Day 27: Just a Season

So this morning I noticed that my flowers are actually dead. Even the fern that I never hung up because I always kill ferns so what's the point of hanging it up?? but it flourished nonetheless--there on the side of the house, on the ground--where nobody could really see it unless they purposefully looked. Until today. And now it is shriveled--along with all of the rest of my flowers with the exception of a few marigolds. So this morning as I walked out the door I checked out my flowers--dead--and thought...I'm sorry they're gone but I'm thankful for seasons. Thankful for the chill in the air and the ice on my car and the heat inside. Thankful that my flower garden will bloom again...that's it's just a season.

And then I went to school and heaved a sigh of relief that phone-a-thon is officially over...and now the mailout begins. The organizing and folding and stuffing and sorting and mailing...begins. But it's rather fun actually. It's all about sitting around a huge table in the teacher's workroom and chatting with kids and adults. Lots of laughter. Relaxed. So though I'll be glad when it's over, I don't mind the process at all.

Then this evening I needed to grab a gift certificate at Mellow Mushroom. So I ran into the restaurant and the hostess pointed toward this quirky little office off to the side, so I stuck my head in and there was this guy with dreds working there. (How do you spell dreds???) Anyway, he was diligently working at his desk and so I hestitantly knocked...and he looked up. "Hey!" he said--all grins. So I told him what I needed and without missing a beat, he went to work to write up the gift certificate, chatting the entire time. He was just so friendly, so welcoming. And as I left that restaurant and headed back towards the car, I was thinking how similar we all are. Here's this guy who works in a restaurant and has dreds--not that dreds are bad but they are just so not my personal style, and they tend to give a rather earthy impression--and yet he's just like me. He seeks connection. He is just doing his job, living his life...just like the rest of us. And yet we're so hard on each other--so hard on people. And I really want to stop that. I want to be kinder, less judgmental. I want to even the playing field in my head because, really, we're all just doing the best we can.

The next stop was Barnes & Noble because Jace couldn't wait any longer to get his hands on the next Diary of a Wimpy Kid book--The Third Wheel. He has been anxiously waiting the middle of November when this book would be released...and it happened this week. So he went straight up the escalator and there on a rack was a stack of books. He carefully, tenderly reached for a book at the back of the stack--one that nobody else would have touched so that it would be perfect, and then went straight back down the elevator so that we could purchase it. Once we were back in the car he carefully read what was on the first few pages--soaked in the title page, the dedication page--and the he got to the first page. He started to read it and then said--Nope. I'm waiting until I get home because I want to be able to get in my pajamas, snuggle down into a sleeping bag and read this when I can really enjoy it.

And oh my goodness. This gave me so much joy. Because this rough and tumble boy of mine who loves to play basketball and be tough and cool adores books. He gets it. And there is so much there to be thankful for.