It Won't Last Forever

June 16, 2020

Beloved:

I filled the feeders, watered the porch plants, pruned the tomatoes, and hung laundry on the line.  I washed our patio table and took the dogs twice their usual number of times.  Finally, I gathered up all my work things and carried them out to the patio so I can at least pretend to get some work done today.  Seventy degrees and no humidity has it feeling like Michigan in August, and every fiber of my being wants to be outside.

Except for maternity leaves, I haven’t spent so much time at home since I was a child.  Most days I never leave the house.  I have put gas in my car twice since the end of March.  We still don’t eat out or shop for more than essentials and things we need to garden.  In the last three weeks or so we’ve had more people coming and going from the house, the kids and their friends mostly.  We have no summer travel plans except to bring the youngest home from college, there and back again.

I miss my previous routine but I also don’t.  I miss being with people in person.  I don’t miss the traffic.  I miss eating out.  I don’t miss the higher bills on our credit card.  I miss being at the church through the week and on Sundays, swapping stories with our church administrator.  I will definitely miss working on the same patio table with my husband on a glorious summer day like this.

​If I know anything at all, I know this season will not last forever.  For all we can and cannot do to hasten a good outcome, we can choose to be present to each day’s gift and lessons in the meantime.  What have you noticed and learned in these days of quarantine, about yourself and about the world?

I notice that the time wherein I stay fully present practically holds still and is so packed with beauty my eyes ache.   I notice that people near me are hurting in ways it’s easy to ignore.   I’ve noticed that I get by easily on so much less than I previously imagined necessary.  I’ve noticed what a profound privilege it is to have a home in this world, a spot of shelter where kindness is the currency of our daily interactions.  Not that we aren’t rotten to each other sometimes.  But we are kind more often than we are mean — and the kindness reminds me that the world was designed with kindness as the medium.  Could be that’s why on days like this, when the air and light and forest are all pouring forth in kindness, outside is where my whole self aches to be.

   My office mates, who are forever on break.