International Women’s Day

Today was a day of celebration for women around the world. I celebrated my dear daughters, brave, strong women are they, I celebrated the 4 women who are my closest friends and present in my life nearly daily — Noni, Katya, Bekah and Claudine, and I celebrated all the women I have come to know and love in this virtual world, I appreciate their kindness, generosity of spirit, and support more than I can say, and I have been celebrating all the women around the world all day long, the the grandmothers, the mothers, the aunts, all the women we have known and those we never will. It is a day of celebration! Happy International Women’s Day to all of you incredible women reading this. Brava Brave Sisters!

And then it all comes down to this, two women, at a table, sharing a meal, talking about their lives. hugging and laughing and talking and eating and helping one another. I had a real scare between last night near 11 p.m. and up to after lunchtime today. I won’t go into it, and it has now passed thank goodness, but awake and scared at 6 a.m. I didn’t know what to do with myself, by 7 a.m. I texted Noni and by 7:30 she had texted me back. We texted for awhile until I calmed down and could go back to sleep. She said she would come over after work, and she did. Knowing that she was coming was something I could hold onto all day long. By the time she arrived the storm had passed and all was well, I could enjoy our time together without the fears of the night before, and oh, we had such a lovely time.

Yesterday at the store I bought a big pork butt and brought it home and put it in the crock pot, simmering it in bone broth, and seasoned well it cooked through the night. It made quite a harvest, I will freeze half of it, and there was plenty to share a nice meal with Noni and send her home with a container for her lunch tomorrow. I also made keto coleslaw, the first time I ever made it, and it turned out so good and was perfect with the pork. Noni loved both and she had some coleslaw to go with her pork as well to take home. As she is now on the ketogenic diet too it’s fun to share this food with her. And as I am not big on cooking it’s nice to do something in the crockpot and have several meals and some to freeze.

Noni and I spent a year and a half sharing whole weekends, cooking, watching movies and shows on Netflix, playing cards, doing so many things. On Saturday nights she spent the nights and we had coffee Sunday mornings. It was the most extraordinary thing I have ever shared with another friend. I somehow thought it would go on forever but that’s not the way life works. By the end of October a number of life changes happened and she was not able to come at all. For 3 months she couldn’t come. Only recently have we been able to see one another once in awhile and I cherish every bit of time we have together. It wasn’t a long evening but she was coming over to help me through my crisis and I wanted to feed her while she was here. That she was here to eat and spend some time with me was a sweet gift.

Now it is a quiet evening here. I have a meeting online at 8:30 so I will get this post up and then take care of a few things before the meeting. I was going to get a new video up on YouTube today but because of what was going on earlier I wasn’t able to, I will do the video tomorrow. Gently I go through the day now. I keep reminding myself, pulling myself back from the edge when I go too far, learning how to maintain firm boundaries when people try to cross them, and learning how to love, more, the people I love so well. It is all about self care, and this is something women particularly seem to need to learn. I am learning.

It is a peaceful night at Dragonfly Cottage. I made it through the storm, and a friend came to show me that I was not alone. Really, is there anything more we can wish for but this? I think not. It is enough, and it is everything…