Yesterday as we dawdled over brunch and one last cup of tea, I whined about my aching thighs (putting up new baseboards is apparently hard work, and all I did was hold them in place) and put forth that I'd rather run off to the Niagara escarpment and re-stock our wine cellar.
Last week we'd discovered that we were down to our last bottle of red (a bitter Baco Noir) and lo a few weeks ago I'd promised the illustrious Kitty to take her on a run of the wineries.
By sheer happenstance, the other day I'd been eyeing our still-green cherry-tree and wishing for an autumnal colour spray. There's a gigantunourmous park next door but no, an ostentatious monstre requires the entire display of the Niagara escarpment, great lumps of multifaceted playdough framed in milk-white fog-mist.
And so reason firmly tucked to the wind I said "why don't we run off to Niagara today" and Dave froze for a second, and grinned that special mad grin and pulled out his phone to recruit Kitty before I chickened out under the pressure of the need to calk the baseboards, put together one last set of shelves, and paint white around the edges of everything.
And off we went, giggling and chatting and driving into the thick fog of autumn weather, driving over a bridge turned invisible by cloud. The escarpment jumped out at us after kilometres of filthy factory sprawl, and slowly I remembered the first time we'd run this adventure, intent on finding wines for our wedding last April.
My heart skipped with that memory, and suddently we were driving past the signs for the Thiry Bench vinyard (dirty bench!, but I remembered that they didn't have affordable reds) and on towards the Angel's gate where our first mixed case of spicy and bitter red made it's way into the trunk.
From there we hopped and skipped and spent a little more than I expected, but the discovery that the "meritage" grape is Canada's name for the Bordeaux was worth every cent and one of my few remaining longings for the taste of life in France was put to sleep with a light heart.
Driving past our fifth or sixth stopped, and just as we were chatting that we wished we could telephone our friends who were visiting da', we drove by a driveway with their unique slovenian last name on it and pulling in on Dave's brilliant whim revealed my old 92 Nissan Sentra that M's da had given a home to.
We'd missed our friends but finally got to meet da, who took us on a tour of his grape vines, let us munch vidal grapes hanging at eyeball height (well, eyeball height for me), and sent us home with a basket of brain-sized apples from the neighbour's farm.
Bursting with glee we drove on from there, found a shockingly delightful Baco Noir and Cab mix being sold at half the price it could easily go for at the Featherstone vinyard (I had an urge to go there the minute I saw the name), a cranberry wine to suit Dave's tastes perfectly, an overpriced chevre cheese, and a pair of vinyard owners who filled my heart with warmth as they happily complained about their difficulties in digging up their Calla Lillies to winter them.
Driving back we bought a pumpkin as big as my torso from a lady who reluctantly admitted that Dave isn't your average retarded customer and gifted us with an entire bag of "decorative" gourds to go with our sunflower bread (gods it's delicious and already half-gone) and Kitty's bright fruit purchases.
...and by the time we dropped Kitty off yesterday so much of the black fog of the past weeks had lifted off my heart. I was burdgeoning with love again, still a little sore and wounded, but laughing and looking forward to tomorrow for the first time in weeks.
The past week has been all about finding reason again, ten hours spent learning sewing secrets from Nicole's store and crafting Dave a purple and gold arabian noble outfit for the Sultan's slumber party at which we lounged on pillows and stretched bejewelled and be-chiffoned limbs in bright hilarity into hours wee-er than I'd seen in months.
Today I am writing again for the first time in weeks and I feel my self slowly returning. I am suddenly less terrified of anything, and ready to look forward again.
I do have to admit, though, that the chapter on "grief and bereavement" at the back of one of the baby books (I'm still trying to find some advice as to when to start again -- we've got SO MANY conflicting views) was so far off as to make me wonder. Anger? Denial? Bargaining? Blame? We seem to have skipped each one of those, started off with acceptance and I only succumbed to depression afterwards...
I guess there is a morbid upside to a grief-filled youth. We've gotten really good at coping, and for some reason I have the need to posterize this.
WHich I've done, and now I'm off to scour the universe for pasta-less vegetarian recipes, and maybe practice my new sewing-pants-without-a-pattern skills. Patterns never fit and never make sense 'nyway, so I'm just going to draw Nicole's voice in my head along the flannel and see if I come up with anything wearable.
:)