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Sunday Musings

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I used to do a Gratitude Sunday/Sunday Gratitude/Weekend Coffee Share, in which I gave thanks for whatever happened during the week.  Somehow these posts have fallen to the wayside.  I think it’s time I brought it back, different format, though.  Doing challenges like Pegman and Weekend Writing Prompt are all fine and dandy but as a result, I was feeling a loss.

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
― Marcel Proust

Maybe that loss is being felt because I’m frankly exhausted  – a term I find gets overused by those who are merely tired.  We seem to have entered the age of extremes so why should one not be exhausted instead of merely tired.  I must admit defeat.  I am bloody exhausted.  A co-worker and I were talking last night before the big 260-person benefit evening, that this October, in particular, has been particularly grueling.  It’s supposed to be the slowing down of things at the golf club.  Instead, it has been one event after another and we are just plain exhausted.  I just did a nine-day run and frankly, today could not come soon enough!

So what did I do on my one day off that is supposed to consitute my “weekend”?  Well, once I got up at the crack of 11:00 am (I worked until 1 am the night before…) I made myself a couple of coffees and had a bite to eat.  Then.  I have a fabulous brother-in-law, Sébastien, who changed my tires for me.  As I sat there watching Sébas and his son, Nicolas work together, joking and ribbing each other, innuendos galore, I could not help but smile.  I then drove home with tears in my eyes.  I couldn’t help it.  I couldn’t help but think that my boys did not get long enough with their father to learn stuff.  I will never forget Iain telling Mick, lying comatose, that he couldn’t leave yet as he still had so much to learn from him.  Broke my heart.  It’ll be four years and I can still hear this clear as day.

Could not decide between the following two quotes, so have included both.

“Boys do not long for fathers who will usher them through the gauntlet of psychological disconnect. They long for fathers who have themselves survived intact. Boys do not ache for their father’s masculinity. They ache for their fathers’ hearts.”
― T. Real

“You can’t love your mother or father if you don’t also have the capacity to grieve their deaths and, perhaps even more so, grieve parts of their lives.”
― Glenn Beck, The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life

I got home, unloaded my summer tires and Iain was clearing out the shed.  I asked him if he wanted to come with me to the market to get the goods to make salsas and jellies and he said that nah, he had some stuff to do…

“God know that a mother need fortitude and courage and tolerance and flexibility and patience and firmness and nearly every other brave aspect of the human soul.”
― Phyllis McGinley

I hid my disappointment and went to the market.  It’s amazing… Just yesterday – I swear it was yesterday – it was September.  I had told myself I would get all the stuff necessary to make salsas, that we’d go apple picking and visit David at his Britannia Mills mini-farm to pick up hot peppers to enhance our goodies.   Well. So much for that.  Here we are October 21 and my hopes for getting anything besides pumpkins were, to say the least, slim at best.   Luck was on my side.  I snagged a couple of boxes of not-so-beautiful tomatoes for ten bucks, plus 2nd rate apples that are “not fit for sale” for $15 instead of $22, as they are not perfect (pffft!), a box of bell peppers, a couple of braids of garlic, onions, a couple of pumpkins, some honey – because, when in these markets, everything looks fabulous.  Was so bloody cold, I forgot to take a pictures of the market!  Darn.  Iain did go to David’s on Friday, so the pepper situation was taken care of.

Goodies to make more goodies

Home once again, I unloaded my stash and Iain was washing his car.  Brought in the goods and he moseyed over to see just what I had managed to find.  Was as pleased as I was so…  I canna lie, there was a liltle bit of pleasure on my front – again hidden.

I started chopping veggies for the salsa, asked Iain which peppers he wanted me to use and made two different batches of salsa.  I took it as a good sign when I went up to his room where a serious video game was going on with Aidan and his friend, gave him a spoonful, he took, coughed, and said “Was not expecting quite that much heat!”  Mom still can rock it.

Mixture of hot peppers
Pepper confetti
Salsa

While working on my second batch of salsa, Iain came in to chop peppers and ingredients that he planned to turn into hot oils and  sauces.  His dehydrator has been working on drying out one of the peach somethings (not sure if they’re ghosts, morughlas, reapers or what – all’s I know is they are friggen hot) so he can turn them into chili powder – not anything you’d find in your standard grocery stores…

I looked at him and said, “I know you don’t like anything mushy, but I really enjoy when we work on something together.”  I just got a look.

