the little things

As my long, NPR-laden commute drew to a close this evening, I turned onto our street, passing a mother pushing a brilliant green stroller. I pulled into our driveway just ahead of her. As I opened the car door I heard screams of delight and saw Frances dart around the side of the house and hide behind a tree in the front yard. Our friends Katie and Chester, who often walk by our house in the evening, had clearly been roped into the game and were running across the yard in different directions. As I slowly approached, I saw Gabriel, no longer able to bear the suspense, come out of his hiding spot and run into Katie's legs, making his scary face and yelling ARGH!

It was a zany free for all, loosely organized around piracy and hide-and-seek. There was Mike, who for the past week has been held captive by the grueling end-of-semester rituals at St. John's. (He's back there now, as I write, for the Enabling Meeting. Sounds weighty, doesn't it?) What a pleasure to see him really play. There were the kids, operating under totally different rules, but the pirate talk somehow united them. There were Katie and Chester, the world's best neighbors. I saw it all through the eyes of that mother pushing her baby slowly by, and it looked so inviting.

On the drive home, I had half-listened to All Things Considered and half-contemplated the fresh (yet familiar) muddle I seem to have wandered into of late. Questions about what I am called to do professionally have been elbowing their way back through all the concerns that normally mill about relatively peacefully in my mind, reclaiming center stage. Goals? Long term plans? Got me. All is muddle.

But I took a walk and talked about it with my dear colleague Monique in Baltimore this afternoon. And then I saw my family and friends playing, loose and comfortable in their bodies, golden in the spring sunshine. And when I opened the refrigerator door to consider dinner possibilities, oh my goodness it got even better - there was a cold beer in there with my name on it. And on and on it went, until after bath time, when I suggested to the children that we sing instead of speak everything for the rest of the night.

You mean even when we're reading Farmer Boy?

Oh  yes, I told Frances. And then I sang about Almanzo and his farm chores to the tunes of Little Richard songs as I toweled her off. The girl thought it was hilarious. Fall on the floor funny. Gabriel, already in his Spiderman pajamas, was a little wary. He stood with a frozen smile on his face staring at us. I couldn't stop singing because Frances couldn't stop laughing. I finally crossed the line when I waxed poetic about milking to the tune of the Star Spangled Banner, and the kids (rather than me, for a change) firmly brought the silliness to an end.

So, you know, I think it'll be just fine. Mike will come back to us in just a few short days, the spring will give way to summer, and I will keep putting one foot in front of the other, even when the way  forward isn't perfectly clear. I can get so wrapped up in the forest sometimes that I risk missing the trees with their delicately-veined leaves and feathered inhabitants, their graceful branches and thick trunks dotted with strange and exotic fungi. 

It's nice to live with people who are attuned to the little things that, strung together, make a chain of meaning that quietly winds it way through our days. Here they are, admiring two tiny earthworms found in the garden.