It’s a direct quote from my dad
after he worked all afternoon with my husband installing porch fans.
He has a remarkable way with words,
although they are few,
they are carefully selected
like picking the juiciest peach from a tree.
They are always just right.
His tiny fingers wrap around my arm.
The contrast of white against brown startles me into momentarily wondering about the origins of this beautiful child.
He is another unfinished project, like the boards of the deck, half-way painted before being abandoned by a rain shower.
The splatters of paint on my feet are reminders of the job that still begs to be finished along with the dishes, mopping and yet another load of laundry.
Where is the time? And where does it go?
I have the same 24 hours in a day and somehow it passes through my hands like sand in a sieve, constantly flowing until suddenly there is not a grain or a minute left.
I know that everything will get done, eventually, but it won’t be today.
Today, I would much rather push trucks across the carpet with Little Legs and hold Baby when he cries, share a snack of applesauce and blow the white fluff of a dandelion into the hot summer air.
Today, the time goes where I want because I’m the boss.
I’m the mama.
The trio left through the backdoor. The woman wore the infant strapped to her chest while the toddler had decided to live his life as a bunny and hopped along behind her.
“Hop, hop, hop,” he narrated.
They made it around the side of the house when the boy-rabbit stopped completely, and as though frozen, he stared at the sky.
“Come on, bunny. Hop this way,” his mother encouraged.
The sun was hot on her face and arms. She pulled the brim of the baby’s hat back, his chubby face was peacefully resting between her breasts. The heat only lulled him further into a deeper sleep.
“Its hot out here, let’s get to the shade.”
“Nah, nah, nah. Clough!”
Instead of following his mother where she stood under the protection of a grizzled old tree with pale, green lichens growing on the bark and long overhanging branches, he continued to stare up at the sky.
“Clough!” he exclaimed again and pointed.
Sensing that the boy would be rooted to the spot until she did what he wanted, she returned to his side and looked up, finally.
Clouds unrolled across the sky like waves of wind-blown sand on the beach, stretching as far as the eye could see, against a breathtakingly blue sky.
“Clouds in the sky,” she affirmed.
“Beautiful, thank you for showing me.”
Satisfied at last with his mother, the boy-bunny continued hopping through the yard.
His mother was left behind, humbled at the beauty of the day and that it took the fresh eyes of her son to appreciate it.
All it took was to simply look up.
The meeting started promptly at 1:00, right in the middle of a perfectly good Sunday afternoon. I wondered why I was participating with the bigger question of why I volunteered for anything else when my life was already bursting at the figurative seams with undone things, starting with a mound of laundry.
Yet, there I was, calling in to be counted for the rollcall and reviewing the agenda with my boys in the next room in the care of Daddy Longlegs and G-ma.
We were all accounted for except for one person who, unbeknownst to her, would be eaten later.
Shortly after the meeting was called to order, the leader brought up what she called, “the elephant in the room.”
She forgot we were only faces suspended in virtual reality, there was no room and there was no elephant.
“We have to address the recent chain of text messages. I think we all know what I am talking about.”
There was a quiet murmur of acknowledgement from the floating heads.
“Therefore, I am submitting a motion for the Texter to be removed from The Board.”
I gasped in silent horror, thankful for the mute option.
It seemed an extreme punishment for the offense. However, I was the newest person to join and unfamiliar with the group dynamics, processes, and procedures.
“I want to hear from everyone on this,” the leader requested.
One by one, all members present voiced their opinions with a unanimous agreement with the leader.
“She’s got to go and here’s why,” one member explained.
“I’ve been noticing her lack of enthusiasm for a while,” another shared.
“She’s always first to leave and last to arrive,” a third stated.
The elephant in the room was slowly torn apart, limb by limb, and picked clean until only the bones were left to dry. The decision was to be delivered via email with the offer of a phone call to work out any remaining details which the leader didn’t think would be necessary.
“Its what she wanted,” she reassured the cannibals who were still licking their lips.
They were temporarily satiated from their meal.
I wondered how long it would be before they felt the hunger pangs and turned their hungry mouths towards me. Somehow, I knew it would be a matter of time, especially now they had the taste of blood.
hoosiersunshine13 