Thanks for your outpouring of sanity on yesterday's slightly paranoid post, dear readers.
You asked for it: get ready for a new Wedding Wednesdays series starting next week!
It's funny how much you can change in just a few short years. When I lived with my parents for ten months in 2009/2010, after moving back to DC having finished my MA, I took advantage of their generosity as if I were still a teenager; I rolled my eyes at the indignity of having to call if I was going to be back after midnight or needing to ask permission to borrow the car, and I used their house more as a crash pad than anything else. My mother says that I was so wrapped up in my own quest for freedom during that time that we ended up maintaining better contact while I was in London than when I lived at home.
These days, the best part about living with my parents again is being home. I take refuge in the mundane pieces of the days that I can share with them and, in fact, actively seek out the lazy joy of being with them. I love that we congregate in the kitchen for coffee before work and that we enjoy dinner together several times a week and that, before bed, we drape ourselves over couches in the basement to watch PBS-worthy detective series with tea and cookies. I love simply being with my parents at home.
I spent some time in the back yard yesterday evening with my mother, who is a intuitive gardener. I managed to catch a few fireflies but mostly wandered around, appreciating the vibrancy of the flowers in the dusk. I escaped before getting any mosquito bites - it is summer in DC, after all, and you do have to be careful - but not before snapping some photographs of her magic.