These Days...

Last night we sat side-by-side on metal bleachers to watch the first middle school football game of the season. This is where you’ll find me on Thursday evenings for a time.

I don’t much care about football. And that’s ok because it wasn’t when the quarterback stepped out onto the field that our hearts swelled. Wasn’t the ribbon-wrapped dance team or pom-pom shaking cheerleaders. It wasn’t even when the first touchdown was scored by the home team or when the scoreboard stacked up in our favor.

But when the lemon moon lifted up over the hills and the school song started playing and we heard the steady rat-a-tat-tat of a snare drum…how our eyes did shine on our boy.

He’s the main drummer this year. Or so he keeps telling me. But he could’ve been playing the kazoo for all I care.

Our boy has style.

These days we’re trying to get into a new rhythm.

Times like these, I find it’s best to move slowly. So on my days off, Lucy Mae and I are perfecting the slow. We take our lunch out back in the cool of the shade tree. And though the mercury still is on the rise, we can feel the promise of cooler days ahead.

Today, as I sit—stringing the Blue Lakes—two Monarch butterflies stop by. The way their wings touch the air so light reminds me what a miracle all of creation is. Their migration down to Mexico has begun, they say. I am glad for my little patch of milkweed—a small bit of hospitality on the way. As those two light-winged visitors dance with the breeze, a tiny tumble-seed twirls by me.

Mamma always said these little bits of fluff are wish-givers—if you catch one of these feathery travelers, your wish will come true.

I don’t put much stock in these things. I know the Dream-giver.

So I let it go and I think about how wishes can be turned into prayers. And Lucy Mae and I watch it lift slow into the blue.

We watch until it disappears.

With Cheryl today: