It's been six months since I posted. Apparently, it's been six months since I've had another moment alone. The busy-ness and busi-ness of life hurl the pages of the calendar off with such force that I can't manage to contain them. This morning, I find myself with a very rare quiet moment alone. Two kids living away from home in college, two off at high school at the moment, the baby still in bed, the homeschooled 4th grader in the shower, and my late shift-working husband getting as much sleep as he can before he confronts chemotherapy treatment #10 in an hour.
I'm standing at my kitchen window, looking through the blinds at an overcast and drizzly morning, sipping on a mug of Alpine Cider. After a long, brown winter there is finally some green in the landscape. I haven't had this cider in years, and the combination of the taste, the aroma, and the scene which is before me transport me to another time and place.
My first mug of Alpine Cider was sipped on such a morning. Quiet, alone in a home in Puyallup, Washington, which really was a second home to me but which I called my place of employment. One of my jobs was to run a pot of coffee for Dave and Jewel and have it hot and ready when they arrived at work. Being LDS, I didn't drink coffee, but I learned to love the smell of it. Always considerate, Jewel had brought me a box of Alpine Cider packets so I could have something to sip on in the mornings as well. Unless it was tax season, each morning would begin slowly. A pot of coffee, a mug of cider. A moment at the window. Jewel's bright and cheery welcome each morning as they arrived.
How warm, how comforting I found all of this. Not substitutes, exactly, but different and equally loved: the cider for the coffee, the home on 128th Street for the one on 6630 South, and two wonderful people to be all at once my employers, my friends and my family away from home.
How can it be twenty years ago? A failed marriage. College. Divorce. A happy, new and lasting marriage. Four beloved children of my own. Two step children, also loved. Cancer.
Christmases, birthdays, first and last days of school, Disneyland vacations, home remodel, home addition, gophers and turkeys, graduations, marriages, in-laws, nieces, nephews, friends, family, employment, health, testimony. Gain. Loss.
I want all of the best moments back again. I find bits of them in scrapbooks and baby clothes, and try to remember the details that seem to be slipping away. I want to purge the worst from very existence. I find them in old journals and feed them to the shredder. And yet I recognize that my very soul is made of these moments, and I will own and learn from them all.
Can I offer you a cup?
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