Sunday, August 31, 2014

Internet Cafe

If things were different, and we were able to meet up in person for coffee...


I'd be drinking tea. I'm a not a real grown-up: I don't have a mortgage payment, I only vote when I know the names of all the candidates, and I don't drink coffee. We can still call it meeting for coffee though.

I'd tell you about my latest adventures in puppy-rearing and one more reason why we can't have nice things. Or shoes. It seems so cliche.

You may notice the faintest deepening of pigment on my arms. Just before Labor Day, I was able to start and end my Summer fun on the Gulf Coast with my family. The faintest hint of a tan line crossing my collarbone hints at 4 solid days where activities were limited to running, swimming, lounging, and consuming large quantities of fresh seafood. Evidence enough for me that Summer did in fact- albeit briefly- happen.  

You'd ask me how things are going, and it would take me a moment to decide how to answer that. Things are going forward. With no shortage of challenges, frustrations, victories, and uncertainty, life truly waits for no one and nothing. I feel intensely aware of the balances at work. I can name no less than 8 babies born to friends, family, and co-workers this summer. And yet for the time I have spent visiting new babies in the hospital and delighting in pictures of tiny toes and glowing new parents, I have also spent hours watching children say goodbye to their father, watching someone too young leave this world too soon. I have mourned for young cousins who will grow up without their mother, for the sense of waste when someone's life ends before she has seen her fourth decade. For all the jobs sold, praise earned, and recognition given, there are still days of worry, weeks of wondering when (if?) this breakneck pace will ever ease up, if it's humanly possible to ever get ahead and take a deep breath. Turning on the news and seeing what other people's struggles look like, we're quick to realize it doesn't really matter if we're ever ahead, because we are already infinitely blessed beyond belief. Our stress is contrived and pitiful next to the dangers and struggles so many others face.

At some point, I would need a snack. Hopefully, you would play along with me blaming it on marathon training, but we both know I just like to eat. 

Speaking of eating, I may tell you that I've learned just how poorly we'd fare as farmers. After some (sort of) thoughtful planning and preparation, our crops, totalling 2 cantaloupe plants, 2 squash plants, 2 zucchini plants (which turned out to be squash plants), 6 green bean plants, and 12 field pea plants have yielded us a grand total of... 5 squash. 5. The neighborhood rabbit family, along with our sweet, rodent-hunting terriers, have thoroughly enjoyed the leafy green additions to their standard diet. 

At some point- hopefully somewhere between talk of puppies, fresh grouper, and reflecting on Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, I would ask how you are doing. Who and what is making you happy, what fun things are you doing, what have you discovered in recent weeks? Over and over again, I learn that, for all the wonderful things and moments I find in activities, places, and things, I'm not sure anything will ever surpass my love for meeting really great people. I have met some great ones, I try really hard to make them spend as much time with me as possible, and I delight in the possibility that I could spend the rest of my life meeting more new, wonderful beings.