Fans. Hello. We are back after our longest hiatus since this chronicle began. We have missed the chronicling, and you.
As is our usual practice after we have gone radio silent, we just plunge back in to what is unfolding at the moment. We come to you from Wisconsin through which we are traveling by car, having spent Christmas in Illinois with Grandma Connie and Grandpa Charles, and Aunt Kate, Uncle Scott, and Cousin Nick who flew in from Pennsylvania.
Birdie is in her Santa hat tucked up against her Ariel-shaped pillow. She has been softly singing to herself (this much remains unchanged), but she's all sung out--for the moment.
Joe is snuggled up against his Thomas the Tank pillow pet, reading Code of the Clans, a companion volume to the Warriors series.
Here, we pause to tell you that the warriors of the Warriors series are likely not what sprang to mind when you read that sentence, Fans. Rather, these warriors are feral cats, arrayed in clans--not tribes. (Julie recently asked Joe what was happening with Lighteningheart's--Fierceheart's?--tribe and he said, "Umm, clan? Tribe!" and then proceeded to giggle himself silly for several minutes.) There are no fewer than six subseries about these cats. That means there are six Warriors book with a number one on the spine. You have to do some research on the interwebs to know where to begin if, say, you are requesting the first few from the library.
The bambini have one more week of winter break. For the first time, they will be spending the bulk of it at home, with Julie, who recently resigned her position at the law school at which she worked. Last night Joe commented, "Good thing Mommy switched jobs." (At the moment, she has a part-time--temporary--job reading applications for a college which she does from home.) Joe's comment was really nothing more to him than an offhand, understandably self-centered--or, more accurately, child-centric--statement of fact. But Julie was struck by it.
Her decision to resign was, of course, complex, and, in many ways, difficult, even if she feels certain it was also right. It can be easy to lose sight of the good, and the good still yet to be realized, when one is getting comfortable with Uncertainty and its sometimes companion Anxiety, ushered in by such a change. What Joe said reminded Julie of the importance of keeping Perspective close, and its boon companion Resiliency. (Could resiliency be any other kind of companion?) They can be there, too, helping Change reframe the scene to make more room for Good. So it is that Julie will spend this next week with the bambini. Good thing.
