Now

I woke up this morning in the dark. I didn't trust my alarm clock because it hasn't been used all summer. I set the alarm on my phone and put it right under my pillow. I also didn't trust myself. Lily is at freshman orientation right now. Reality is setting in. School is starting. Ninth and Twelfth grades for my two. Her first year...his last.

As if on cue, the school bus is tooling around the neighborhood while I'm here typing. The dry run. That yellow bus stirs things deep and complicated within me. It's a symbol of leaving. A prelude to goodbye. Hello too, but I'm not focusing on that now. This is my few stolen moments to wallow and give in to nostalgia. I'm taking my time.

I just ran my hand through Tigger's fur. He's cool to the touch from sitting at the open patio door on chipmunk patrol. The doors haven't been open much this month. We've been sealed in. It's been too hot and humid. Mother Nature also seems to have gotten the memo: summer's almost over. Right now...I long for it to last forever. This is my weather, but I don't want it yet.

Ah, but if there's a pause button, I've yet to find it. Instead I try my best to embrace the moment. To smile and be here now. To live gratefully and to be present not prescient. Also to forgive myself for all the things we didn't get to. I have to train my eye on the things, experiences, places we did. They deserve their due.

At the farmer's market yesterday we stocked up on all our favorites knowing that they are in short supply. I even bought tomatoes and jalapenos, and we're growing them in our yard. But I want more. I bought not one, but two bursting bouquets of flowers. Every week I think, this is it...there can't be more. I tell you, one stand already has apples. It's that time of year when some of the zucchini are the size of large houses. Pumpkins and gourds will flank the stands all too soon. I just can't.

My friend Sylvia recently told me that the years she was raising her children were her very happiest. She's 99. She's had many good years, but she still looks back longingly at that stretch of time. I nod my head in agreement because I have no words and I know these are special, even sacred, times. The 4 of us together under the same roof every day, around the same table every night. Coming and going, but always returning. I know I'm going to miss this, but I also know that if I rue and lament and look back, I'll really miss it.

That's the challenge: to live in the here and now not stuck behind or lured forward. This is the day that the lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. There's a reason Father Tim begins every sermon with Psalm 118:24. It's so simple and necessary and true.