As I was enjoying my quiet and contemplative day, it was in the back of my mind that at some point I would have to get practical and find something with which to make dinner. The sort of solitude I had been enjoying precluded any kind of shopping.
I was surprised to end up 
with lavender soup.
This is how I did it:
Back in Butter Week, I made some yummy pasta with beans and cheese and greens, but it was too large a batch to use up before Lent, so I froze a quart of it. During Lent a purple cabbage came in my CSA box, and I have been trying to figure out what to do with it. Today I thought of making cabbage soup with sausage, but that would require me going to the store, so I looked in the freezer and discovered the pasta e fagoli, as I might call it if I were Italian. On the container I had written the suggestion “Make soup,” so I followed that plan and added some cheese sauce that I whipped up.
As the concoction was simmering, I looked out at the rain falling into the swimming pool, and took a picture through the door of the miniature roses that look especially good from a distance, because you can’t see the black spot.
I didn’t anticipate that the rain would hold on and keep dripping all through dinner, meaning that soup was the perfect food to have. And lavender is very much one of those Easter egg colors so we had a Springtime experience as well. Our friend Cat ate some with Mr. Glad and me.
After we all had emptied our bowls of second helpings of the very comforting and tasty soup, Cat and I sort of visited through the glass door with a neighborhood cat who stopped by and stared at us. He had found a dry spot under my gardening bench. He doesn’t have too much to do with the rest of this post, but his eyes are also a pretty Easter egg color.
It’s now mid-afternoon and I haven’t said a word to anyone today. It’s the largest chunk of solitude to come my way in a long time, and very welcome. In Mansfield Park, which I am still reading, I really identify with Fanny, who, if she is not talking with her one dear friend and cousin Edmund, likes nothing better than to sit in her own room or walk outdoors where she doesn’t have to take part in conversation.
In the interest of reading a greater variety of books than I can heft while lying down in bed, I bought a Kindle. One of the first books I loaded on it is The Red Horse by Eugenio Corti, a giant of a book in every way. At least ten years ago I was deep into it, as one takes a needed vacation or The Cure at a sanatorium, but I had to give it up, mostly because of its size.
out, and I displayed our small collection of
Gladsome Lights 