windthread

i say that a lot.   I love something,  or "you",  or a thing,  or a doing,  or or or.   I say it a lot.  I love _____.  And thinking a lot about love as a verb.  a doing.   Emrie is helping me learn about what it IS to love.  Sometimes today when she was really tired but couldn't let herself take a nap,  she gets uh,  well,  a little mean streak shows.   She pushes things across the table fast.  They fall on the floor.  She thumps her book VERY hard on the table.  Throws a lego at me.  Or,  bangs one of my drawing pencils so that the lead breaks and i said STOP!,  really loud.   It startles her,  the loud,  it's not often at all and she is wide eyed,  unsure

and in that moment,  there is the possibility of Love as a verb.   There is a Pause.  We are locked in eye contact.   I finally break the silence and say, no.  my pencil.  and pick the broken lead pencil up and hold it to my heart,  patting it.  My pencil.  Love.  Love my pencil.  I say Emrie.  No…..this time quietly.   She still is wide eyed.  I say Emrie.    No…love love,  and pat my pencil again and then say   OK old nana,*  ok and i smile and begin singing the Happy All Day song that is just those words,  over and over to a non specific tune…she made it up…. and she releases  and says Ok old nana  and begins to sing along and after a couple rounds we go from there.  Love.  And i still have the cold and i think,  after they have left, that maybe the Wall Garden will be ok enough till morning.  I think to just skip this evening water giving.   But then,  i think about how i say i love the Garden.   And what does that mean?,  but how a garden is Loved,  by the end of a long hot day,  but 

water.  The word means nothing,  the water means everything.

so we go.  Me and Tay,  Puppy somewhere on the periphery in the trees.   All of us  and in this way,  it's Goat Love too.  They find meaning in these walks of belonging.  Talkie trails along at the end.    They can't come in to the A space…i close the gate,  so they fan out and browse along the creek until it's time go walk back up.    And i think about how Love is how we live.  Every day.  Such simple stuff.  But the weave is so strong  and i sit in my 3 resting places on the way back and look up into the trees.  Them too. 

Love, Love.   I pat my heart.

*i have had no name till this last weekend  when we were all working,  and she pointed,  over and over to us all and herself,  saying names,  Emie,  MomMom or Mama,  Nana,  Jenny,  her grandma,  and then from so long ago and from what Julian calls me,  Old nanna, me.   It suddenly had meaning to her.   she says it O Nanna.    Naming.  Claiming.