This wasn't just any bowl of popcorn. It was the first bowl of home-popped in almost a year, so naturally, that made it the best we'd ever had!
All sorts of things that have been packed away for months are seeing the light of day, as the pile of empty boxes from just yesterday can attest. Books are on shelves, there's popcorn in the bowl, that package of vintage iron hooks arrived in the mail (for hanging towels in the bathroom, and aprons in the kitchen), a wool braided rug (curb-side score) warms the living room floor, an antique oval mirror with beautiful patina waits to hang between the sconces over the master bed, a vintage copper light fixture goes up over the kitchen sink today (woot!), exterior paint is being applied, and electricians will be working their wonder to properly ground the house (ever been shocked by touching a metal roof before?).
That's what is happening. I won't mention what isn't (it's quite long), because I'm reckoning with the want it right now, and the stamp my foot, and the I'm tired of waiting. Gracious, it's easy to want everything inside and outside this little house to be completed right now! To have all those ideas and all that vision brought into reality in one fell swoop.
But.
The thing is, (I tell myself) if you're constantly chewing on what isn't yet done, you may completely miss the taste of what is. So, hang on there. (And hang in there?)
Take a look at this thing called slow - not the dilly-dally sort, but the savory kind.
See?
See how it melds things together in a way that would be lost on fast?
I wrote those words almost two years ago, now. And I find that it keeps coming up, that waiting. Now, I'm not waiting for the lights to be installed, or the hooks to go up in the bathroom. Now I'm waiting for the larder to be finished, for the lavender to grow, for the porch to be built. There will always be something to keep me waiting.
I hope that I don't become impatient. I hope that I can deeply drink the now, no matter what I think it's lacking. I hope that I can realize the richness that's waiting to be scooped up here. I hope that I don't fall for the notion that the stars must align just so, before I can fully live.
Let me find the opportunity in waiting.
When I'm living in a sub-tropical paradise that is an artistic and creative famine land, let me begin a blog.
When the bottom falls out of everything and grocery money is scarce, let me write about what's nourishing us through the thin, and let me call that writing Peasant Food.
When I must create with nothing, let me make things from scraps while sitting at that table in front of that big window.
When I'm living in a stranger's house, looking at photos of people I don't even know, let me crochet.
Always, always, let us make cookies when we're hungry for them. A crockery bowl and wooden spoon are all we need.
When time pools at my feet, let me learn to run.
When a new cabin is coming, but it's not here yet, let me sew with the grandmas on Saturday mornings. While they quilt, let me stitch linen tea towels for my coming kitchen.
When there's a new baby, let me knit for her.
Let me pick the flowers and put them in a vase on the table that sits in the room that is yet unfinished.
When the full-length covered porch is delayed, let me tidy-up the rickety hill-billy porch and set pots of flowers around it. When there's ugly, let me make it as pretty as possible.
And when there's a holiday, and there are friends, but there's no picnic table or even chairs, let us invite everyone anyway. Let's throw white sheets over the two folding tables we do have, let's have everyone bring their own chairs, let's build a campfire, let's get sticky with marshmallows. Let's eat and visit and laugh until after dark.
Let me keep finding this in the waiting.
.