No gloves!!!
Oils and sauces
Salsa

“Isn’t this the truth of any good mother? That in all of our lives. We worry only about those we brought into this world, regardless of whether they loved us back or treated us fairly or understood our shortcomings.”
― Adriana Trigiani, Big Cherry Holler

I know I can never fill in their father’s shoes, nor do I want to.  I can give them what I can.  I can be there for them in my capacity.  There will always be those moments where I’ll think, “Damn, Mick should be here teaching them this lesson” but that is, I know, futile.  And I can hope that I’ll be enough.  And that one day, they will think back and say – Mom was there when we needed her and did the best she could.

63 thoughts on “Sunday Musings”

  1. This is a beautiful “salsa mama” share about parenting and love and time. Time gets away from us and the next thing we know, our babies aren’t babies anymore.
    Time thieves the people and times that make us . . us. But it’s the memories that can never be stolen, they help us to fill that void.
    You’ve done a hell of a job, mama. In all the ways that count.

    Love and peace

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Heartbreaking, funny and thought-provoking, all coming at me at once in this wonderfully (deceptively simple) write. Dale, I salute you. You didn’t want it, you didn’t choose it and you surely do not like it but nothing will stand in your way of getting around all the natural frustration and anger. If everyone had a mom like you, we’d all be doing A-Okay. Respect! Jilly

    Liked by 1 person

    • Thank you so much, Jilly. It’s me, on the page. And I’m always glad that the humour manages to come through (coz that’s me, too).
      Well, I sure hope so. I guess time will tell!
      Lotsa love,
      Dale

      Liked by 1 person

  3. This is lovely, Dale, a spicy paean to the relentless passage of time and the challenges of parenting. Sounds like you are doing a bang-up job with your boys, and I have no doubt they will harbor happy memories of these days, too. Hoping you get a bit more ‘down time’ to recharge your batteries, physically and emotionally, in the coming days…. Lori

    Liked by 1 person

    • Thank you, Lori. There are days where you just wonder… those days where you have trouble putting one foot in front of the other, especially!
      Yes, this is my last full week! Woot! After that, it is just Christmas events dotted here and there over the calendar
      Dale

      Liked by 1 person

  4. Dear Dale,

    I’m looking at a blurry screen as I type. You’ve touched my heart this morning. I’m sure Aidan and Iain will look back one day, maybe not as soon as you hope, and say, “Mom did the best she could and she did it well.”
    We do worry about those we brought into the world, no matter what, don’t we?
    Glad you shared. Hope that you can get some rest soon.

    Shalom and hugs, my dear friend.

    Rochelle

    Liked by 1 person

    • Dear Rochelle,

      Though that was not my intention, I do thank you for feeling it. Of course you are in a fabulous position to know all about being a mother.
      We do. We cannot help it
      So very glad you read and were touched and yes, rest is coming!

      Lotsa love,

      Dale

      Like

  5. I know these boys are extremely lucky to have you in their lives 😍 We will always cry both tears of joy and tears of sadness when we have children..that is part of being a parent I guess. Beautiful read my dear..I felt it too 😊

    Liked by 1 person

  6. From the other side of this equation, it sounds like you’re giving them space and letting them be, even if you would perhaps want not to do that. As a kid who didn’t get that when my father died, I can tell you that is greatly appreciated.

    Liked by 1 person

  7. Aw….kids! I always seem to want more than they have time to give. I try not to be greedy but sometimes I just need some time with an offspring. So glad you still have time with the boys. The salsa looks amazing by the way. Love ya, Lady! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  8. You are giving them YOU, dear Dale, and this is the best you they need from you. …
    Thank you for this story (of not so-day-off-day-off, Good Goodness Galfrend, you gone been BEEEE-ZEEE even when you can be coolin’ them heels of yours on the couch with some bonbons …) 🙂
    Salsa, eh? Now I have me a cravin. Will have to wait for Friday’s Farmer’s Market for that, but hey, at least I got me a Dale-giarized plan …) 😉
    Na’ama

    Liked by 1 person

    • It’s all I can give, eh?
      I know it sounds weird, but when I’m in the kitchen making stuff I enjoy, it’s zen-like. I watch brainless TV, chop away and am happy. Might get a tad sore in the knees but basically, I am happy… The sitting up eating bonbons in front of the tube is coming soon!
      Salsa. And today, spicy apple jelly! Well… the cook part. The drip part will happen overnight so the official jelly makin’ is tomorrow 😉
      Lotsa love
      Dale

