Summertime

I have been buying books at garage sales. I just finished reading Anne Giardini's The Sad Truth About Happiness, which did echo the work of her mother, Carol Shields, especially Unless. It was almost as though the character of Oriah was anothe image of the girl in Unless. She is the only one left without a happy ending, seemingly, although the baby, Phillip, also seems destined for a degree of unhappiness. He's at the centre of a custody battle in the novel, which, as I know, can never really end.

I have spent my first full weekend in more than 4 years alone. A was with her father. E was in Chicago with his son. I thought it would feel like forever without them, and it did, but I was also able to recapture some of the lazy ease of my formerly single life, which was rejuvenating. I am just beginning to imagine my way back to something essential to my nature, which I lost for a while. I can't name it . . . but it is there . . . waiting to be reclaimed, I think. I hope.