Sunday, August 21, 2016

Hello!

Mounds of laundry in hallways, bathrooms and even in the living room.  Grocery bags of the cautious restocking of shelves (what this really means is paper towels and toilet paper, to be quite honest) dumped immediately inside the front door.  It is “utter chaos post-vacation,” a melding of pre-holiday and post-holiday existence.  But the routine is welcome, flavoring the work hours with the mind’s tempo of ease and the clarity of washing away stresses.  So begins a new chapter.

I perplex myself both how unaware I am that I need to walk my journey differently and, that the impetus to do so and the decision to accept such a notion really was within me.  For all my life I wanted to live with meaning.  I looked for it everywhere.  I grabbed onto everyone else’s meaning but my own.  I adopted judgments upon my life that had nothing to do with me at all.  And beliefs?  Please.  Don’t even get me started on the topic!

Looking back, I am amazed at how wrong I had been, but not in the way many might think.  We can all make testimony to that, I believe.  But, it is Sunday.  My absolutely, positively most favorite day of the week, with time to thank G-d as many times as I wish while wiping the hair from my sleeping son’s eyes and…

…while grinning silently at the sight of my own black-eyed Susans which outline the edge of the woods here at home.  Holiday, as it turns out, is never very far away.

…………………

I swear the house smells differently with its own special aromatic recipe of leftover beach sand, leftover pizza from last night, leftover coffee from Saturday morning and a bit of the fresh spiciness of cooler August weather.  And worn blankets.  One must not forget the worn blanket smell…

There is no adequate way to describe the magic of the subtleties of the seasons with the richness I have been so blessed.  And I mean blessed.  My son.  My ex-husband.  My mother.  My brother’s family.  It is all not unlike the tapestry of the world I choose to wrap around me.  Magic.  Meaningfulness.  Meaningful magic?  Why not?  To some, it would be madness.  To some, they have called me such a name.  To some, that gave them meaning.

Ok.

But to me?

I hear the abundance of the crop of leaves practice their rustling sound while still green and perched high on their branches as if their final performance was that after they have been painted by a Maker’s brush with the boldness of oranges and passion of reds.  I hear them brushing seductively against the needles of the pines which will withstand the bitterest of winter’s winds promises.

(sigh.  Maybe I am writing nature porn? Stand aside Whitman.)

Seriously though.  I wonder, as I dabble along my path, at meaningfulness and how precious to have such a concern.  What would my concern be, for example, if I was caring for a family in any other part of the world?  What if I was living a block away from a scene of violence in one of my favorite cities in the United States?  What if I was raising a son in a different part of the world – one which I did not truly know the realities or even tasted them because I had never been there?  What if I was caring for a family in a part of the world with a different type of government and an environment in which we could scarcely breathe?

So I wrap myself in meaning.  And some memories too.  And the gifts that both bring.  Seventeen years ago today my father suffered a stroke.  I was in my third trimester of pregnancy, living a life which was anything but the nesting I so craved.  That.  Was my fault.  I should have listened to every instinct I had, but I did not.  Three days later I was told about my father in my office at work.

Precious as the sugary beach sand I collected in a fast food drink container and the mustard seeds I keep on my kitchen windowsill….

I decided to blend them both.

With all my love,

Steph

#sandandmustardseeds #imjustme #thebrickdandelion #mybeautifuljourney #magicmadnessandmeaningfulness #ilovesunday