for up to 8 hours, but now that we're moving closer to winter I'm lucky if I get three out of it...it's just there for a nice accent anyway...if we lived in the zombie apocalypse it might be a liability). Jasmine, my 4 year old black cat, is standing next to the laptop yelling for my attention. The only other sounds are the whir of the laptop fan and the drier running in the hallway.
The room I'm sitting in is painted sage green...eight years ago it was the same eggshell white that it had been when I moved into the house. To my right is the small two way fireplace that connects to the living room...one of the main architectural reasons I picked this house...but it also has developed the strange habit of spitting out birds, even when the flu is closed. Hobbs, my eleven year old cat is curled up in the purple velvet sling back chair in the living room...he doesn't care much about food these days but seems pretty healthy and happy despite that annoying challenge. (I tried countless times to get him to eat today, but he won't touch the food). I didn't have Hobbs until 2006, and Jasmine didn't join the family until three years later.
I'm bundled up in my fleece Jedi bathrobe that Mom and Dad gave me for Christmas last year. I have refused to turn on the heat so far, but I did breakdown and put the electric blanket on my bed today...along with a new set of 400 thread count purple (my favorite color) sheets that I recently purchased. I sit here nestled in the home that I have built and all that I can think is that I am happy. I'm happy that I'm here, to witness this day. Had history gone differently eight years ago, I might not be here at all. Today I am happy to be here and thankful to all that went in to saving my life. I know that next to the loss that happened that night, I was also the beneficiary of a precious gift...life.
Over the years today has been a day that I've dreaded, cherished, mourned, and experienced in numerous other emotional ways. Today, eight years on from that nightmarish moment, its just a day...one that should be recognized, but not given any special power...(my friend Jamal says the safest place to be today is in a car with me)...but just a day. It was a beautiful but frosty sunny morning and in a style befitting October turned to a chilly gray day in the afternoon and evening. It's a great day, because I'm here to witness it. Now, I'm going to start the first fire of the year, and sit down to eat my Chinese while witnessing the next new episode of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and probably some other creative programming. I'm also going to look forward to crawling under my electric blanket for the first time this season when it's time to go to bed, and then witnessing tomorrow.
The room I'm sitting in is painted sage green...eight years ago it was the same eggshell white that it had been when I moved into the house. To my right is the small two way fireplace that connects to the living room...one of the main architectural reasons I picked this house...but it also has developed the strange habit of spitting out birds, even when the flu is closed. Hobbs, my eleven year old cat is curled up in the purple velvet sling back chair in the living room...he doesn't care much about food these days but seems pretty healthy and happy despite that annoying challenge. (I tried countless times to get him to eat today, but he won't touch the food). I didn't have Hobbs until 2006, and Jasmine didn't join the family until three years later.
I'm bundled up in my fleece Jedi bathrobe that Mom and Dad gave me for Christmas last year. I have refused to turn on the heat so far, but I did breakdown and put the electric blanket on my bed today...along with a new set of 400 thread count purple (my favorite color) sheets that I recently purchased. I sit here nestled in the home that I have built and all that I can think is that I am happy. I'm happy that I'm here, to witness this day. Had history gone differently eight years ago, I might not be here at all. Today I am happy to be here and thankful to all that went in to saving my life. I know that next to the loss that happened that night, I was also the beneficiary of a precious gift...life.
Over the years today has been a day that I've dreaded, cherished, mourned, and experienced in numerous other emotional ways. Today, eight years on from that nightmarish moment, its just a day...one that should be recognized, but not given any special power...(my friend Jamal says the safest place to be today is in a car with me)...but just a day. It was a beautiful but frosty sunny morning and in a style befitting October turned to a chilly gray day in the afternoon and evening. It's a great day, because I'm here to witness it. Now, I'm going to start the first fire of the year, and sit down to eat my Chinese while witnessing the next new episode of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and probably some other creative programming. I'm also going to look forward to crawling under my electric blanket for the first time this season when it's time to go to bed, and then witnessing tomorrow.
