I am waiting in line at the coffee shop with Snowdrop after school. The day is a tiny bit chaotic as I'm trying to fit a lot into it. Moreover, I don't know about her, but I had a night of frequently interrupted sleep due to the heavy storms that passed this way again. So I'm patient (if there is one virtue that I think grandparents should cultivate it's patience and so I am forever pausing, thinking, reconsidering...) but at the same time, I am too aware of the ticking clock on a tightly scheduled day.
The customer toward the head of the line wants a sandwich. Darn! The coffee shop staff move at a very slow pace. Ah well, maybe the guy just in front of us wont make great demands on them.
Indeed, he does not.
I'd like a cookie and a coffee, he says and takes out his credit card. (The rule here is that you can't use a card if your order is under $5.) I know this wont add up to $5, so please put whatever she is ordering on my card (he points to me).
In fact, Snowdrop and I always have a carefully calculated snack that totals to just a few cents over $5 so that I can use the card (a scone and a shot of espresso will do it), but he didn't know that.
I remember reading about such a gesture in a Ramona Quimby book -- a favorite series which I devoured with my girls when they were little, and I thought -- this is so kind, to reach out to strangers in this way, but I've never done it, in part because I'd feel flustered and awkward and timid -- I mean, what if the recipient of a largess felt insulted by it?
Well, I did not feel insulted. I felt that this town (this world) has so many good people in it and here's one of them and isn't that just reason enough to smile!
Let me return now to breakfast which is a tad rushed, because I have groceries to buy and Ed has meetings to attend. I'd picked up fallen flowers, casualties of the storms, and put them in vases and so it surely feels lush on the porch, but we have to make do with an unusually short time to enjoy it.
Garden walk.
Then the saunter to the various stores, the unpacking, storing, sorting, clearing and now I am off to pick up Snowdrop and we are at the coffee shop.
After our neighborhood walk, we have something important to do: the young family is in the middle of purchasing a new home. It's never done until the day everyone signs mountains of paper and shakes hands all around, but if all goes well, the new home is now identified and the back and forth is almost complete. So Snowdrop and I set out to visit it for a quick peek (a first for me... she'd seen it before at an open house).
Of course, she should be napping by now. Instead, she listens to discussions of "a new home" and moving and she senses the enthusiasm for this project which seems rather strange to her, but because she is a cup half full kind of kid, she finds reasons to rejoice and spends a good bit of time running between the bedrooms and finding pleasure in this grand new place by waging a singular marathon in it.
Back and forth.
And now she is very tired and though my patience quotient is still doing well, hers is wearing thin. I take the little girl back to the farmette and we spend a quiet few minutes cooling off at the wading pool...
... and eating fruits (I cannot think of a fruit that Snowdrop would reject) and reading books.
She naps, I admire the lovely clumps of iris and lavender in the gardens...
Nap ends, Snowdrop plays music to celebrate love and friendship. The world seems like such a caring place.
A little girl, or a stranger in line at a coffee shop can get you to focus and think good thoughts about all that a day puts before you.
The customer toward the head of the line wants a sandwich. Darn! The coffee shop staff move at a very slow pace. Ah well, maybe the guy just in front of us wont make great demands on them.
Indeed, he does not.
I'd like a cookie and a coffee, he says and takes out his credit card. (The rule here is that you can't use a card if your order is under $5.) I know this wont add up to $5, so please put whatever she is ordering on my card (he points to me).
In fact, Snowdrop and I always have a carefully calculated snack that totals to just a few cents over $5 so that I can use the card (a scone and a shot of espresso will do it), but he didn't know that.
I remember reading about such a gesture in a Ramona Quimby book -- a favorite series which I devoured with my girls when they were little, and I thought -- this is so kind, to reach out to strangers in this way, but I've never done it, in part because I'd feel flustered and awkward and timid -- I mean, what if the recipient of a largess felt insulted by it?
Well, I did not feel insulted. I felt that this town (this world) has so many good people in it and here's one of them and isn't that just reason enough to smile!
Let me return now to breakfast which is a tad rushed, because I have groceries to buy and Ed has meetings to attend. I'd picked up fallen flowers, casualties of the storms, and put them in vases and so it surely feels lush on the porch, but we have to make do with an unusually short time to enjoy it.
Garden walk.
Then the saunter to the various stores, the unpacking, storing, sorting, clearing and now I am off to pick up Snowdrop and we are at the coffee shop.
After our neighborhood walk, we have something important to do: the young family is in the middle of purchasing a new home. It's never done until the day everyone signs mountains of paper and shakes hands all around, but if all goes well, the new home is now identified and the back and forth is almost complete. So Snowdrop and I set out to visit it for a quick peek (a first for me... she'd seen it before at an open house).
Of course, she should be napping by now. Instead, she listens to discussions of "a new home" and moving and she senses the enthusiasm for this project which seems rather strange to her, but because she is a cup half full kind of kid, she finds reasons to rejoice and spends a good bit of time running between the bedrooms and finding pleasure in this grand new place by waging a singular marathon in it.
Back and forth.
And now she is very tired and though my patience quotient is still doing well, hers is wearing thin. I take the little girl back to the farmette and we spend a quiet few minutes cooling off at the wading pool...
... and eating fruits (I cannot think of a fruit that Snowdrop would reject) and reading books.
She naps, I admire the lovely clumps of iris and lavender in the gardens...
Nap ends, Snowdrop plays music to celebrate love and friendship. The world seems like such a caring place.
A little girl, or a stranger in line at a coffee shop can get you to focus and think good thoughts about all that a day puts before you.
Nina, please write a children's book called A Girl and Her Sweater. I will buy the first copy. I was attached to my sweater as a girl. I still wear a fleece jacket every day in my house in SF as it is always cold.
ReplyDeleteI like Jennie's comment!
ReplyDeleteThat made me think of a new children's book called The Little Gardener by Emily Hughes. I bought a copy for our daughter (son's wife) who is an author, because it is a beautiful parable about the joys and challenges of a creative life. I had seen it reviewed in the NYTBR and went to look at it at the bookstore. At the last page I was doing that thing: bookstore-crying. I knew it had to be for our caring, sensitive Emery Lord.
I wrote in it: You are the gardener. and (paraphrasing) sometimes it's a long row to hoe. and then sometimes you bring forth a wondrous flower. and the seeds fly around the world.
And Nina, I thought of you too.
Such beautiful comments -- and I took them both to heart. Jennie, I'm looking into it :) and JoyD -- as a start, I bought my own copy of the Little Gardener.
ReplyDeletexo to both of you!