Dear reader, how are you doing? How was your week? Mine was, in a word, blurry. I am trying to be the anchor that steadies this family but more often I feel like the dinghy which capsizes in the storm.
I don't really have a mantra to navigate the chaos...mainly I just try to keep my head above the current, create as many slow moments as possible, and hope there is enough understanding to go all the way around.
The desert is glorious these days. I got some new shoes and they run real fast. The first time I tried them out I came across the most amazing sight: an enormous, midnight blue bumblebee.
Enormous. Blue. Bee.
I stood there, entranced, as it alighted on a blossom not three feet away. Was I still on planet Earth? Unable to help myself, I began to rack my brains for a way to catch the bee, the first being to take off my top and fashion a make-shift net.
As you may expect, I struggled with the morality of such an action.
Not in taking off my top, mind you (cue glittering, coloratura laughter). Dear me, no!
Just in terms of curtailing the life of such a magnificent creature purely for my own desire.
In the end, you'll be relieved to know I kept my top on and enjoyed watching the bee until it flew away...a decision I regret to this day. All in all, though, I'd rather be saddled with the regret of not catching the bee than the regret of catching it, even if it spoiled a perfectly good chance to run naked through the wilderness.
At any rate, the pace around here is sort of like a foxhunt. And I am sort of like the fox.
Sometimes, when the hounds are relentless, you have to create a moment which stands in contrast to the rest of your day. Maybe you concoct a cup of hot chocolate, maybe you go outside and gaze at the sky, maybe you sit down and think about every good thing.
For me, lately, it's been to read bedtime stories to Caroline. No one else has the time to listen. I'm not even sure Caroline has the time to listen. But late at night she rests against me as I relate the story of Mrs. Frisby and her poor little Timothy. I read slowly, carefully, enjoying the beauty and magic of language, of syllables, consonants, and vowels, of rhythm and cadence, and the captivating, detailed world as seen through the eyes of a tiny field mouse.
I hope you are hanging in there, dear reader, whatever your "there" may be. I hope it is lovely, but more than likely it is also somewhat crazy. Hopefully there is easy to balance out the rough, happy to soften the sad. No matter what, there is always beauty.
Look up, look around, you will see it.