• Mood: pensive
• Music: Sara Hickman—In the Fields

FALL LIKE SWEET STRAINS OR PENSIVE SMILES

A split-personality day: busy morning at work, lazy afternoon at home. World swathed in the grey veils of seemingly solid fog, a wet filmy filter through which everything appears faded or fading. I feel a bit filmed over myself as it was one of those under-the-skin migraine days with a headache hovering at the edge of my skull, peering through my eyes, tapping at the back of my neck. Tablets held it at bay for a time, but after lunch and on the way home it bit down hard and refused to let go, shaking me limp between its teeth. Anders and the kids were gone to the hairdresser and then to Malmö to pick up a toy train set, so I shut the bedroom door and dissolved in blessed silence and sleep. An hour and a half later, 2 more tablets finished it off. Bloody headaches, we hatessss them.

Stretching out before me is the joy of a 4-day weekend. The Easter holidays are already in full swing here in Sweden, and children dressed as rabbits and witches arrived at my door as I did, chanting Glad Påsk! and begging for candy. I had stopped at the market square in Lund and picked up whippy spring branches with colored feathers tied to the ends, traditional Spring decorations, and set them in a pot in front of the house. 2 bunches of tulips brighten the kitchen table. Shopping at the fruit-and-vegetable market in the cobblestoned square makes me feel so very European.

Online obligations are nearly fulfilled for this month's editions of the AWC newsletter and Mosaic Minds. The children are bathed and asleep, Karin with one hand flung out and her legs propped up on her big stuffed dog, Martin turned sideways with a book fallen over his face. I have a long to-do list and spring-cleaning is raising its needy head, but for the moment, I am content to curl up and read. Plenty of time this weekend to make a dent in the never-ending lists of things that must be attended to, taken care of, finished beforehand, prepared for, cleaned up, dealt with.

e11en wrote a lovely and pensive post about missing her first family, and it's so perfectly aligned with my mood right now that I might have written it myself (except for not having that many siblings). I miss my first family and my childhood and the game-playing and the jokes only my brother and sister would get (Bashy!). My mom and my brother are coming to visit next month, and it will be wonderful, but I wish my sister could come, too, and most of all, some days, I wish my DAD could.