Hello Monday

This weekend was so slow and puttering and lovely that I'm rough adjustment into Monday. It will officially begin very soon as I slip out the door to the bus, but until then I thought it might be nice to reflect on the glory of the restful days behind me:

-early morning coffee and pancakes
-a walk through town to the antique mall
-the purchase of a box of tiny, plastic Scottie dog charms
-the purchase of a teeny tiny version of my desk chair
-the realization that the price card "Tiny Odd Items" sums up most of my life
-a plate of Spanish cheese, a creamy wadge of brie, olives, pistachios, and dark chocolate
-a shared small bottle of Angry Orchards cider with above mentioned snack
-library trips and book sales
-cleaning the house (including sweeping! and dusting!) in under and hour
-rewarding our quick but thorough clean with another walk through town
-stopping off mid-walk for a strawberry milkshake shared with two red straws
-finishing "An Everlasting Meal" by Tamar Adler - such a good book
-watching the Charles and Ray Eames documentary
-planning my own "uniforms" like Ray Eames (the pockets in her dresses went to the hems!)
-reading this article and thinking- Yes! that's how I'd like to be described

Early On

There, then, is the role of the amateur: to look the world back to grace.
- Robert Farrar Capon

Yesterday, at the end of a long, scampering day, I flipped open the front cover of my new book and read the quote above. I was still at work, still packing up the remainders of the day, but I wanted to pause for a moment to see if there was an epitaph (I distrust many books that begin without one - more on that another time). Then, as I read this brief line, rolling it over and over again in my mind, it was as if everything that buzzed so insistently through my head all day quieted, and for at least a moment I felt a little more in control.

In the very early morning I crawl out of bed, untangling myself from Andrew's long armed grasp, tip-toeing as gently as possible through creaky old doors and over creaky old floors, and I spend the early hours in outward silence and inward chatter (the good kind). Without realizing it, part of why I love this time so much is that I can, in a way, "think the world back to grace." It's all perspective, and though that's really true all day, these early morning hours are more readily in my grasp, calmer and quieter, and easier to notice. What happens, the best part really, is that the more I look the world back to grace during the early hours, the more I see it as the day progresses, the kinder I feel to myself and those around me. It's easier, I guess, to look life back to grace when you've offered it to yourself first - when you've seen the value.