Today has been a really good day. I am grateful. I could end here, but after only seven words? Nah!
This could have been a much more challenging day, given how it started. Not so much for me but another in my household. No, I woke up alright for the most part. My mood while writing in my journal this morning–often a good indicator of how I’m feeling and likely to be feeling during the first part of the day–was written in a fairly neural tone, though I was expressing some concerns about a lack of clarity about what I’m doing in my life at the moment (not a new situation for me…) I wrote this morning:
“So it seems I have A LOT to do and think about. And yes, I’m a little scared (sometimes I’m a lot scared…) But the calm center of my spirit remains steady, a kind of glowing, reassuring presence that I can sense from time to time. She sill knows that everything is alright; the rest of me–my conscious self–simply isn’t aware of that yet….”After I wrote my usual four plus pages, I rose and started my day in a pretty good space. My daughter, however, was having a rough time of it. After some cajoling I managed to get her to agree to get out of the house and come with me to the grocery store to pick up a few things. “Let’s take your car,” I suggested, as it hadn’t been driven for about a week and had suffered a dead battery a few weeks ago. When I got into the car and turned the key, the engine clicked but did not start…uh oh. Her day went from bad to worse, but I still dragged her to the grocery store–we went in my car. I tried to stay as upbeat about it as possible, talking over various options about what we would do. When we got home, I decided on a plan. I would jumpstart her car and we’d let it run a while and then I’d drive it to the Food Pantry so it would get some charging time. As we put the plan in motion, I was quite pleased with myself–this was my first time successfully jump starting a car. The whole process always made me a little nervous–I remember my dad blowing up a car battery once because he got the cables attached to the wrong terminals. We were finding pieces of that battery quite a few feet away for quite a long time…
Anyway, ever one to value learning a new and useful skill, we successfully jumped the battery and left the car running out in the parking lot for about 45 minutes until it was time to go to the Pantry. I had asked Michal to come with me this week (she’d helped out the past two weeks and I knew we’d be short handed today.) She deferred, feeling too distraught with all the emotional turmoil of the morning to feel like coming. I told her that when she felt low was exactly the time to get out of the house and do something good for someone else. That was how I had first started volunteering at the Pantry in the first place. But I didn’t want to pressure her (as I had the previous two weeks), so I said goodbye and headed slowllllyyyyy out to the car, stalling to give her time to change her mind. I was quite excited when in fact after a moment or two she emerged from the house, water bottle in hand, ready to head off to serve the public.
I was so pleased and grateful to have my daughter with me at the Food Pantry. Being there gives me such a sense of wellbeing, working with the great crew of volunteers and interacting with the clients. I wanted her to experience it and for the folks there to experience her. Her help over the past few weeks has been invaluable too, as we were shorthanded and had a lot of people to serve today. It was also a nice way to spend the day together–after a pretty hectic and tiring three and a half hours we went ate dinner out. The grace we said over our meal was simple: “thank you God for this food. Thank you that we have food and can afford to be here at this restaurant. Thank you for this time together.” It was a sweet time. It has been a sweet day. And I am grateful.
