I smell like someone's mom
one of my very favorite moments of 2014 (and all time)
It has been nearly a year since I’ve written anything of a personal nature that I cared to publish. I’ve started several times to write something I hoped might turn into a blogpost, but it never was shareable or even finishable in most cases. They all turned into these selfish, writhing pity parties that are embarrassing to even reread myself. Blah. You’re not missing out, trust me. At the start of last year, I was so hopeful to “keep better memories.” That was my well-intentioned, silly little resolution for 2014. I had great plans of taking more pictures, writing more, keeping mementos, and teaching my kids (and me) to savor moments and seek out joy in the everyday. I bought a little divided tray, which I think I may have mentioned in one of the blogposts that actually happened last January, and intended to sort of catalog each month in that tray. I bought adorable scrapbooking paper, trimmed it down to size, wrote the names of the months in scrawling cursive or chunky block letters on them, and fit them into each space on the tray. I put it in the foyer, displayed it prominently, so I could show it to people who visited.
And then January progressed.
On January 2, a well-loved lady
who lived in my childhood community – my stompin’ ground, as they say – passed
away. Her name was Carene. Her husband was a fisherman and she was a fantastic
cook and she would fry fish and share it with her neighbors. She was always always at church. She shared her birthday with my Marlie.
On that same day, my grandfather
was admitted to the hospital, his second hospitalization in less than a
month. He passed away on January 25th,
my dad’s birthday. We sang Sweet Hour of
Prayer around his bedside and he went to be with his Savior. I could write pages and pages on all the
reasons I love my grandfather and how important he has been in my life, but this
isn’t the space for that.
The Saturday after my
grandfather’s funeral, what should have been our first “normal” Saturday in a
long while, David woke me up in the very early morning hours sick with a kidney
stone. We ended up in the emergency
room.
So, there was the January spot in
my cute little divided tray. It had 2
funeral papers and a hospital bracelet in it.
I look back on the little writing I did that month, at the few pictures
I took, and each is clouded with memories of hurt. I was done with that stupid tray. It’s setting somewhere with pictures of the
kids stuck in it now.
Fast forward.
Sometime over the course of the
year, I was taking a walk at a nearby park and in the wind I caught the smell
of clean laundry. I remember when I was
kid, always being sort of intrigued by how I could smell what my friends’
houses smelled like, but I couldn’t smell what my own house smelled like. I mean, just on a normal day. I always wondered what my friends smelled
when they came to my house. WEIRDO, I
know. I’m well-acquainted with my
weirdness. The clean-laundry smell in
the air that day was me. I smelled like
clean laundry. Not flowery or exotic
like I might have shot for in earlier seasons of my life. Just clean laundry. And it occurred to me that because I’m doing
laundry, ya know, all but about 12 minutes of every week, my house probably
smells somewhat like that, too.
And it kind of pleased me.
It was a simple kind of
pleasure. Like something I was doing was
actually turning out the way I meant for it to.
I’ve come to the conclusion that that’s
sort of what adulthood is all about – the ability to find small pleasures and
simple joy right there where you’re standing.
One of the marks of immaturity, I suppose, is a desire to always be
sprinting forward to the next big thing.
Always chasing something and never finding contentment in any of the
things you actually catch. We barely get
through one holiday around here before my kids start gushing about the next one…
discussing Christmas presents over their Halloween candy and the like. For that matter, the subject of a lot of
their conversations is… what we’re going to have for dessert tonight or “are we
going to the library tomorrow?” or whether or not we have fun plans for the
weekend. It’s hard to be in the
now. It’s a hard thing to learn.
Sometime soon after my
grandfather had passed away, a dear friend of ours made reference to “time
standing still” during those days surrounding his visitation and funeral. I didn’t realize how appropriate that was
until later, but looking back it really does seem we were kind of frozen in
time during the days just before and just after his passing. Everything else stopped and nothing else
really mattered. Our family came
together and clung to each moment with him and with each other.
Because, really, that’s all we
have, isn’t it? Moments. Whether time is standing still for us for
whatever reason or everything is spinning around us at warp speed. Whether things are really good or really
bad. And maybe especially when it’s just
a normal day that seems to pass without notice.
We can only really be in the moment we’re standing in.
The thing about moments, though,
is that they have a remarkably short shelf life. Moments pass away and with them go any number
of simple pleasures and such great joy
they make available to us whether we take notice of them or not.
And that’s why if we’re going to
chase after anything at all, it’s in our best interest, in my best interest, in my husband’s and children’s best interest, in
the best interest of my home… to chase the moment we have right now. To hunt down
simple pleasures and to take them captive and squeeze every little particle of
joy out of them that we can. To become a kind
of moment vortex and suck in everything about this moment. And we can hope
for tomorrow’s joy without rushing headlong into it and we can choose to soak
up the joys of yesterday, to relish in our happy memories… and just tuck away
the bitter parts as hard lessons or character polishing. Or just
let them go altogether.
Let me tell you… I could go down
through 2014 a tick off a pretty long list of other not-so-great things. It just wasn’t our year, but if I’m looking
for them… seeking out those little sunshiny specks there among the teardrops… there
were a lot of great moments, too.
Like listening to my kids’ quiet
conversation before they fall asleep.
Kites flying in a blue sky.
Sparks rising above a bonfire.
The satisfying pop of a jar of tomato juice.
A precious little face emerging
from a pile of leaves.
Completely falling apart laughing
with my sweet husband.
Answered prayers. So many.
Realizing for just a moment what
my friends smell when they come to my house.
other favorite moments from 2014
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