A Perfect Afternoon

If one could write a recipe for the perfect afternoon, yesterday had all the right ingredients. After the baby-sitter arrived – to Morgan’s delight, since she adores her – I drove to Goldsboro for a book signing hosted by Wall2Wall Photography. While the sky appeared a bit crossed, the tears were stubbornly held back, and I enjoyed a rain-free trip. When I got there, two ladies – Elaine and Sherrill – were already there, and I parked behind one of their cars.

The next couple of hours were terrific. Some of Julie’s friends from her day job stopped by, purchased books and offered interesting conversation. The food was great – Sherrill, those Amaretto cookies were to die for! – the wine delightful and sweet, and all along we enjoyed a background of wonderful New Orleans Blues. To add to the magic, Julie’s family was there, and I thoroughly enjoyed talking to them.

After a while, one lady had to leave and my car was blocking her way, so I got my keys and went outside to move it. I initially thought of backing out all the way, but then I had this crazy thought of pulling over the side a bit and let her squeeze through. Well, squeeze she did, but my pulling to the side took a whole new meaning when I forgot that there was no side – I nicely backed into a drain ditch. Not even aware of it in the beginning, I was puzzled when my car didn’t move and thought I was stuck in the mud, until I got out and saw that the right back tire was airborne over the ditch.

We all stood there hoping to come up with a solution, when Julie’s husband decided to get his tractor and pull my car out. It only took a moment for him to pull the car and have it with all four tires on the ground. The moment we got back on the porch, a powerful storm approached; we barely made it under cover before the sky opened in a downpour.

The little “ditch accident” could have put a damper on the perfect afternoon, but once I totaled the facts, it was easy to see that nothing had happened – I was fine, the car was fine, Julie’s newly-planted Monkey Grass wasn’t even disturbed, and we had escaped the rain just in time. When the storm subsided a bit, it was time for me to head back home. As I drove, I thought back about the car in the ditch, and wondered if there was a silver lining to the little dark cloud. It wasn’t until I got closer to home that the answer to my question popped up.

Allowing minor trouble to come in and spoil our day is an easy thing to do, but it is something we can surely control. We can’t always be in charge of circumstances, but we always own our thoughts and the way we respond to challenges. The car in the ditch could have been something completely annoying, but we were able to turn it around and laugh about it, adding one more piece to an already beautiful puzzle. Life happens, but if we can strive to turn a negative into a positive, it can always be a fun adventure.

The Magic of an Ordinary Day

Yesterday was a fun day. It started around seven in the morning when I woke up in a house full of sleeping kids. I went downstairs, started the coffee pot, and went outside on the porch to give the flowers a little drink while I waited for my own cup of miracles to finish brewing. It was an amazing morning – already steamy so early on, the day announced itself as yet another scorcher.

There is something quite magical about a summer – or late spring – morning. Birds fill the air with an excited song of promise and the nocturnal moisture is still lingering in tiny droplets bathing every leaf and strand of grass, as if they just came back from a relaxing swim. I sat on one of the porch rockers for a few minutes and deeply inhaled the intoxicating scent of grass and budding life, before an even more bewitching aroma penetrated the air and made everything pale in comparison – coffee was ready.

The rest of the morning passed quite uneventfully, aside from my daughter running off like a thief in the night with the magic marker I was using to create a poster for the book signing, and then forgetting where she had left it when her 5-year-old attention was captured by some other random thing. Funny as it is, while I was looking for the marker I found an old necklace I had misplaced some time ago. I never found the marker and I came to the conclusion that either my house swallows and spits items at its own liking, or my daughter fits her enchantress name and she figured out how to make things shift in and out of reality at will. I am confident that with more practice one of these days she’ll learn how to shift a sack of money INTO reality.

Hours flew by and it was suddenly time for morning to trade shifts with afternoon, which also meant it was time to leave for the signing. With a budding knight in shining armor in tow, I left my screaming daughter home with dad – that girl might never learn how to shimmer money into reality but she will, one day, win a Grammy for best dramatic performance – and Michael and I got on the road.

When we arrived, the owner of the tea shop informed me they had been pretty slow but I unpacked anyway while my son went next door to get two bottles of water ($4 for two bottles of water! You’d think the kid had bought Zeus’ water of life and knowledge!)

The signing proved to be slow as well, but we had a great time. A handful of friends stopped by and kept us company; I sold a few books and raised the first $15 going toward Hooked on the Book, a newly-launched project to raise funds for the Gulf.

After wrapping up, we went to Piccola Italia with two of the friends who stopped by. We sat at one of their outside tables and chatted away. The food was great, the wine superb, the company wonderful, and we even got to meet the owner of the joint, a jolly little Italian Man with a heavy accent and hands magically designed to make good pizza. What more can a soul desire?

The rest of the evening was very laid back and even my magic marker reappeared, now that I no longer needed it. When the kids went to bed I thought back about the day and couldn’t help smiling. There are challenging things happening in the world, often in our very own backyard, yet every day can be a great one if we stop and appreciate the small things. Through the eyes of a pessimist yesterday could have been a poor day – a necessary tool was lost, the signing was slow and the air outside was as hot and humid as soup, but if one really focused on reality, all those things had another, much happier side – I found a long-lost item, the lack of a large crowd gave me the opportunity of getting to know the people who had come a little better, and the warm weather allowed us the chance to sit outside and crown the day with a good meal and pleasant conversation.

Life is what you make it, and each experience can be as tart as lemon or sweet as candy. Personally, I choose to see it as a box of my favorite chocolates.