...

and then there are the other days, when the rain is pouring in endless sheets, and the sky is so grey that the house is still dark at 8:30 am, and dark again at 4:30 pm, days on which i just want to stay in bed, or listen to jacques brel and feel sorry for myself, but the 2-year old grabs my face at 6:45 am and whispers/shouts 'Mama, it ben WAKKER!', and all my photographs come out blury, and there is nothing to photograph anyway, and nothing to do, and nothing to see, and the world is as empty as my mind, or was it the other way around, and the hours drag by, one more disconsolate than the other, and all i can think is 'how dare i feel this way when there are people out there, in chile and elsewhere, who are waking up without their houses, without their children, without their lives!', and marc is grumpy, and who can blame him, and the children are watching pippi langkous for the third time in a row, clearly not learning anything, except how to bicker with each other, and then we go to a birthday party, to a house that is clean and children who are not only well-behaved, but who can read too, and who know so much about so much, and the women's clothes are not, the way mine are, covered in interesting-looking stains (some of them with antique value at this point), and people have opinions and things to talk about, and i am just feeling so sleepy, and eat too much cake, and then have to walk back in the pouring rain, and there is no food in the fridge, or anywhere else in the house (unless you count the crusty plates in the sink), except homemade vanilla ice-cream, and the children are watching pippi langkous again, and i know know know for a fact that life is a terrible terrible blight, and that i cannot possibly and shouldn't even try to homeschool because i'm no bloody good at it, and they would be much better off at school, because i have nothing to offer, and...

... and then, right there, in the midst of my incessant internal wailing, my 6-year old walks, or rather waltzes, into the kitchen, bearing the following:

"I am throwing a happiness party, and N. and T. are invited, love, Isabelle"

it turns out that while i was wailing, she was pondering the degree of happiness in her life, and having concluded that she was particularly and remarkably happy, she decided to throw a party to share this happiness with all her friends; at which point (with pippi langkous as a background sound-track) she designed and created a number of hand-made original invitations, thought up a party plan and was coming to me to discuss dates.

again and again, and again and again, i forget this most important fact: that the greyness and misery in my mind are in my mind.