Bananas

"I already ate all my bananas," Joe says. Jammie clad minus the t-shirt, bare chested boy lopes into the living room and drapes himself over an arm of the couch.

"A-all of them?" I say, the ones he bought himself.

"Yeah," he says. I wipe a dried coffee spot off the counter.

"How many where there?" I say.

"Eight."

"Eight? Since yesterday?"

"In TWO days," he says.

"In 12 hours," I say, washcloth slack.

"Yeah," he says.

"Well, how do you feel?" I say.

"Great." He grins, now sitting upright on the faded red couch arm.

"Very nourished," I say.

"Yeah," he says. "I just need two more dollars."

"To buy more bananas?" I say,  my eyebrows rounding upward,

"Yeah," he nods, the responsible accountant nod.

"Wow," I say.

And so it is nonchalance and small talk unfold in gargantuan swaths.

Gratitude:

6460. Joe continues to unfold in full blown boyhood.

6461. Betsy demands a stool in front of the stove. Jack rebuffs then refuses. "Betsy is as stubborn as Balaam's donkey," Jack whispers under his breath. And yet the two find a duet of sorts as Jack prepares dinner.

6462. My new devotionals for this new year arrive. I promptly sit down and read to catch up. Nourishment fills my soul.

6463. I plan an overnight with Jane. We whisk away to house sit for a night and fill the time with chatting, the leisure discussion that unfolds between a woman and her almost woman daughter. This is a pleasure I had not fully pictured. So. Good.

6464. Jane steps into the role of no-longer-child with so much grace.

6465. Jack continues to prep and prepare meals and desserts. I feel like I live with a chef.

6466. Craig replaces the bathroom toilet when plunging, snaking, and heaven forbid, reaching his arm down the mouth of the toilet, can no longer cure its ills. He replaces it with a champion promising to flush up to 18 golfballs at once, should we ever have the need. Brilliant.

6466. I continue to teach myself to reach for contentment. Projects linger and progress at the slow steady rate of things that actually get finished. I let this be music to my ears and harmonize with its strains.