I smiled while sipping tea at my parents' house when my Mom asked me where I was writing today.
"Do you write on your phone?"
"No, Mom. I have my computer in the van."
She taps my Dad's arm as the realization hits her,
"Oh! She sits like those people we see on their computers."
Thereyago.
I love that they can finally picture me in my element.
Happy Thursday friends.
T-minus six days until Valentines just in case you needed the reminder.
The soup is hot and the bread is a chef's kiss as I meet with you at the old haunt I've come to know and enjoy.
I've graduated to the high chairs and long bench, which feels like the "stock market" section of Panera.
People here are ser-i-ous.
And, well, taller.
I love visiting my parents where I will always have the best cup of tea I've had in weeks - why IS that?! I can never figure it out.
I love getting out of the van in the only drive my childhood self ever knew, with the same smells and trees and bird songs.
It's so comforting to take it all in.
To savor it.
And with another couple recently my husband and I laughed at the differences that bring so many marriages together.
My husband, bless him, is not the "savoring" type.
And as his "calm thinking" has grown on me over twenty-five years, my "enjoying the moment " has grown on him.
This is most evident when the dessert plate hits the table.
My husband would give you the shirt off his back but he's a little clingy with his treats.
This is SO GREAT for me to watch because with him being the male version of Mary Poppins' "Practically perfect in every way," I THOROUGHLY cherish each moment that shows me that he actually IS normal.
This is coming from the woman who lives with him, so this is saying a lot.
A LOT.
When the homemade apple pie with ice cream reaches his fork, I have about five bites to join him in the "clean plate club," or be left in the dust.
What usually happens is he scarfs his dessert and I end up giving him bites of mine because I don't like eating alone.
Wait.
Maybe this has been his plan all along.......
To get more dessert.
Well-played Joel.
Well-played.
The actual definition of savor is: "To appreciate fully; enjoy or relish."
And in our ministry together we have had the amazing privilege of "savoring" Italian pizza from a Michelin starred restaurant that made you literally glad to be alive, an almond croissant in Rome that tasted like the best Hallmark had to offer, ceviche from Mexico's Yucatan peninsula that woke taste buds you didn't even know you had and so many wonderful places in between.
Notice Mongolia did NOT make the cut.
Ahem, sorry Mongolia.
Your Russian chocolate ice cream WAS notable though....
I've lost track of the times I've put my hand on my husband's fork and told him to just slooooowwww down and actually taste the deliciousness in front of us.
Most likely it's the same amount of times he's grabbed me by my back pocket and told me to just wait out some situation that I'm ready to run full-sprint into.
Savoring just doesn't come natural to some of us.
I remember my Mom had a love for the apple crisp that we had periodically in our elementary school lunch.
How she grew to love it remains a mystery, but she did.
And one afternoon I decided to take it to her.
I finished my milk, washed the carton out in the bathroom sink, cut it in half and placed one of those half-burlap, half-sandpaper bathroom paper towels inside to house my apple crisp.
I don't fully remember getting it off the tray and into the carton or getting it in my locker until school was out, but I DO remember holding it on the school bus all the way home and imagining the smile that it would meet.
Sure enough, my Mom didn't even ask any questions when she greeted my milk carton but grabbed a fork and enjoyed every bite.
Which for a grade school dessert was most likely one and a half.
But when I think of savoring, I think of this memory.
I can picture the oatmeal crust, the smell of the apples and the realization that Mom was really happy.
I can still see me standing there in the kitchen, backpack still on, my eyes just enjoying her savoring that little apple crisp.
As I glance over the Apple calendar I can get quickly become "stress-paralyzed."
It's a thing.
You know when you have SO many things to do that you just don't do anything?
That thing.
With one getting their license, one graduating high school, one graduating college, one completing EMT training and two hitting their 25th, it can make the head swim.
I want to take my own advice and just savor every inch of it.
I want to savor invitations, decorations, first drives home and watching my kids figure out how to take someone's blood pressure around the kitchen table.
As long as it's not mine after school.
(smile)
I want to slow to enjoy TWENTY FIVE years of first kisses and first drives alone in a car to everywhere and anywhere and everything we have learned.
Twenty-five years is a milestone of grace and lovely and I want to savor every bite of it.
(Joel! TWENTY FIVE YEARS!)
So that's my goal for this next few whirlwind months ahead of us as a family.
I want to take less selfies and more snapshots with my eyes full of tears for joy.
For prayers answered, for tests completed, for finances out of nowhere, for sorrows just about forgotten,
For arrows in our quiver, for the hope that they will eventually leave the nest....
For stares across the table late on Sunday nights that say, "This mess all started with us,"
And everything in between.
So I'll be over here taking sips of crunchy sugar on top of hot cappuccios remembering that God is in control even if I forever need to run spell check to spell stupid cappuccino.
Savoring every inch of life.
תגובות