"We came with the two of us, but now, alas... "

The elderly lady in the elevator with me trailed off, then finished, "Nou, ja, zo gaat het." So it goes. I nodded and added a sympathetic "Helaas," back. She said she'd lived in our apartment building about 14 years. I'd guess she was in her sixties or seventies, and could picture her moving in with her husband, making a home here. We talked about how beautiful the view is from up high... maybe she and he sat on their balcony and drank coffee together, the way D and I do. Maybe they had hanging plants to substitute for the beautiful gardens in their previous house. It's rare to see a bare garden here, much less a messy one; block after block of houses overflow with flowers or are neatly tiled and decorated.

I found six beautiful pink geranium plants in the dumpster room downstairs the other day, and brought them upstairs to be repotted and talked to. D laughed and asked if we "achter de geraniums wonen" - if we "live behind the geraniums." Seeing my blank face, he explained that's an idiom for being old. It made perfect sense. What does it say about a couple if they live behind the geraniums and they're only in their twenties? I don't think we'll live here the next 14 years, though. I'm enjoying it while we do, though; constant treasures in the trash room (discarded cds, stools, flowers, books), the aforementioned incredible view, and the friendly people. Everyone we see - in the elevator, the entrance, or in the cellars - greets us, and I enjoy greeting them back. I'm getting used to having the door held open when I wrestle my bike inside, exchanging pleasantries on the weather, or little conversations like the one in the elevator, all with perfect strangers. And all with their own stories - walking home, I stare up at the apartments and wonder about the people and their own little worlds, neatly stacked on top of each other....

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

From Dinosaurs to Da Vinci (January Unit Studies)

Image
For the sake of planning, fun, and sanity, we're working with unit studies this year for music/Bible/art/science. Pippin still has his normal 2nd grade workbooks: Explode the Code for reading/writing, Developmental Math for math, and Thinking Skills for spatial development, as well Dutch group 3/4 workpages for language. And we have Mystery of History for history, and an ample supply of library books and chapter readers. But our electives have been more random over the last year or so, so having the unit studies planned out is extra fun for all of us. Especially now that Bloom is in preschool 3/4 and is ready for more than wooden puzzles or scribbling on coloring pages. And knowing there is a new little one on the way, it makes me feel better to be preparing easy crafts or making library lists for late-pregnancy-life or newborn-life times when I just don't have the energy to sit at the table and check workbooks.... For January, our themes were:  Bible: Creation, Adam and Eve Ar
Read more

Bowling Over Budgets

Image
Last week I wrote about when logic and frustration came together sweetly... and I replaced all of our mugs . I'm starting to give our bowls the Stink Eye this week. And I spent about an hour yesterday washing and inventorying all our baby bottles and parts. There's something immensely satisfying about actually taking action on a frustrating area of life. No matter how small. And I know in the grand scheme of things it. does. not. matter. that we have mismatched bowls and mugs. If we lived in a seaside cottage or sprawling farmhouse, I think it would be great fun to have whimsical mugs and cups and bowls that visitors would choose favourites from. When I visit my parents' house, I recognise the special mugs that my uncle sent to my brothers about ten years ago. The mugs sit next to The Cup that my mum has measured out ingredients in for her (famous) homemade biscuits for the last fifteen or so years. And there are new little mugs and bowls that they have picked up on trav
Read more

2020 Garden

Image
FEBRUARY :  The crocuses we planted last year started coming up outside, and inside, Pippin and I sat down to plan out our garden. Bloom helped by playing with seed packets as I tried to sort which seeds we had left and which seed packets I had kept because they were worth repeating. I also had charts from last year with lists of what I had planted, when, and whether it worked well or not. A few plants from last year, like my strawberries and honeysuckle, were still alive but dormant.  MARCH :   Every year I optimistically start seeds inside in February, set them out around March or April... and then the frost kills them. So this year I didn't even start the seeds until March. Pippin and I planted lettuce, morning glories, marigold, rucola (arugula), scarlet runner beans, and sweet peas - all seeds that had done well last year. And they all shot up happily in their little starter buckets within a few weeks.  By the end of March I dared to put the biggest and sturdiest plants outsid
Read more