Weather

We've had some storms here at Casa de Crazy, inside and out.

It may be that one reflects the other, but riddle me this: which is cause and which is effect?

Trying times.

Things tend to go wrong in clusters, around the Casa. It's never just one bad day, one bad mood, one angry moment. It's days and days of out-gassing, of blowing up and falling apart, of walking on eggshells and inevitably crushing them beneath our feet, dusting the grit from our toes as we plod on waiting for the next bright spot.

Bright spots, by the way, do not come in clusters. Elusive, they are so easily lost in mediocrity. We must actively seek them out, and once found, we must try to catch the ephemeral things, grasp them in less than perfect hands, hands rough from every-day use, calloused with frustration and toil, unsuited to holding gossamer mists, fairy wings, and joy.

Joy.

It flutters in on moth's wings and crumbles to dust in the corners, something else to sweep up and bin.

The children and I went for a walk one day last week. Someone was initially going to come as well, but something set off his anger - the Universe, playing its favorite sport, toying with him once again, knocking him around, bruising his dreams, his hands, his heart - and so we left him home to find his calm.

It was a windy day. Sprout, like her Papa, doesn't like wind in her face. I like to turn my face into the wind, breathe deep, taste and scent the story of its journey. It was a short walk, to the end of our street and back, perhaps a quarter mile all told. The Evil Genius was on his scooter (the old-fashioned, foot propelled, balance on one foot sort, not the motorized kind so prevalent today in grocery stores and among the elderly population) rolling ahead and then waiting for me to catch up.

We came home, walked and rolled around the cul-de-sac, content to circle and soak in the thin sunshine, unwilling to return just yet to the troubled light of home.

The wind stopped me, drew my eye to the crowns of some trees behind a neighbor's house. Towering above his two-storey home, they swayed, bowed, and twisted with the blustery gusts. My mind's eye saw fairies in their tree-top kingdoms, clinging to leaf and twig as they were tossed this way and that.

Sometimes it feels that way down here, as if life's winds have us in their grasp and are tossing us about, human hackey-sacs.

The trees, they bend and creak, give way a little while their roots go deeper, seeking better purchase.

Sometimes we bend, sometimes we cling, and sometimes we lose our grips and are blown to the corners of our world. Lately I feel like a piece of litter thrown to the ground, taken up by the storm, torn and tumbled about. I cannot seem to catch my breath, catch myself, before the thunder rolls once more.