Random Thoughts While Simmering

On this official first day of autumn, I stood at the kitchen counter mixing meatballs and forming them in my hands, chopping onions and garlic, snipping herbs, adding crushed tomatoes to the sauteed seasonings, and stirring the rich sauce slowly as it began to simmer gently on the stove -- mindless tasks, which lend themselves to quiet reflection.  I thought I would share some of the random thoughts which passed through my mind as my hands prepared our Sunday supper.

No matter how deeply you love someone, you can’t make them love you if they don’t.

Think before you speak – hurtful words may be forgiven, but they will always be remembered by the person you hurt.

Be quick to forgive, but don’t feel guilty if you can’t forget. 

Children are our future -- more than anything else, they need our love, our attention, and our guidance.  Material things cannot begin to take the place of a parent's consistent presence.

Everyone looks at the world from a different perspective and interprets things differently, based on his own life experiences.   Don't ever presume to know what another is thinking. 

Life isn’t fair – there is a cute little quote that says if we all took our problems and put them in a basket, we would take our own problems back, or something like that.  I don’t believe it.  Everyone has problems, but some people seem to have many more than their share. 

Everyone handles grief and loss in a different way – don’t be judgmental of others as they grieve.  Listen to them and be kind, and remember that we never completely "get over" the loss of loved ones.  The grief just finds its way to a quiet little place in our hearts where it resides forever.

Try to treat everyone with kindness and respect.  Life is sometimes a circle, and the people we thought we would never see again come back into our lives at some point.  Better they remember us for our kindness than our antagonism. 

Sometimes we meet the right person at the wrong time, and there is nothing we can do about it.  We must resign ourselves to holding them in our hearts instead of our arms.

No matter how strong your opinion is on an issue, always be willing to listen to the views of others – this is how we evolve as individuals, and is the basis for compromise in the larger world.

When the stresses and pain of life engulf you, let the rhythms of nature soothe you -- sit by the water, sniff the flowers, listen to the birds, walk along the shoreline, find peace in the gentle rustling of the tall pines --

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Passing Down

We are on our way across the driveway to the car, and Alivia lingers near the bed of flowers.  She reaches her hand out and gently cups a tiny pink flower.  "What is the name of this flower, Grammy", she says, and I tell her it is a Bleeding Heart.  She wants me to give her a Bleeding Heart plant for her garden at home.  Luke tells his father we shouldn't cut trees down, "because they help us breathe," and my son asks me, "Did you tell him that?"  Of course I did.  Emma sees a red bird and says, "There's a cardinal," because we watch for them at the bird feeder.  We talk about nature all the time.  These little grandchildren of mine soak up knowledge of the world around them. 

In fact, all three of them love to talk -- sometimes the chatter in the car is almost indecipherable as they all talk at the same time.  But these are also the moments when they often surprise me with their deep insights and thoughtful questions.  These are the times when we discuss so much -- feelings, religion, values, family history, fiction vs. reality.  Luke loves to ask what things were like when I was a little girl. 

Last week I prepared egg salad to make sandwiches for lunch.  Alivia wanted to cut them into little triangles as we did last year when we had a tea party with her other grandmother.  We cut them and placed them on a pretty china plate, standing up like sailboats as her great grandfather had done when her grandmother was a little girl.  The next morning as I was making breakfast, Alivia asked if she could get some of the pretty china out for breakfast.  She went into the china closet and carefully picked out small plates and coffee cups to set the table.

My home is filled with lovely old family photos.  All three grandchildren love to look at the photos, learning the faces of their ancestors.  They hear the stories of my grandfather's desk that holds their crayons and paper and of the teddy bears collected by my mother and my sister.  My mother's dressing table is a favorite of them all, with its large mirror, and the perfume bottles, jewelry and little treasures it holds.

While much of each day is spent taking care of my little ones physically -- keeping them safe, clean, dressed, and fed, the most important moments of the day are these times when I am sharing memories and stories -- when I am encouraging them to notice the beauty in the world around them -- when I am showing them that kindness and honesty are still important in our high-tech world.  This "passing down" of their family history and the values of a slower, gentler time will be etched in their hearts forever.

Moments

"Life isn't a matter of milestones, but of moments." -- Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy

 

 

My mornings are a tightly scheduled dance -- out of bed and ready for Alivia's arrival at 6:30 AM, a few minutes of cuddling and reading with her, preparing breakfast together, and leaving in time to arrive at Luke & Emma's house by 8:00 AM.   We are greeted with hugs and kisses when we arrive, and then we have about a half hour to be sure everyone has been fed and dressed, enjoyed a bit of playtime, and gathered together schoolbags, coats and hats.  I hurry them all to the car, buckle them into their seats, and we drive to Alivia's house so she can catch the school bus for kindergarten at 8:57.  As soon as Alivia is safely on the bus, we drive across town to Luke's preschool, which begins at 9:15. When Emma and I finally arrive back home at 9:30, I am exhausted.

We soon realized that we were arriving at Luke's preschool a little early, so instead of waiting in the hallway for the door to open, one morning I took a slight detour over a lovely country road nearby.  Luke was immediately captivated.  That first morning the sun was shining brightly, the trees were showing off their magnificent autumn colors, and the dusky mountains rose behind them -- a blue so deep it was almost purple.  There are farms dotted along the road -- some well-kept and others with tired old buildings and machinery lying about.  Luke loves the barns.  A tiny green valley lies at the heart of one farm -- with cattle scattered about and sheep grazing lazily on the hillside.  A small family cemetery sits atop a hill.  Luke calls this the "pretty road," and it has become our morning destination each day. 

One morning we spotted a farmer's field filled with Canadian geese sunning themselves.  It seems there is always something new to see on this quiet old rural road.  Luke points out each of his favorite places and asks the deeper questions that rise in his mind as he travels through this serene landscape.  Yesterday morning we stopped for a group of wild turkeys who couldn't quite decide which side of the road they wanted to explore -- the cornfield or the shady stand of old trees.  We have both grown to cherish this little detour.  I love watching Luke's response to the natural beauty around him, and he loves the old barn that is falling down.  And, I know that this year will be over quickly and Luke will be getting on a school bus next year.  Our little drives over the "pretty road" will be a thing of the past, but, for today, these are moments that we both treasure.