She sleeps as I write.....
Teaspoons and tablespoons and measuring devices and ingredients and the smell of slowly burning sugar surround me. He's doing it again. "I really want to perfect the flavor."
Well I really want to just eat it. It now comes to our local grocery store, ya know. About a mile away. Not so hard to grab keys, push a pedal and use a spoon shortly after.
Making ice-cream. The process of (if you want the famous Salty Caramel that hails a few hours away at Jeni's) burning the sugar to get it just burnt but not disgusting….measuring, mixing, ice baths and who knows what else.
He likes the making, I like the having.
When he's done with an art project, he really could just give it away. I work on it to keep it and enjoy it myself.
He loves wet concrete and forming and shaping and putting molds together and the whole affair of concrete countertops. I just want to see them. Enjoy them. Not get all up in their faces as they come into their own.
And the whole difference between my husband and I on this one, I am convinced, is nobility. Enjoying the process of anything is more noble than just having it. I seem want-y. And almost immature….like I never learned to love to wait. (Can anyone really say they love to wait? I've heard it said: to know God, is to know how to wait. Sigh.)
Frustrated easily by the slowness of many projects, ideas and people, I find myself really living up to what a friend has labeled me for a few years now: "Ready. Fire. Aim." Whatsagirltodo? Stop and smell the roses? Not when I have 2 small kiddos who need my love and attention….not when there are college women texting and sharing about real pain and brokenness….not when it means my whole kitchen stays a mess when I find peace in order….
And what if I did stop and try to smell those roses….but I found not one? Then what? What if I heard that my best friend's husband has not kept his end of the covenant…tearing a family apart? What if my dearest friend has a baby and a 3 year old and husband who just lost his battle to brain cancer? Searching out the roses seems a bit futile.
So I keep going. And moving and pushing and yelling and writing and dreaming and running. I am well aware that if I keep up this pace, and any buds on the rose bush were to grow, I most certainly would rush right by. And eventually forget that roses even exist.
How does an activator, one who has a lot to do and try and hope and see and share actually enjoy the process of getting from Here to There? Especially when the Road to There is filled with death and infertility and tempers and fear and major huge mistakes and selfishness?
I am going to write to find out. I am going to slow down and look around me and choose to see that lovely, overwhelming, ancient tall oaks don't just grow overnight. Their beauty comes through rain and seasons and drought and nourishment and thunderstorms. Their hope and tenacity to be tall and secure and unshakable has stood the test of time. (Time. She has gotten a bad rap in my book…I need to rethink her) These oaks have used time to let them add rings that indicate they are all the more taller. All the more stronger. Like lines around my eyes and stretch marks across once flat and sculpted bellies. Oaks who display the splendor of their Maker.
May this Road to There be a display of splendor for us….even if we have to claw through the thistles to find a bud. Or, heaven forbid, burn the sugar until we get it right. Either way, I desperately want some oak-nobility to shine through my soul.
"To all who mourn in Israel, he will bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor." -Isaiah. 61:3