Slice

On Saturday morning I woke up around 9, winter sunlight streaming through the blinds. I lay in bed for a few minutes, thinking about the day to come, then got up to make coffee, eat cinnamon toast, and read the slim Saturday paper, with Car Talk warbling in the background. I changed the sheets and did a load of wash.

At 10:40 I left the house to meet Erin up the street. We walked to ballet class together and danced for an hour under the watchful eye of a small, elegant, and slightly scary ballet mistress. We changed out of our sweaty leotards into yoga pants and long-sleeve T’s, sunglasses and scarves, and we walked to the café for a snack. We gossiped over coffee and eggs and granola and fruit.

My neighborhood’s sidewalks were alive with people enjoying the cold blue sky and brilliant sun. I walked home feeling light and satiated. I took Stella for a short walk, then settled in to do some freelance editing. There were short breaks to take a few photos for my February photo-a-day project (one way to combat that winter heaviness I’m prone to), to reply to emails, to pin things on Pinterest, to toss a stuffed animal for Stella. I listened to cello music on iTunes. I opened the window a bit so I could hear the birds.

I checked the Korean adoption Facebook group that I’m part of and saw that one woman had created a “prayer poster,” so her whole family could pray for those of us waiting to travel by name. She’d put up the poster in her home and taken a photo of it to show us all. I saw our names and Will’s name on the poster, and I cried. I don’t know where that came from. There were simply tears.

Late in the afternoon, before the sun set, I walked over to the resale shop with two bags of clothing donations. I found the pale-gray purse I didn’t know I needed, $7. I ambled over to the liquor shop for a six-pack of New Belgium Dig beer and a bottle of cava for Sunday brunch.

Soon after that, John arrived home from tax-season work. Because he’s been battling a cold, we decided on a low-key evening out: pizza and beer in Lincoln Park. I showered and straightened my hair while he played the guitar. We drove down Lake Shore Drive, singing along to Mumford and Sons and Mason Jennings. The pizza place was packed, and we waited in the cozy bar area with tall beers in hand, discussing the week and work and friends, taking breaks to play Words with Friends on our phones. We were finally seated in a small wooden booth and ate salad and flatbread and half of our pizza.

We walked five blocks south to our car, the high-rises glittering beside us, spinning dreams of a someday-cottage on the coast in Michigan, lazy vacations at the beach with Will and our family, Scrabble on a front porch, a fire pit.

We were home by 9:30 and decided to watch the Netflix movie we’ve had for weeks, The Hurt Locker. John fell asleep around 11, poor guy, and I stayed up until midnight, watching. I could sleep in again the next morning; I wasn’t meeting the girls for brunch until 11.

And that’s the end of this entry. Nothing profound to say; I only wanted to capture and preserve a small slice of my life as it is now, in the February of my 36th year.