Friday
Matt took the kids out for dinner and taught them his favorite party trick (yes, those are napkin boobs).
I had dinner with two of my dearest friends from college. We are all in various aspects of transition, and sometimes it feels like we all orbit each other like atoms, always aware of one another but never in the same spot. It was an immense pleasure and treat to have a couple of hours to simply sit, and talk, and be. I am reminded over and over again about how important these friendships are, these women who knew me when I was becoming who I am now.
Saturday
Mother-daughter book club at our house in the afternoon. Grace chose a book called Grace for President which I adore. I actually wish the protagonist wasn’t called Grace, because that has nothing to do with why I like it. The book makes me choke up every single time I read it. It’s a great, empowering read for girls in elementary school (with a double bonus lesson about the electoral college).
We did something at book club that we have not done before, which is go around the room and have everyone read a page. There was something magical about those minutes, with girls hesitating before long words, reading aloud, voices growing in confidence as they forged ahead through a paragraph. I was mesmerized, looking around the room at these nascent girls, all tall and lean and angular, seemingly more so by the day, confidence and tentativeness wrapped up in each individual personality. Their eyes shone and their giggles erupted and their camaraderie was palpable.
Sunday
Palm Sunday church service with Mum, Grace, and Whit and then lunch with one other leg of the stool. I loved watching Grace and Whit with these friends that they are growing up with like family. I remember when each of these children was born, literally the day (and I’m not speaking of my own here!) – it really stuns me, as cliched as it is, that they are so big now.
All three moments speak of the themes that shape my life: the unstoppable advance of time, the way that certain moments present an opportunity to be still and really see into the life of things, the deep bonds of motherhood and friendship. My life exists in the penumbra of my awareness of time’s passage, I know that now: the sadness and inevitability of each moment’s death colors it even as I live it. Yet somehow I am also seeing that paradoxically, only by accepting this irrefutable truth can I actually, fully inhabit the time that I do have.
Yes. Only when we acknowledge and understand how fleeting life is, how brief each precious moment is, how loss is inevitable – can we completely savor and live that moment. It’s such a bittersweet fact of life.
I would rather love and lose than never love. I would rather dare to take a chance and fail than never try. These are things I believe, yet struggle with. It takes great courage to live this fully.
I love the idea of parent child book club, what fantastic way to grow a love of reading!
I was reading Devotion last night. I sat propped up in bed, dog snoring at my side, reading and rereading a passage about time. About wanting to fully appreciate the moment that we are in. It is cliched. It is written about in blogs and books over and over again. It is modern America’s search for “living in the moment.” But somehow, in that moment, I was not annoyed, I was not distracted, I was living inside of the words and wrapping them around in my head and making sense of it all. That page was me and I was it and time was like a Cathedral for a second or two.
This last paragraph reminds me of that.
Imprint those beautiful faces on your mind. Know you’re doing wonderful things. It’s all good stuff. It’s the essential stuff.
Beautiful. You make me miss friends I didn’t have. Thank you for sharing.
“Yet somehow I am also seeing that paradoxically, only by accepting this irrefutable truth can I actually, fully inhabit the time that I do have.”
So, so lovely Lindsey – and powerful. Paradox feels like it might just describe a “design so vast;” the push-pull of known/unknown, control/un-control, intention/randomness, faith/fear, time/infinity.
And you, my friend, embody that – not only in your words, but in your life and heart.
Lovely. Compelling. Winsome. You.
I keep playing with the idea of co-mingling time as a passing “thing” and no-time as an eternal, dreamlike mindset… sort of like napkin boobs that both pretend to nourish and can also help with cleanup.
Somehow touching base, holding onto each other as we marvel, love, laugh and, at least intermittently, succumb to melancholy seems to be of great comfort, at least to me.
Why is it that I get teary in so many of your posts!? You are always so good at putting into words how I feel, and you share your life so openly. Thank you!
Also, I just love this idea of a book club for girls – I am going to start one for these girls here! Thanks for that too!