a good day's end

         "Rose!" Dawn shouts to Merry, whom she calls 'Rosamond', "I'm going to take a shower, and by the time I get out, you had better have made those chocolate chip cookies!"  But then she runs to Merria and puts an arm around her neck and says winkingly "I'z jest kiddn, kid.  We love you…now make us some good little cookies, Rosamond…"

It's old carpet and blue and very walked and sat and wrestled and laid on.  I sat on it, back to a doorframe and watched her play.  She's tough and short and spunky, and I love her. I love watching her play.  It's a doorway to her very soul, I think. D Formsma bakes cookies too, and the most steamy, crusty-on-the - outside- soft- on-the inside - kind of bread you ever tasted. And cinnamon rolls. But this day she was out of the kitchen and at the piano, just for me, and I felt as special as I should have at this token of kindness. She introduced to me Franz Liszt and his  "Three Concert Etudes S.144 No.3 "Un Sospiro".  I've never forgotten him since.

  It's not just the piece. It's the way she plays it that made all the hot wet things come splashing on my cheek and hands.  I love it now, for many reasons, and have listened to it over and over again today.

  Good old home. I'm glad to be back after a summer of traveling.  I love traveling, but you know, it's good to walk in and be home and to see and hear all the things of home that make it what it is…The smell, the creaky benches, the way the front door slams, the way the back door stays open because no one remembers to shut it; the faucet that, even though it's new, has now followed in the footsteps of its Elder Faucet and keeps sliding down and turning off, most inconveniently; the lantana that has bushed over the very mailbox and stretches itself in all directions, oblivious to its eccentricity and merely absorbing all the beautiful sunshine it can manage; the way the purple bathroom trashcan is forever being turned catty-cornered then straight again, and how the rug never stays in one place, because some like it by the toilet, others by the tub, others by the sink; the sunflower in the back yard that we watched and waited for, and is now here, tall and gangly; the way the school room fan bangs when it's on high and how the books keep trying to fall out of the bottom of the piano bench, because it's so full; the back closets - the closets at all - and how they have too much, and ever room for more; the oven with a broken handle, the teapot that gets turned on without any water; the perpetual pot of coffee; the crickets outside the windows at night and the way the summer light comes through the kitchen window in the evening…home is a wonderful place, nor would it be without its little imperfections. 

 Tonight at prayer it struck me again what an unworthy recipient of all my Father's goodness I am. 

Does He not daily, even moment by moment open the windows of heaven to pour out His kindnesses on my life and family?  Daddy took my hand and squeezed it in his big calloused one as I sat on the side of his chair {I declare, one day that chair is going to have a panic attack and fall apart}.  Everybody went around and prayed.  That quiet evening restfulness.  Our family with that Great and Kind Friend who is always with us.  I like the way daddy's stomach rises and falls under my hand when he's holding it and the way he keeps holding it, even when mine gets hot like it does, and I like how the whippoorwill who lives in the front yard's evergreen tree seems to know the right time to sing his sweet, melancholy summer song. 

Merria just came and gave me a thumb full of chocolate chip cookie dough.

"Without chocolate chips, just for you," she says. 

All in all, I'd say that's a Good Day's End.