It's summer re-run time here in my blog--
Years ago, our then-church held a Sunday picnic in the park once each month of summer, beginning in May.
I remember the first picnic. Families shared tables, so as we walked along to secure a place to share, I stopped at the table of some friends-- I was enchanted! They'd covered the scarred, old table with a pretty sky-blue linen cloth and in the center sat a glass jar filled with water and blue, purple and white flowers. "Oh! How pretty!," I told my friends. "What a lovely setting."
And actually, I was mesmerized. Inspired. Truly. I'd been on many picnics, but never had I thought to bring a pretty cloth and a vase of flowers.
On the next picnic, I brought one of the white linen tablecloths Tom had found on the curb, a white vase, flowers and something different--my favorite dishes, instead of just plain ol' paper plates. It was fun. Always, I've enjoyed being creative and a little different. And this time people stopped and commented that our table looked like a picture from a decorating magazine--like a table set for a backyard party.
The following month, the creative table ideas had spread like a good disease. A handful of other families brought their nice things from home to share with their friends at their own picnic tables. I loved it. Our church picnics were beginning to look like genteel, Victorian parties--well, kind-of. In our own imaginations, at least. And I even scattered a few small Victorian-times photos (more curb finds) upon our table, too, for added decor and conversation starters.
But that's about the time I began hearing murmurs from some of the women. They stood in little groups near our table and smiling, said to each other,
"You start something like that and then everyone expects you to keep it up."
"Yeah, or top it," another woman said.
"Right. I'll just be bringing the usual paper plates and cups. Count on it."
And then a bit later one woman (who never liked me much) stood in the food line very near our table and asked, "So, Debra... Does the food taste better out here on your real china dishes?"
The people around us got quiet and looked at me. I sat down my stainless steel fork, smiled my most beguiling smile and then looked up at the woman and said, "Why yes, Tricia, I believe it does."
Heh. She looked a little confused, started to say something, then moved along in the line.
Oh, I want to enjoy my life! May I create and dream good things with the gifts God has given me and inspire others. May I never become so jaded, so bored, so average-seeking that I walk only the easy paths and never smile from my eyes. Jesus died to give me more than that and may I always be searching for that 'more,' even during something like a simple church picnic.
******
"...I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows)." ... John 10:10
Just checking in. I'm still reeling because of what choosing contentment can do and feel like and change.
My previous discontent was rather like that, "...a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump," verse and yes, I'd become one large lumpy complainer. But what a grand difference to choose a different land, to leave the future alone and instead, brighten and make sweet my present.
Bloom where I am planted and all that.
Anyway, I'm actually already rereading Thoughts of Home after having bought and read the sequel, If These Walls Could Talk. Both books are perfect summer books, and well, there's a paragraph from the essay, The Love Nest, which I want to share. The author describes how she felt when she and her husband moved out of the home where they'd raised their family, this after a time of clearing away and cleaning out and asking their grown children to come and haul all their stored stuff away:
"By moving day, the feelings had spent themselves, and as Our Van was taking things away to storage and Their Van was bringing things in, I felt light of head and heart. I felt footloose and emancipated and about twenty-five years old, something in me had shifted into another gear. It has been this way from that hour. Miraculously for both of us the letting-go was swift and complete, accompanied by a huge surge of energy propelling us toward the new, the uncluttered, the small."
My eyes widened when I discovered that because it described how I've felt since Naomi, at 25, moved into her own place. And I guess I've been shocked over the freedom, the saying good-bye not just to our daughter, but to a whole era from my life.
I'd so needlessly dreaded this time. Man.
And just this whole thing of "waiting well" has reminded me of the years when a young Naomi could not appreciate my love of all things domestic. She often hinted that Life's best things were ones you garnered outside of home. How washing dishes, gardening and sewing slipcovers were for those who had no life.
And of course, that hurt, especially when all along I'd hoped she'd come to appreciate at least the fact I stayed home and did them so to sweeten life for the three of us.
But I waited, hoping she'd see the light. Yet I didn't always wait well, and that is my regret.
If only I'd have waited well, for now? Naomi is becoming domestic around her home in her own creative ways, making me often smile. She visits Salvation Army on its half-off days and finds cute curtains, couch pillows, dishes and then arranges them at home. And too, she loves to cook healthy meals inside the blue glass casserole dishes I gave her.
And you know? I've not yet even planted a vegetable garden this year, but this weekend Tom and I stopped by the yard sale Naomi and her neighbor held and what did we see in front of Naomi's half of her duplex?
A vegetable garden.
One with tomatoes,squash and the strawberries she'd asked me to let her bring home and the lemon balm and purple basil from back there, also. She walked us around her garden's edge, told us about each plant and even asked for advice about how to make things grow--
--and I thought, if only I'd waited well while waiting for this! Oh, how glorious those old days would have been when sprinkled with the sweetness of Faith.
***
"Well done, thou good and faithful servant." ... Matthew 25:21
I spend scandalous amounts of time here on the front porch.
And on the side of the house? These 'mystery red roses,' ancient, here long before we were, and I do nothing to them except cut them back when they hang over into the neighbor's driveway.
