It's Golden and Rare

The silence here is deafening tonight.  The windows are open and I can hear crickets.  They remind me that summer is not over...yet.  I can hear a jet off in the distance, landing or taking off, not sure.  There are traffic sounds out front and pleasant voices in a back yard to the rear of me, but in here, in my kitchen, complete quiet surrounds me. 

Normally I would put some music on.  But not tonight.  As much as I am tempted to break the silence, I am equally loathe to tamper with it.  Everyone is gone.  My girl, the cat, the hairdresser downstairs, even my ex-husband has moved out of town.  The whirlwind that has been my life for the past several months has slowed to a breeze.  A subtle, gentle, unobtrusive whisper. 

Just me, a cup of hot tea and and an empty nest.  There are a few minutes of dusk left, a haze of deep orange on the horizon that can be seen from where I am sitting and just now the sound of the fridge motor.  A car up the alleyway just started its engine, but that is it.  I had been longing for this moment for days.  Peace. Rest. Solitude.  Now it is here and I am not so sure about it.  I hear the voices of friends saying "Oh, they may drive you nuts, but you'll miss them when they are gone."  I will surely miss my girl, the shedding furball and his litter box, not so much. 

I need this right now.  This time to myself.  Time to reflect on yet another transition.  Time to re-group.  Re-focus.  Re-charge.  That's alot of "reeing" going on I realize.  However, this is the reality.  I have been running on empty for a few weeks now. 

Time to re-boot.  Start writing more again.  Pay closer attention to my diet.  Get back to my work-out routine.  Turn ebb into flow.  Regain some balance.  This renewal that has taken place so may times before as we head into September.  Even though my school days are long past, this time of year still conjurs up this feeling.  Fresh starts make sense now, like a packet of brand new Laurentian coloured pencils once did the first day of classes or a pair of new penny loafers or a new lunch box. 

For tonight however, all these plans can wait.  Park themselves, turn off the engine and just listen to this summer night.  Savour the peace and quiet and let the crickets sing me to sleep, and with any luck, let me sleep all the way through the night. 

After the marathon of life I have just run, the chances of that might be pretty good.

Nite all.

She's Ready.

It's official.  She is ready.  My baby is ready to leave the nest.  She just beat me by 99 points.  This is a first.  For her.  For me.  For the record book.  She and I have been playing Scrabble since she was old enough to spell. 

In the early days she was hopeless.  She would play weak 2 and 3 letter words with no concept of strategy on the board and would get so frustrated when I would crush her with 32 point words played off of her lame moves that opened the triple for me.  I did feel a little guilty back in the day about stomping on her like that, but it was my plan.

NO mercy!  Not even when she was 6.  Her father was appalled that I would be so mean.  He would pull me aside and tell me to let her win.  NOPE! No way.  No way was I going to let her think she was winning when she was not.  It was my intention to give her a reality check.  A metaphor for life I figured.  No falsehoods.  No bullshit.  Learn how to win.  Perfect your game.  Too many kids were growing up thinking they were the be all and end all when really they were just average kids.  She was going to know that if she wanted to win, she was going to have to learn the game if she wanted to win.

Tonight all my efforts paid off.  She has won before, but never by such a margin.  She was elated.  Secretly, so was I.   She is smarter than me. Just as strategic, and motivated to win.  This is a good thing.  The next decade will challenge all kids her age.  She is about to head off to first year university next week and she will join the throngs of kids her age who will graduate in 2016.  It won't be easy for them.  The world is changing fast and by that time, who knows what will have transpired in this crazy world.

She will need to be clever and strategic and motivated.  No one will have an easy go of it unless they have a family business they can walk into, or they are the creme de la creme of their crop.  The challenges will lie before them like track hurdles, each one more and more difficult to clear. 

I don't know if our years of Scrabble games will help her all that much...but I reckon they cannot have hurt.

Congrats my sweet girl - you blew me out of the water tonight...and I am still smiling. :)

7 letters - 50 extra points - Pffft! And no, Vexs is NOT the plural of Vex! And you won with losing that challenge too!   Be proud.