the air he was standing in just before you.

it's so lush thick blurry wet all of a sudden.  that tip from budding sticks to green that sticks to your legs when you climb down the path to the lakes happens all of a sudden and fully all at once.

your soles stick in the mud and you try to avoid the worst of it but of course you can't see that the next step is right into the worst.  and so you walk on and stand finally in the clearing and look around.  try to see what he has seen there.

the tree is torn and broken and horizontal.  but at just a certain height.  you see what he means.  you stand there for an extra minute not knowing why you're not just leaving.  it's empty there, just you.  but there seems to be something, some sort of thing left behind in the air in which you're standing.

xo,
tt

don't ever feel foolish or doubt.

pentax k1000.  kodak tri-max or t-max.  i just can't ever remember the difference. 400.
the kids.
the creek.
onion grass.

(read the title.)

xo,
tt

and in no particular order.

field notes from the evening:

all of a sudden the sky turned that really dark blue where it's almost gone.
how can there be this many dishes to do every day?
we've got the one thing right.
i hate the obsessiveness of digital.
otis redding is so much more than the dock of the bay.
i find i've mastered the languid wave in the hall after the first hello of the day.
and that unfortunately
i'm only good at what i'm interested in.

g'night.
xo,
tt.

hi from sunday night.

yes.
the way you learn something is by inches.
you see something you like, that somehow makes sense to you even though you don't know anything about it.
you keep looking at it.  look around at other things and keep coming back to it.
one day you look at it long enough to really see it and then it makes sense to you:
this is something you want to learn.

with some things, you may want to just get there:  jump off the high dive, order dinner in french, play sundown in a margarita bar on marco island, see your little kids grown up and safely content.*

with other things, the whole point lies in learning it slowly.  in the learning.  the inch by inch figuring out what works and what works better.

you just need to let it happen.

::

there are only six people in this house tonight.
lights out.

xo,
tt

*(edited to say, actually, this is excactly the other thing you want to learn by inches...)

yesterday...

this is what it looked like around here.
today is still a work in progress.

xo,
tt

i could tell you a thing or two about longing.

i could tell you a thing or two about longing.
i could tell you a story for every inch of these woods.
we'd be in the tall grass over the berm,
fingertip to fingertip
blowing smoke towards the leaves, towards the blue.
putting off one minute at a time
the point at which we turn towards
and start learning each other
by inches.

xo,
tt

hi from sunday night.

hej. hvordan hår det?
me, i'm fine.
all day long i've been listening to more things than usual, necessary, useful.
woken early by charlie throwing himself upon me in bed, his claws dragging lines down my forearms, his tongue in my ear.  
anna waking and retelling, in realtime, her dream.
tim too far away under the quilt for me to find his hand.

they brought me my strong black tea and i didn't leave the room until the job was done:  weeks worth of laundry folded, put away, moved along.  the same old movie i always watch. the sight of clean sheets on the bed something i've walked past three times today just to look at again to make sure.

at some point i couldn't be inside anymore and walked around the park with a camera; tried to get anna out again, but ended up walking alone.  later, there were half a dozen girls around, talking.  crying.  kicked out to the park they let charlie run and the sun and the kids on bikes i think must have helped.

now the mower is running in the front and anna is with the mouse. julia and linds are off at the movies. callie's home.

i'm here at the keyboard but was driven in from outside, where i've been all day mostly, to ask the question that all of a sudden seems important:  when do some of us stop noticing?

that's all i have to report for now.

xo,
tt

i think

it's actually pretty incredible what's happening right now.

and that country becoming popular in the metro area is going to backfire.

that spring makes you pay the fuck attention because things are sticks and then buds and then blooming and then you just missed it if you were not.

that it's been so long since i cooked something slowly that it just doesn't feel right in my kitchen anymore, energy wise.

that me saying no is starting to feel pretty natural.  pretty good.

that charlie is absolutely right to expect us to bring him out to play whenever we get up from our chair.

that no matter all of this, that.  that here we are, and this is what we've got to work with.

work with me.

xo,

tt

bon soir.

jo and lindsey brought the crazy home today in the form of two white mice.

they're pretty cute.  

i'm now colluding with them as a result of my desire to take photos of the mice.

i'm so weak.

xo,

tt

hi from sunday night.

hola. que tal?
this was sunday:

unexpected girls in the morning for breakfast;  watermelon and english muffins and eventually everyone moved on and tim and russell and anna and i went all the way clear to the bronx (practically) to get a bike promised to her on april 2.

then in lieu of me folding the rest of the laundry i walked around the house and shot up a pack of peel-apart and yes, this is not earth-shattering stuff, not even well done for that matter, but it is just exactly how our sunday felt.

hola.
glad to be back here.

xo,
tt

hi.  just wanted to stop in to say that i'm still over here, with a photo and a few words every day, if you'd like to follow along.

more soon.  best wishes to you.
xo,
tt