A Little Prayer

Sitting at my pollen covered laptop, I’m trying to sort out the difference between being philisophical and mundane.  I start each and every day with a simple prayer, please let me embrace this day as it is offered to me rather than wasting my energy trying to pummel it into the shape I think it should take.  There are so many good things that happen every moment but it’s the little irritations that seem to hold my attention most firmly.

First the good things.  My sister was up from Boston with her family for the Bridgefest.  Her two little boys, Nicholas and Daniel come to Maine to see JJ and Campah (the dog and cat).   We’ve long accepted that the humans are only a small side attraction.  While they’re here we walk the trails checking under ever bridge for Clarence the troll, chase after the seagulls and eat pizza on the picnic table.  Every visit has a novelty but this weekend had a particularly good carrot at the end of the stick: as long as Nicholas behaved all day (he’s 4) we’d go the  cabin on the point and light a campfire.  We’re not certain where he got the first idea but Nicholas was absolutely fixated on toasting his first marshmallow.  We were going to make s’mores.

Toasting that marshmallow was the most important thing we did all day.  Steven lit the fire at dusk and we all had to sit on beach mats while the coals burned down to the right glow.  When it was finally time to put the marshmallow on the stick, Nick already understood that he’d need to turn it slowly, until all the sides were golden brown and the inside was gooey.  Half way into the procedure, Nick decided he didn’t like gooey marshmallows but with a bit of convincing he continued the cooking process so Mummy could have a s’more and just maybe he’d taste it.  You need to understand that Nick abhores “sticky” and hates to dirty his fingers…so when the time came to sandwich the marshmallow between two grahm crackers and some dark chocolate, he was backing away from the oozing confection as though it were lima beans on liver toast.  As we oooed and ahhhhed over our s’mores he made a decision that he’d toast another one but he’d eat it from the stick.  This is a good place to tell you that we only use 3′ birch dowels as marshmallow sticks because a) they don’t have a tendancy to catch fire and b) they can’t burn your lips like the metal toasting sticks do.  After carefully roasting his next marshmallow to perfection, Nick stuck it in his mother’s face to be certain that it wasn’t too hot…when it was deemed the right temperature, he SLOWLY nibbled that candy for at least 5 minutes, sucked the stick clean and then asked for another…after the next two were offered to the fire gods, he finally started his second and then the distractions became overwhelming…Fire Flies!

When I remember to embrace the day for what it offers, I get less stuck on the little irritations along the way.  Yes our wi-fi acted up in ways we don’t understand yesterday but the fireworks over the new bridge were the most spectacular I’ve ever seen (and I was in Paris during the Revolution bi-centennial).  Sure someone backed over one of my gardens with a golf cart but a guest greeted me in the bathroom with a cool drink as I was checking to make certain all of the stalls had paper and the counters were clean.  Oh, and it’s true the waterfall garden clogged and I almost killed the koi fish because the water got too low but a curmugeon from the Second World War walked through the park yesterday and stopped to say we had accomplished more in the past decade than he would have ever thought possible…he went from total grump to charming gardener in a short five minutes.

Today I’m not going to try and change anything.  What is, is.