Geranium Picking and Fire Stocking

As I tend to the geraniums and nasturtiums who live in my window boxes (I have never had window boxes in my home before this summer), I realize that the whole pruning, picking, watering, rearranging and general nurturing that takes place scratches an itch in me. A motherly itch perhaps, now that my kids are growing up and need me in different ways.

And then I remember that first winter after their Dad and I separated and they spent seven days and night in a row “in their other home.” I, in turn, spent hours and hours tending the fire in my wood stove, sitting by it, feeding it, turning the logs around, watching it glow and getting up in the middle of the night to make sure it was still breathing.

Today, that all makes very sweet sense.