I’m still here, but the days are full. It’s our first weekend home and without guests in three weeks, so there’s a lot of catching up to do. It’s pouring rain outside, so we’re staying in our pajamas as long as possible. I do have to go out eventually – to Artmart, and hopefully to get a new camera. My camera broke on our spring break trip, and the cost of repairs don’t make a lot of sense when compared to the cost of a much newer, improved model. It’s weird to me – it seems like it’s hard to keep pace with things. I feel like we should be consuming less, fixing more – but the equation for making these decisions is so different now. It’s hard to keep pace with so many things, but I still try. I center the busy moments around the moments of ritual. Wednesdays are a large part of that.
So consider this my gentle suggestion that you find a moment like this in your week somewhere. If you are like me, it seems impossible to carve out on paper. But the reality is, it’s not that hard. It might require rethinking a morning routine or an alternate path to work and school. Sometimes it means a non-typical breakfast solution, or a wardrobe change to combat the dicey weather. Maybe start with once a month, just to try it on. Then every other week, then weekly. It doesn’t have to be in a garden. Find your own spot, and walk with the weather as it is. Don’t wait for the stars to align to make it happen; adjust to the stars as they fall in that moment. Bring an umbrella, eat dry cereal from a plastic bag. It’s worth it.
There are so many days that speed by despite all efforts to under-fill them and be still and present. When I introduced this ritual into our Wednesday mornings thirteen years ago, I never anticipated how important and essential they would be to me. I shared them with E, than the two girls together, and now with F. I have their undivided attention for an hour, and they have mine. We don’t even have to talk, we just walk and notice things, and fill up for the day and the week.
One day it will be just me on these mornings. I know that, and feel it already. I take photos now, but I don’t really need them. I see them in every bend of the sidewalk and step of the stone. I will greet each spring with its rapturous pink, and spot sweaters of the same color in the distance, even when they are no longer there. I will tuck spent blossoms into my jacket pocket and find them later in the week. I’ll put interesting sticks on the floorboard of the car, even when my car is once again clean, and my own. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll find their own garden to explore, and know that I’m walking there with them as they roam.
