the kind of life.

a row of clothes along the stair rail. piles for evy, finn, ossi, and liam with their shoes lined underneath.

this will be one of the next things to go, i can feel it.



it'll be like ossi's obsession with denim. once a huge part of every day, now a simple memory that draws up the corners of my mouth and crinkles my eyes. i don't remember it but one day in thirty, but there was a time i'd turn down his covers in mornings to find all the jeans in the house arranged into a squirrel nest.

so i cherish the chance to pick out their clothes and stack them in a tidy row.

one warm morning i planned for the beach. i laid out shorts and t-shirts. grubby, sweet things. for finn i felt to add pants and a thick sweatshirt. it was one of those nudges from outside of myself.

imagine finn, a little later that morning, being swarmed by wasps. i saw the little stingers floating around his huddled body, furious and fighting. finn's defense is always like a turtle, so picture the sweetie with his hood on and knees curled up, arms around his legs. the frustrated wasps couldn't get at him. it wasn't until i called to him to run and he put his head up that a wasp nailed him in the neck.





























to my side sit my young darlings. they're watching swiss family robinson. a bit of the movie catches my ear...



father robinson says, "Don't you sometimes feel that this is the kind of life we were meant to live on this earth? Everything we need, everything, right here, right at our fingertips. You know, if only people could have all this and be satisfied, I don't think there'd be any real problems in the world."