Today, I am sitting at the kitchen table with the front door wide open, because the fire had gone out and I am trying to get it going again, and for some reason, I am just getting smoke, and smoke, and more smoke. This happened yesterday, too. Today’s smoke must have been worse, though, because the smoke alarm went off, which didn’t happen yesterday. The dog is glaring at me a little, because the smoke alarm is not his favorite sound. But the good news, I guess, is that the smoke detector works. It is ironic that the reason I am starting the fire is because it is chilly out, and now it is getting much chillier, because I had to open the front door (and now the back door) to help clear the air.
The cat is standing outside the front door which is wide open and complaining. I don’t know why. Does he not see that he can just walk in, that the door is open?
The cat finally came in out of the rain and now is going back out again through the still open door. Maybe he just likes to have the power to go in and out whenever he wants?
It is still raining.
Praise for the rain, though. Praise for how it clears the air and wipes things clean. Praise for the rain, because this is California, and if you look at the “Drought Monitor” website, you see that most of the state is either abnormally dry or in some level of drought. The whole Western half of the country looks pretty bad, actually. So you won’t hear any complaints about rain here.
My emotions have been up and down these days, and at this moment at the kitchen table, they are sliding down more toward the low side. But I was happy today to stop at the library and pick up some books that I requested. I was happy that I had a reason to drive to town, since I had a massage to do, and could stop at the market and buy a few groceries before I headed back up the hill to pick up my son after school. I bought milk and heavy cream, which I’ve decided is an essential item, not a luxury, for how happy it makes me to add it to my morning tea. Also, spinach and broccoli, a cauliflower and a butternut squash.
I better not try to return that squash, though, because the receipt said I actually bought a “Squish Butt.”
Really! That’s what it said! Squish Butt!
That made me laugh! (Some days, it is good to channel your inner fourth grader.)
Now, I’m happy that the cat finally settled in, and I was able to shut the doors after the smoke dissipated, and the fire is burning, at long last. I got to go outside in the rain and walked with my good neighbors. I am confident that without them, I wouldn’t have walked today. And there is something in the walking that is healing and holy.
It was just an ordinary day, friends. Why should I write about it and try to capture it and remember it? I guess because it is my life. It was my day. I will never get another like it. And this day, these moments, are the only ones I have, and the only way that the holy is able to touch me. If not in these ordinary moments, then where? When? As James Finley (the wise) says, “The grace of God utterly and wholly permeates our lives, just as they are in the present moment.”
Even on a day when the fire won’t smart, and smoke fills the house, and the smoke alarm goes off, the dog gives me dirty looks, the cat makes me crazy, and I go to the market and come home with a “Squish Butt.” Even this. Even so. It’s all OK. And it’s enough.
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