Fleetings

This morning while walking the dog accompanied by a chatty six-year old, he sited a lone yellow flower in the brush  with an exclamation of joy. We walked over and examined it – a cheery yellow face with rings of of minute blood-red pinpricks radiating from the center.  I promised to come back and capture it with my camera.  A little while ago when I tried, it was closed up, not available for re-viewing. It will reside in the mind’s eye only for now. It reminded me of the fleeting opportunities in all of life.

On the same saunter, I walked into a massive spider web and he cried out, “BIG spider Bubbe, watch out. I’ll protect you!”, although he ran the other way, shuddering.  While I felt the web and backed up, I only caught site of the spider peripherally, unable to gauge its size. But the clear voice of the young rang in my mind. Chivalry, even if only verbal, is alive and well in little boys it seems.

Time rushes past, my careful schedule ripped to bits by the actuality of daily life. Work runs late into the evening, baths are drawn later than planned, and alas, I’ve even bought fast food when I’m simply too tired to contemplate cooking. What we do not skip is reading before bed, even on days of bad behavior, along with the lavender and coconut oil foot rub that brings sweet sleep and easy dreams to him. We’ve survived notes home from the teacher, confessions of lying, minor thefts of toys, and the destruction of others’ property.  Apologies were written in legible printing; piggy bank emptied for restitution;tearful discussions of the difference between bad behavior and the self being ‘bad’ engaged in; and the pronouncement that my food is better than Cracker Barrel’s at full child volume endured.

There’s also been a house struck by lightning and catching fire (daughter), diagnosis of scarlet fever (younger grandson), trips to the hospital for lack of baby movement (daughter), the arrival of a gifted Remote Control Monster truck, and the birth of my grandson’s sibling, continuing the long run of boy births.  It is a busy life.

What I miss most are the quiet times to read and write. The opportunity to just be still. The time to write and catch up with friends across the country. Moments to discover new musical artists or indulge in old favorites.  I snatch time here and there with a text or two, and a weekly in-depth catch up phone call time with those that know me best.

Time – it is fleeting. And we,  so are we. The only monuments most of us will leave behind are those in the minds of the lives we have touched, for good or for bad. Take the time. It costs, but so does letting it pass by.  And when I think I have an original thought, I find that someone else has visited it a long time before I.

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others. – Pericles (495-429 BC)

Be a weaver and an engraver, and leave remnants of good wherever you go.

’till next time,

~SE