If Only

If only there was the time...If only I were inspired more often...If only, if only, if only...
I know...I haven't written anything in a long time. I need inspiration! Not necessarily anything beyond normal daily events...nothing cataclysmic need happen. Often I find the details that pique my interest most and cause that peculiar desire to "scribble," are the quirkly little tidbits that just go unnoticed in my day to day tedium.

I suppose I could blame it on being too busy...having too many irons in the fire. Just the getting by and getting it done of living life as we know it. What a shame not to notice the minutia...those seeminly insignificant moments that in retrospect were the stuff of fond memories and heart-warming stories. One of these days...and oh, it will pass quickly...I'll be lounging in my comfy old rocking chair on the front porch, hair gone white, hands spotted with age, and I'll be remembering the golden, shining moments of a long and well-lived life.

What I will remember most won't be how great that convention went...and it won't be how well I beat the clock getting from work to daycare to grocery store to dinner on the table...and it won't be the ridiculous number of hours I’ve wasted on the internet...it won't be that hairstyle I just had to have...and it won't be the car I dreamed would be the ultimate happiness. It will be those little moments...the snapshots of memory that gave me quiet joy, or broke my heart, or made me tall with pride, or were just too beautiful for words.

It will be the satisfaction of just canned fruits and jams...row upon row of gleaming jeweled jars in every hue lined up on my kitchen counter. It will be the way my heart swelled when I watched my then 3 year old son with his father from the window on a summer day -- the sun making a halo of his babysoft auburn hair and the look of pure, unadulterated joy as he bit into a warm, ripe tomato. It will be the ethereal beauty of a spring evening in Tuscany, gazing down from the window of an ancient stone house onto vineyards and olive orchards, and watching twilight paint the sky a thousand shades of purple, indigo, crimson and orange. It will be the shame I still feel recalling a childhood lie for which my sister accepted the blame and punishment...and I did nothing to stop. It will be the wonderful contrast of a sweet, grainy, perfectly ripe pear and richly veined gorgonzola...complimented by a mouthful of velvety brunello. It will be the searing pain and helplessness on my older son’s face, and in my own heart, as he watched his first child die in his arms. It will be the absolute, without a doubt knowledge of the presence of God...as I stood alone atop a mountain, turned 360 degrees and saw clearly the pristine beauty and stillness of a Montana sunrise.

If you've read older blog entries of mine, you'll find them punctuated with such remembrances. I know these events are there...happening all around me in every single moment. I think perhaps if I imagine myself in the rocking chair...looking back. Perhaps then I will know what to write.