Time Flies

I'm listening to one of the best books I've ever "read" on CD, Women, Food, and God, by Geneen Roth, while I work on the quilt (found a huge quilting hoop at the ARC for $1.99!):

Man, does Roth talk over and over again about the importance of "staying," of not "bolting," which for most of us is hard-wired as our number one defense mechanism against pain, discomfort, threat, or anything else as children, but which we then just keep around as a habit as adults.  It's this habit of bolting that keeps us from seriously experiencing our lives, and Roth suggests that instead we really focus on nearly every moment, on fully inhabiting it, on thinking of it as precious.  Think of how a person who died today might view living in your body for just one moment, she says, what a gift that would be to them.  Even if you're disabled or sick.  Even if you're sad.  Even if you have body issues.  Even if you're having a bad hair day or you don't like your outfit or you're used to tuning everything out.

Most of all, it is through our body that we smell the hair of our child, feel our partner's hand in our own, see the spring tulips, hear laughter in the street.  Why forsake that body?  Why not inhabit it more?  Why not live in our heart more fully?

I'm listening to this CD here and there, a bit every day, and then I look up and my oldest has grown out of her clothes again.  Thus the trip to the ARC for new t-shirts for spring.  Everything she picked out has the word peace on it, or a peace sign on it.

And her growing means that her little sister inherited her big sister's clothes, and when she put them on, I notice how long and lean her body is getting, how beautiful and serious and hilarious and special she is, too.

We were in the car the other day and I laughed at this bumper sticker:

It says "2012" and something struck me as funny as listing your graduation date in this way (or your penchant for doomsday scenarios, I guess).  You're announcing to the nervous drivers around you that you're a senior in high school, for one thing, and for another it's a reminder that when you're 18 you feel like you will be 18 forever.

Addie interruptedmby laughter by reminding me her sticker will say 2022.  Otherwise known as the blink of an eye.