had a dream this morning i woke up in a room i didn't recognize next to someone i did. a call on the dream phone: my mother: she wanted to ask me about some haiku i'd mentioned to her dream-earlier. a magazine of them beside me. beside the yellowed landline, startlingly close to the phone we kept in our kitchen growing up. i read the poem. i looked over at my old friend. she was at this point gone.
the weekend's coming up, and i'm looking forward to a couple of long walks with the dogs. that's one thing this commuting has (mostly) done: taken my lunchtime dog-walks from me, something i feel weirdly bitter about. i love taking them through the nearby trails at lunch, a brisk 20-30 minutes before heading back to slam down a sandwich and get back to work. my older dog is getting very old. on weekends we let him choose where we walk.
at my music lesson this week: what do you want to focus on this year? note consistency outside of first position. not catching other strings with the bow. we set some goals for the first couple weeks. Ab major, Ab, F major on a single string. fundamentals, over and over. the fiddle as an adult a challenge. your fine motor skills mostly set by 9, my teacher tells me. just a fiendish instrument. none of the others i play nearly so hard.
what else? trivia again next week, finally. we missed a couple. i missed it a lot. having a pint of good beer, shovelling candy into my mouth, leaning over to whisper answers to my partner and seeing she's already written them down. it's not much, but it's something. work feeling harder right now. got to grab the joy where you find it. got to try to make it.