Biscuits

Yesterday was a day of mother conflict and spinning wheels.  I become angry with my indecisive self and frantic at the prospect of having little to show for my day.  I wrestled with both sides of the equation and pushed harder to drum up results. 

There was a talk that evening at Olivia's school by an educator and author who I wanted to hear, but with Olivia returning home past 6:00p.m. from her first away soccer game, I felt disinclined to gobble down dinner and run out the door, only to return at bedtime to her bouncing around.  All day, I asked myself, do I want to go and potentially learn something valuable about issues such as "the curse of the good girl", or do I want to hear about her day over a leisurely dinner, and have chatting time while she puts on pajamas?

In short, do I want information that might shed light on a middle school girl's world, or do I want to spend time with my daughter?

By late-morning I was having computer problems to the point where I started imagining  myself living a life without them.  My laptop had some sort of temporary glitch that didn't seem so temporary in the moment, and our desktop screen went blank.

I had also spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how to put social media buttons in my sidebar.  With no accessible computer that attempt was put on hold until Mr. Savory came home to save the day.

Instead, I gardened, exercised, walked the dogs, worked with Charlie on "heeling" and "down".  Hesitantly, I took my neglected starter out of the fridge and fed it, with an eye towards making biscuits for dinner.

I had lingering sadness from the previous evening when I had been standing in the kitchen in a lull before dinnertime, thinking about how it was about that hour when I might call Beatrice.  It is in moments like these that you really feel a loved one's passing.

The shadow of loss carried through to the morning when my computer frustrations led to feelings of simply going nowhere, making no progress, nothing happening.  I searched through boxes upstairs in our guestroom, hoping to locate the one that I thought might have a few of Beatrice's handwritten recipes.  I couldn't find it, just boxes of more odds and ends to go through, and reminders of Aaron that I knew held only the potential of making me feel worse.

I came back downstairs and knew I needed simply to find something comforting to make.  Biscuits for certain and my favorite sandwich loaf.  Olivia ate two and a half biscuits for dinner, super hungry after her soccer game.  They were warm and buttery and soothing.

In the end, I decided to stay home, and I spent the evening with her in our usual routine of practicing violin and reading.  The house smelled like homemade bread that we would use for toast and sandwiches.  Once she fell sleep with Harry on her bed, Mr. Savory and I worked through the process of installing a button.  We stopped at one and will do the rest later in the week.

The baking and hugging Olivia when she came home saved me. They nurtured and calmed and grounded me on a day that felt like I was chasing air.