{"id":616,"date":"2014-09-15T07:58:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-15T11:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/?p=616"},"modified":"2014-09-15T10:28:00","modified_gmt":"2014-09-15T14:28:00","slug":"reclaiming-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/reclaiming-joy\/","title":{"rendered":"Reclaiming Joy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"In<\/a>\u201cWe\u2019re comin\u2019 over to your place with some wine,\u201d the friends I\u2019d just left phoned as I pulled into my dark driveway.
\n\u201cBut, uh \u2026 \u201d I sputtered.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re almost there. Bye.\u201d There was just enough time to pull out five wine glasses.<\/p>\n

\u201cGot any matches?\u201d someone asked when the wine was poured. They gathered up their glasses and newspapers, found an old log, and made a campfire on the deck. The deck that once housed skunks; the deck that last year harbored a fox family and earlier this year was home to snakes. Squirrels and chipmunks scamper about daily on this deck, undaunted by the barking dog<\/a>. The past week the dog, my son, and I watched woodchucks and raccoons dart underneath.<\/p>\n

This year I\u2019d only lingered outside my house briefly a few times to listen to coyotes and frogs or to photograph 2014\u2019s super-moons reflected in the pond. In the three years since my daughter died, and the three summers in and out of hospitals before that, I had stopped reading and watching stars on the deck. So wild creatures found it a peaceful spot<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But on this night, between my son grilling his hamburgers, the prowling dog, and the friends<\/a> stomping on the planks, raising flames and wildly whooping it up as they washed down the wine, on this first campfire of the year we took back the deck.<\/p>\n

After, I went to bed with my hair smelling of smoke and slept through the night.\"The<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“We’re comin’ over to your place with some wine,” the friends I’d just left phoned as I pulled into my dark driveway. “But, uh … ” I sputtered. “We’re almost there. Bye.” There was just enough time to pull out five wine glasses. “Got any matches?” someone asked when the wine was poured. They gathered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[250,220,248,249,252,254,251,253],"class_list":["post-616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1","tag-backyard-campfire","tag-finding-joy-after-loss","tag-reclaiming-life","tag-recovering-joy","tag-super-moons","tag-under-deck-animals","tag-whooping-it-up","tag-wild-creatures"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t