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Category: gratitude

Bounty

Bounty

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Late spring in the suburbs is a season of bounty. Not only the bounty of flowering shrubs and gonzo grass. But the bounty of activities, too. When the children were young we were nearly mowed down by the recitals and school plays, honors ceremonies and volunteer teas. At this point in our lives the bounty takes a different form. Our driveway is clogged with cars, our washing machine is filled with laundry.
The suburbs seem built for bounty. Our garages groan with bicycles and rollerblades, helmets and bats. Our pantries are clogged with canned goods, bags of rice, boxes of cereal. We live a charmed life; I know that. My worries loom large sometime, but they are not the worries that plague many of the world’s people: What will I eat? Where will I live? On this May morning I pause for a moment to remember that.
A Mom, Running

A Mom, Running

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Death, when it doesn’t devastate, makes us more keenly aware of life — that we are still here, walking on this earth; that our gift to the departed is to keep on living. So today I went for a walk and found myself filled with gratitude. For my own mom on this Mother’s Day, for the closeness we’ve always had, for her intelligence and care and optimism, for her quoting Shakespeare to us when we were little kids, for her sheer being. For my own three daughters, who I love beyond measure and who gladden my heart daily in ways small and large. For my husband, who even in his own sadness went out and bought me flowers and sweets and a large bottle of Dubonnet to celebrate the day. For my father, sister and brothers, and for all of Tom’s family, who I’m thinking about so much today.

I saw several solo moms out walking this morning, and we smiled and greeted each other. I wondered when I saw them if they were doing what I was, escaping for a solitary stroll not to avoid chaos at home but to savor the richness of their lives. For it is only when we step aside for a moment, only when time or circumstance pulls us out of the fray, that we realize what we have. And as I contemplated the bounty of my life, I felt lifted off my feet with joy. And I realized that without knowing it I had broken into a trot. I had become, for a few moments, a runner in the suburbs.