It’s hard to go to sleep when it’s still light out. I stay up every night and sleep all day. It took me seven days to write that sentence. It's hard to write a sentence when you have two children who love you endlessly, unconditionally, joyously, and show it in a way that might seem needy at times. I think T.S. Elliot wrote that. I think e.e. cummings wrote that. I think Bob Dylan wrote that.
You'll think you don't need to know this, but you must hear about the weather in Norway. It is April in England; it is October in New England; it is July in Norway. I am wearing wool slippers and a sundress as I write.
The most incredible dark thunder clouds will roll in across an innocent afternoon. I run around collecting water guns and discarded shoes, coffee cups, sweaters, newspapers, rakes, wheel barrows and a blow-up shark. Put them all away. The Family doesn't notice me, out of politeness. Everyone steps inside when the rain begins (should we retreat to the cellar? I wonder. Did they hear about the tornado in Mass?).
A few minutes later someone opens a window and lets the light in. A splattering of rain, nothing more. It's about 50 degrees cooler than an hour before. We have dinner----mackeral, boiled potatoes, coffee and strawberries with cream for desert----wonderful---- and the talk is of what?
I don't know. I catch a word here or there. It is wonderfully bliss to understand nothing. Not many Americans would have the patience, but I find it soothing and lovely these interludes of innocence, and I have never---in years of spending summers here---become irritated or offended by my in-laws. Can you say that?
After dinner, we see BestePapa out the window, crossing the yard. He's carrying a newspaper and heading toward the path that leads to the outhouse. The outhouse is up the hill where a little cottage sits, once used by a great-uncle or someone during the war or something. My sister-in-law is appalled, Is he...? she asks. Oh yes, BesteMama replies. If you keep the door open while you sit, you can see out all the way to the church steeple in town....
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