Good thing we had six months here to drop down into a lower gear before the holiday season set it; it provides quite the test of our new ways. Both Stella and Zoey had school holiday performances this week, many of their friends have (different) Nutcracker-type things that S and Z want to attend, and there are neighborhood gatherings, shopping, and all the rest. This week I got so frazzled that I was late to Stella's performance, forgot a playdate, and left a burner on the stove when I ran out with Stella to catch a Christmas piano concert. Yikes.
Here's one of the main things keeping me tethered to the ground: about a month ago, a friend invited me to join a morning gratitude group. The group consists of five of us emailing each other ten things that we're grateful for each day. We don't know each other well. In fact, I wouldn't recognize one of the people if she walked straight up to me - we've never met. I think of myself as a grateful person, so I didn't imagine that writing (and reading) these lists would have such a big impact on me, but it really does.
Normally, my list involves casting a wide net of random appreciations, but my list this morning was all about my date yesterday with Zoey, which, on the surface, involved errands, dinner, and than a trip to the grocery store.
Saturday's list:
1. Zoey bought the most hilarious Christmas gifts at the thrift store that so perfectly reflect her rather outrageous sense of humor.
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| Zoey's gift for Chris. |
2. Watching her have fun shopping, I remembered what gift giving is all about and some decade-old performance-anxiety gift-giving tension released inside of me, at least a bit.
3. We drove Chris' truck because we needed to buy a mattress, and we discovered his secret cheese-y Christmas CD, laughed so hard because we couldn't believe he had it, and belted out every song.
4. After a long shopping adventure, we screeched into the Chinatown parking lot, starving and so excited to eat Chinese food, which we haven't had since we moved here.
5. Their Friday night buffet is a kid fantasy, including mini jello bowls in every color, mini eclairs and cookies, and self-serve ice-cream.
6. They served loquat fruit, which grows on a tree outside our house in San Francisco. Zoey used to make Chris climb on top of the truck to pull loquats down. They're delicious and fragile, and beautiful, and home. I melted into a heap of jumbled emotion at the taste of one.
7. Chinese food. I would eat Asian food everyday if I could. I miss it so much. The taste of egg flower soup unleashed a whole flood of stored-up feelings in me, feelings of homesicknesses, and of happiness and pleasure. Meals with beloved colleagues, dates with Chris before we had the girls, and endless other visions played through my mind.
8. Chinese people. I miss the amazing cultural mix of San Francisco, the huge array of experiences that people share, and exude, unconsciously. The wide world of human experience rubs off on you in San Francisco and stretches your perspective.
9. Zoey wanted me to sit next to her on the bench seat. We laughed and cuddled and lost ourselves, such that when I opened the door of the restaurant to leave, I had completely forgotten that I was in Montana, not SF. The cold shocked me and I yelped, totally freaking out the kids who were hovering outside smoking.
10. We dropped by the co-op on the way home to get something and were still dancing from Chris' contraband Christmas music when we walked in the door, only to be greeted by a blast of live Christmas music, played by a teenage boy jazz band. We danced until they stopped, then Zoey sniffed every shampoo on the shelf.
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