Kids finally in bed, I fled the house for a bottle of wine, a Red Box and some cake sold in a plastic to-go container in the bakery of a grocery store. I wasn’t sure if it would be a date with my husband or just myself, but I was a bit desperate to distinguish this Friday night from every other exhausted night of the week.
S0, in the middle of nowhere special (look up the phrase in a dictionary and you’ll see a photo of a suburban strip mall parking lot), I glanced up and saw
the moon.
The air was a fresh, white sheet snapping in my lungs and the sky was black around this serene celestial body.
And reflexively, the gasp of a drowning person momentarily bobbing above the thrashing, sucking ocean,
a sob caught in my throat by virtue of the pure stillness and silence of that round orb.
amommymous
I just went outside to look for the pure stillness of the orb you described. I couldn’t find it (although I’m sure it’s out there), but instead I was beckoned by the chirping of a bird hidden deep inside a bush near our porch. I tried to get close enough to see him, but as my shadow approached, his chirps silenced. I stared into the branches as I heard his light hops, and I smiled at this “almost” silence. I smiled even wider when his chirps resumed from a bush across the yard. He had silently escaped me. I needed that moment of pondering…of wonder at how little we really control any of this.
I was sure with all three of my kids in school I would have endless moments like that, but I instead find my time occupied by carpooling and scheduling and emotional maintaining and volunteering, and I have little to no time for aimless wandering. Why is it so hard to embrace that my life is beautiful in its chaos, and that I only drive myself crazy trying to create silence out of what is naturally loud and messy? I guess we need the occasional orb of silence and the sneaky little birds to give us a new perspective.
Glad you’re back on here
Friend, thank you for sharing this moment. I find I’m so often tuned into the needs of my little ones, I very rarely notice these types of small graces which really are actually miraculous in their constancy despite the chaos. Thank you for also reminding me to appreciate what I have. And most of all, thank you for continuing to read and encourage me.