What's Saving Your Life Right Now?
|This is the final question asked to guests on every episode of Jen Hatmaker’s “For the Love” podcast, and it kinda stopped me in my tracks.
You see, 2020 was supposed to be an awesome year for me. I carefully planned it that way! Except most of the "awesome" was cancelled --- our trip to Barbados, ballroom dance lessons, volleyball, my trip to Kelowna with the girls, our annual fishing trip, my 50th birthday party --- all of it deleted from the calendar. What was there to look forward to except work, eat, sleep, repeat? I think the term for this is "anticipatory grief".
Over the past months, I’ve had to play mental gymnastics to flip my perspective and find more goodness in the everydayness of life. It is good.
And so, I ask myself every day, “What’s saving my life right now?” Here are my random thoughts, in no particular order, about what’s saving my life right now, on any given day . . .
Rain. Blessed rain, in June and July.
The heat of summer.
The sweet, heady smell of clover and alfalfa in the ditches on my morning walks that remind me of playing in the pastures as a kid.
Our boys. Who came home to be with us during quarantine.
Our boys. Who are now moving out and launching their own lives again, as it should be.
Jen Hatmaker’s “For the Love” podcast Enneagram series.
Ribeye steak and red wine.
Slow Sundays.
Room to roam on our farm yard.
Yoga.
Facetime with Angela.
Our committed employees.
Playing Kaiser and watching "The Office" with the boys.
The profusion of peonies, hollyhocks and lilies in the garden.
Four straight months of family dinners with our adult kids.
Tromping around in the pasture or in the shelterbelts, finding secret shady places.
Novels that transport me to another time and place.
Kisses, hugs and long conversations with Kevin.
Dancing Machine, our cat, who purrs and rolls over for a belly rub at the mere sight of me.
Father Richard Rohr’s daily meditations.
Our backyard patio oasis.
Our small bubble of friends.
Pine View’s new website.
Our summer long bocce ball tournament.
Cribbage.
Brian, our dog, and faithful walking companion.
Campfires and cocktails with Kevin.
The two rocking chairs on our house verandah where Kevin and I sit, like Ma and Pa Kettle, when the workday is done.
The smell of the pine and spruce trees along the driveway on a humid morning or evening.
The stillness and quiet of the early morning.
I’m curious to know, what’s saving your life right now?
2 comments
Thank you for your beautiful list, Melanie. You’re putting beauty and joy into the world with it. The small, quieter things are sustaining me too. That cup of coffee in the morning. Sitting in our backyard watching the baby robins hop around in the mulch under all the plants. Watching birds come to our fountain and splash with such vigour, going for bike rides, sitting and talking with my husband at “tea time” (3:30pm) every day, reading good books, daily meditation, teaching Enneagram to a friend.
Such a powerful question, what’s saving your life right now…today it’s coffee on the deck in the stillness of early morning and laughter of my grandbabies. Thanks Melanie