Come On In, the Water's Fine

I had to open the doors tonight, even though the pollen is still flying as thick as an Oklahoma dust bowl. Ken and I passed like two ships in the night, but he left the pond splashing and the party lights on the porch all lit up. He knows how happy that makes me. Now, with the dark of the evening taking over, I threw open the big front door. The cool night air wafts around my feet as I play my flute to no audience. I'm a social person but sometimes it's nice to have the peace of aloneness, particularly when the days have been hectic as of late. The devices are off, there's no one to entertain. The thoughts spread out and twine around my brain like my jasmine bush that's starting to look for things to grab onto. Why do we fear the quiet, needing to fill every moment with noise and mental gyrations? I think sometimes I've forgotten the bliss of boredom. There is such a thing.  

I spent the early part of the day with one of my dear daughter-in-loves. She has lost three babies in the last nine months. There aren't enough words to fill that chasm. We walked in the spring air with her three very lively children, who were hangry and mourning in their own way, even though they don't even know about this last loss yet. Sometimes it's just too much. There is a finely-spun web of understanding that spins between women who have lost babies. I have three in heaven, myself. Once in awhile my thoughts will run to them, wondering what it would have been like, to have them here with us. Then I think of them with their kinfolk up there, never having  known disappointment, sin or even a bad day. But in the here and now, there is no ache like an empty womb. I have been young and now am not, and I know the abiding hope that comes from trusting God through the storms.  The layers are at once bittersweet and rich. The pages of life's diary are flipping faster all the time but if I stop and savor them, I find it's all very, very good.