      Liked by 1 person

      • Doesn’t sound weird to me at all. I was admiring your stamina while totally understanding why you do what you do as you do it. There’s something indeed zen-like in making good on stocked shelves in the pantry come harvest time. Thousands of years of humanity doing just that (in variations on the theme) make for some serious intergenerational memories … So I’m thinking, you are connecting to your ROOTS, girl, no wonder you feel grounded (knees and all). Just joking with regards to sitting idle eating bonbons. I can sit (does typing count as idle?) but after a bonbon or two I need me some spicy salsa. … 😉 xoxo Na’ama

        Liked by 1 person

  10. You sound exhausted, my friend. Please… create time to care for your Self! It’s not being selfish; it’s being wise. 🦉 As for mothers and sons, consider just being with what is. It took quite some time to let my Mom know what she (single-handedly) did for me (and my siblings) but I had plenty of time to share that with her before she passed less than two years ago. Boys love their mother’s; they just take time getting around to telling them thank you. Do you need me to send you some Hatch Chile’s from NM? 👹

    Liked by 1 person

    • Eric! Always a joy to have you pop in. I swear, it’s the first time… ok, maybe not, I DID have three babies… let’s say the first time in a long time where I have used the word exhausted on myself. Last week at the golf course. An event or so the following week, then a getaway to New York.
      I thank you for this. I know they love me. Deep. DEEP down 😉
      I dunno… what’s the Scoville rating on that one 😉 Gotta be near the million mark to impress Iain… 😉

      Like

  11. So many things to say, and I’m not sure any of them do you justice. You’re good. You’re just good. A good mom, that I can tell. And you just keep at it. You keep your hands busy and your heart light as best you can. My boys’ father is still alive but he surely doesn’t parent. He leaves the tough stuff to me. So I think I get (in some small fraction) what you are feeling when it comes to boys. Sending you a hug through the ether. XXOO

    Liked by 1 person

  12. I read this in the middle of the night, then on my lunch break, and now!
    You have a Beautiful smile ❤
    I’ll comment on this post in person next week. I couldn’t stop thinking about your post all day.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. I come late to the comments, courtesy of coming home yesterday to find darkness (electricity cut; didn’t come back on till 2 am) and everyone’s already said everything I would say. So, I dry my eyes (and that doesn’t often happen) and remark how apt I found the quotes, and how enchanting the photos and how wide open your heart. We are told there are givers and takers in this world. Without doubt, you are a giver.

    Liked by 1 person

  15. A wonderful idea, the Gratitude Sunday posts. A time to reflect, even on the bittersweet. You really are an industrious busy bee. The colors in your photos are brilliant. I love that Ian chose to join in at the end and you were able to have a good mom moment with him. It’ll mean something to him in the long run. I really like the quotes you included, especially, “Isn’t this the truth of any good mother…” by Adriana Trigianti. I wrote it down. Have a lovely week ahead. Joy & peace!

    Liked by 1 person

    • Thank you, Andrea. It does me good to stop and reflect. I write a list of 5 things I am grateful for the day, every night before I go to bed.
      Glad you enjoyed the photos and the quotes – they were chosen quite specifically (and a hard task that was!)
      Have a lovely week, you too!
      Joy, Peace and Love!

      Liked by 1 person

  16. Dale, this is soulful and beautiful. A wonderful mixture of food and loving Iain and missing Mick. I know that as a mother your loving will be there to connect you with your sons – always. I believe you teach them something about Mick by being yourself.

    Liked by 1 person

  17. You are quite the busy bee on your day off. You’ve brought tears … that come easily now-a-days … by your touching interactions with your sons. We all hope that we can impart something to our children and grandchildren that they will love enough to remember fondly. Cooking seems to fit that best. There’s something about cooking with another that forms a memorable connection. My husband and I cook together. We challenge each other expertise. He being a novice who started when I had back surgery and couldn’t. Anyway, I digress. a wonderfully written post about a special day in your life.
    Yes … do keep these up. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
    Isadora 😎

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  19. This is a beautiful post, Dale, and it made me all teary eyed. You are giving your boys the gift of you and I do think that they will someday recognize what a great gift that is.

    I hope you find some time to rest, relax, and unwind.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Thank you, Robin. So very kind of you. We do what we can and yes, I figure it will come out in the long run…

      I am in my kitchen, jelly-ing, salsa-ing and doing it my rhythm. My happy place!

      Like

  22. A wonderful, touching, ‘saucy’ post, I’m no good in ‘salsa’ questions, can’t eat hot stuff, but where I felt I could ‘contribute’ is when your love, your frustration, your longings came across…. I hear your heart and your love speaking and I like what my heart hears, listening to you!

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