I have an awful lot of
things to be stressed about right now, if I really wrap my head around
it I can actually feel my shoulders bow. I am not talking an overdue
project, or lamenting my endless to-do list, but stress that makes you
curl up into a ball when left unattended, or causes tears to spring into
your eyes without warning at stoplights.
It's such a beautiful evening. I can smell newly mown grass from next door, there are sleepy chirps from the first of the year's tree frogs out back. Bumblebees the size of fuzzy golfballs are defying the laws of physics and bobbing around the yard like buoys in a twilight tide. My daughter, lit by the slanted rays of todays last sunlight and inspired by the CSA farm we recently joined, is using her Barbie not as a testament to fashion - but to teach her dinosaurs how to properly plant potatoes.
There is sausage grilling and spaghetti squash being cooked in a blush sauce, courtesy of my barbarian husband and his diligent research of low carb cookbooks with amazing recipes. The fact that I have this quiet time at all is due to him, he is the reason I am able to maintain the schedule that I do and still have time to be a mom. For those of you who say, "I don't know how you do it." - I don't, he does. Because he does, I can.
My old man of a dog is curled up literally at my feet. His muzzle is grey and his eyes are clouded, a reminder that our time is finite. His coat is shiny, his legs still strong and he wags his tail when I look down at him - a reminder that while finite, our time together has worth and has been good.
My son's voice drifts by in Doppler waves of excitement as he tears up and down the street with his friends, capturing imaginary enemies and dominating empires of dirt and sticks ... unbowed by limitations and in accordance with all the generations of filthy little boys who came before him. There is a shiny red helmet on his head, not because it's a prop, but because just sometimes they really do listen to their mother.
I cannot fix everything, I cannot help everyone - not even those closest to me. Things are not always my fault, or my responsibility, though it often feels that way.
Sometimes it takes looking around your backyard, noticing what you do have, to make you realize that to "have not" is just not as big a deal. The dog at your feet, the breeze through the window, the sunset that is just a curtain being drawn on one tiny act in a rich and vibrant play that is filled with as much laughter as it is tragedy.
It can make you look forward to seeing the next act, if you let it.
It's such a beautiful evening. I can smell newly mown grass from next door, there are sleepy chirps from the first of the year's tree frogs out back. Bumblebees the size of fuzzy golfballs are defying the laws of physics and bobbing around the yard like buoys in a twilight tide. My daughter, lit by the slanted rays of todays last sunlight and inspired by the CSA farm we recently joined, is using her Barbie not as a testament to fashion - but to teach her dinosaurs how to properly plant potatoes.
There is sausage grilling and spaghetti squash being cooked in a blush sauce, courtesy of my barbarian husband and his diligent research of low carb cookbooks with amazing recipes. The fact that I have this quiet time at all is due to him, he is the reason I am able to maintain the schedule that I do and still have time to be a mom. For those of you who say, "I don't know how you do it." - I don't, he does. Because he does, I can.
My old man of a dog is curled up literally at my feet. His muzzle is grey and his eyes are clouded, a reminder that our time is finite. His coat is shiny, his legs still strong and he wags his tail when I look down at him - a reminder that while finite, our time together has worth and has been good.
My son's voice drifts by in Doppler waves of excitement as he tears up and down the street with his friends, capturing imaginary enemies and dominating empires of dirt and sticks ... unbowed by limitations and in accordance with all the generations of filthy little boys who came before him. There is a shiny red helmet on his head, not because it's a prop, but because just sometimes they really do listen to their mother.
I cannot fix everything, I cannot help everyone - not even those closest to me. Things are not always my fault, or my responsibility, though it often feels that way.
Sometimes it takes looking around your backyard, noticing what you do have, to make you realize that to "have not" is just not as big a deal. The dog at your feet, the breeze through the window, the sunset that is just a curtain being drawn on one tiny act in a rich and vibrant play that is filled with as much laughter as it is tragedy.
It can make you look forward to seeing the next act, if you let it.
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