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Hello Friend,
Come in! Come in! It’s turned cool out there. October has granted us normal October weather after all, and it’s a great day for a cup of tea and a good chat.
The skies are grey with moving clouds this morning. I don’t think they hold snow. They’re just gliding over, almost low enough for the spiky tips of the evergreens to pierce their fluffy underbellies like warning swords. Stay away, clouds. Don’t come any nearer. I hear an airplane passing on the other side. Do its passengers see the sun, I wonder?
I’m offering Rooibos tea today. It is smooth and gentle with a slightly nutty flavour. I just read that rooibos tea is the only known source of the antioxidant aspalathin, which studies suggest may have anti-diabetic effects. Interesting. (see article here)
Anyway, please help yourself to cream and sugar, and a chocolate chip cookie there on the island. We’ll sit in these oversized chairs by the window.
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When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things. Where is beauty to be found? In great things that, like everything else, are doomed to die, or in small things that aspire to nothing, yet know how to set a jewel of infinity in a single moment?
Muriel Barbery
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I’ve been harvesting my summer memories, and realizing that the most special ones are indeed those jewels of infinity in a single moment. Here are three of them …
ONE
Before my library was even close to being ready, I’d set apart a tiny corner especially for children. Low bookshelves, with only a couple of children’s books at that time, a colourful round carpet, and two kid-sized armchairs, lime green.
The day after we moved in, I glanced into the library from the kitchen where I was unpacking boxes. There on the little chairs sat five-year-old twins Bright and Sunny, each with a book; Sunny looking at a picture book and Bright ‘reading’ a novel, upside down. Little Man was standing at my desk studying an open atlas. I motioned for The Cowboy to look, and whispered, This is what I wanted.
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TWO
We keep a golf cart on the property, for work and play. I haul watering cans around to water the flowers and garden beds. The Cowboy has sometimes hooked up a little trailer behind to carry rocks and bigger loads. And Sweet Thing loves to drive it. Since she’s only six, however, the rule is that an adult must go with her.
On this particular day, I was her passenger as she drove around and around the acreage. Upon approaching a large evergreen she said, “Grandma, there’s a branch. You have to be careful.” And then she proceeded to drive under the tree, pushing forward a large pine bough which ultimately snapped back, slapping me full in the face. Annoyed and in pain I cried, “Ouch!! That hurt!” Without taking her eyes off the ‘road,’ she indifferently replied, “Grandma, I told you.” Yes, my practical girl, you did indeed.
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THREE
My new piano had been delivered shortly before Peaches and her children, Sweet Thing and Little Munch, arrived for their first visit to our new home. Everyone knew how excited I was about the piano, and Peaches asked me to play.
As I sat down and prepared to play, Munch went into the library, carried out one of the lime green armchairs and set it beside the piano. He sat in it and faced me expectantly, giving me all of his four-year-old attention. I don’t know if I can convey how this deliberate act of attention affected me, almost brought me to tears. I felt seen and valued. It was a precious moment in time that I will never forget.
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Isn’t it interesting that these three memory jewels involve some of the most special people in my life?
Meanwhile, we receive notices from friends. In the last several weeks three friends have lost a parent. One, mother of The Cowboy’s childhood buddy. One, a long time family friend who was a true example of integrity. And one I met only through hearing my friend read the eulogy she’d just written for her dad.
As I think about these passings, I recognize that the memories invoked at the time of a loved one’s passing are also jewels, each memory a single gem on the strand of a life lived.
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And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on this earth.
Raymond Carver
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So glad you stopped in today. Stay safe out there, and see you next time.
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