how to let the fruit ripen

Full confession: our kitchen fruit basket is where produce goes to die.

Maybe you have this problem, too. Each trip to the grocery store finds the counter fully stocked with too-firm bananas, too-green avocados, the occasional treat of a peach or pear waiting to be savored.

Early in the week I find myself hovering over the bowl, waiting for the fruit to be ready. But before I know it, bananas become spotted and soft, avocados squishy and dark, the precious peach or pear ready to rot.

It seems to take so long for the fruit to ripen, but if I’m not careful I miss my chance to enjoy it.

There’s metaphor hidden here, heaped upon the privileged problem of having so much food that it can go to waste. But when I meditate on this Sunday’s Gospel - the parable of the barren fig tree – the deepest truth it speaks to my life right now is patience.

Patience towards ripening fruit.

I look at these little boys running around my house, knocking into my knees and climbing all over my couches. It can be so hard to stay present to them, not to pull forward to days when we’ll be able to have two-sided conversations or leave the house for a whole afternoon without needing naps. Sometimes I want them to ripen quickly so I can enjoy them fully.

But I know this season of green, of tenderness, of waiting to burst into bloom is a fleeting time. I know that too soon they will be more than ready to wrestle out of my reach and rush into a world ripe for their discovery.

I don’t want to hover over them too closely or hold them too tightly. But I do want to witness their maturing and unfolding, not miss it in the blur of my impatience, always straining to see what’s next around the corner.

I want to cultivate patience towards their slow but certain growth.

. . .

This week I’m posting over at Practicing Families - a wonderful new resource for parents interested in exploring faith with children – with ideas for a family liturgy based on this Sunday’s fig tree gospel.

Simple practices to break open a parable about patience and forgiveness and second chances. Lessons I need to learn and relearn each day of this parenting journey.

Each day that I sigh and wonder why the fruit hasn’t ripened yet.

God, be patient with us as we grow good fruit.
Open our eyes to see how we are growing each day.
God, be patient with us as we grow good fruit.
Help us to forgive one another when we fail.
God, be patient with us as we grow good fruit.
Let us offer each other second chances.
God, be patient with us as we grow good fruit.
Wait patiently with us as we work to bear fruit.
God, be patient with us as we grow good fruit.

(a prayer for the Third Week of Lent)

when we all add up

31 + 31 + 3 + 1 

He’s obsessed with numbers now. All he wants to do is stand at his easel and scribble numerals in chalky pastel, then furrow his brow and punch the digits into his cash register.

Adding and subtracting have transformed his small world into an explosion of equations. He begs us to fill up the chalkboard or the paper with long strings of numbers he can add together. Then he greets the familiar ones as old friends.

70…that’s Papa’s age. 22 is my favorite song on the CD. 50 is for 50 states. 28 is the date.

This is how the world makes sense to him right now, at the still-small stage of 3.5. Neatly ordered by numbers, waiting to be added or subtracted at the touch of his fingers pounding the calculator keys.

It’s not my language – I love words and art and music – but I try to meet him there. (And try to remind myself as I struggle to scrape together interesting-enough equations to delight him dawn till dusk, that words and art and music sing with numbers all their own.)

But when he tires of adding up all the units of measurement I know and the phone numbers I can remember and the street numbers of family addresses and the birth dates of old friends, I always default to this one:

31 + 31 + 3 + 1

All the ages under this roof. Two parents, two kids. Added up together.

For a brief moment in time, our ages are caught up in a numerical anagram: they in us and we in them.

Back when my boy started this obsession with numbers, I realized for the first time that our ages would be patterned like this for a few short months. I’m no math whiz myself, so when I tried to calculate if and when this might happen again in our lifetimes, my brain got bored and slipped into pondering the grocery list. Suffice it to say, it seems a rare occurrence. (The left-brained engineer at my elbow agrees.)

But the rarity seems right for now – this slender sliver of a season when our lives are so intimately, bodily, exhaustingly bound up with each other. These months (because we still measure in months) when we’re still a clump of a family unit, not yet stretched by the sprawl of adolescents who strain to pull as far away as they can, or redefined by a Rolodex with separate entries for every adult child’s address.

Right now we’re all bound up together. 31 + 31 + 3 + 1.

Our two boys are their own selves, to be sure. But they are still so wrapped up in us, and we in them. Sometimes when these two squirmy worms are wriggling all over the couch and each other and my lap and the book we’re trying to read, I find myself wondering where each of us starts and the other ends.

Parenting brings about a strange and profound redefinition of self. You are at once the same person you always were and a new creation, birthed by the child before you. Magazines warn you not to lose yourself in the exhaustion of new motherhood, yet you can’t help but stare at the bleary-eyed stranger in the mirror and wonder what happened to the girl you once were.

And yet there is something of you in them, something of your younger self that glimmers back in their eyes or frown or laughter. You see your spouse in their smile, too, and bits of others in the shimmering hologram that is a child: the spitting image of grandma in this light, an uncle’s twin in that photo.

You catch your breath when you see it, and then it’s gone.

31 + 31 + 3 + 1. Scribbled on his dusty chalkboard, these numbers speak truth of this fleeting stage when we are so easily glimpsed in one another. When we are so closely linked to those who surround us.

When we all add up together.

how i nurture my mothering spirit – roxane

The Healing Powers of the Pot Roast

In the early part of November 2012, I experienced a profound moment of healing by spoon.

It functioned like salve on my weary mother’s soul – a bowl of pot roast made by my sweet mother-in-law.

She’d prepared the roast and its accompanying vegetables in her Crockpot the night before, the overnight simmering of soup and juices from the meat producing a scrumptious gravy that would have had world-class chefs swooning.

While the rest of my family was occupied in other spaces – the youngest of them splashing in a nearby hotel pool – I’d found a moment to steal away into the quiet of our dining room to eat what was left of the roast, most of which had been nearly completely devoured earlier by hungry men.

Sitting in the dimly-lit room, breathing deeply, slowly now, I prepared to consume the first homemade meal I’d had in months.

Comfort food, they call it, and this moment made it true for me. With each delectable bite, restoration was beginning.

For nearly a year I’d been trying to do the impossible, working outside the home with five kids still needing so much more of me than I could offer with my attention elsewhere.

But now, after weeks of discernment, I’d made the difficult decision to resign from what had seemed, by all accounts, my dream job. It would mean giving up a paycheck that had lightened our financial load but brought extra responsibilities that weighed down my heart, causing my middle child to utter one day, “You’re not a being a mom anymore.”

I’d done what I could to rearrange the pieces of my life to accommodate all, but came up short. The emotional, spiritual and even physical effects were manifesting themselves, and I had to ask myself whether the job was worth risking an illness that could remove me from life altogether.

Ironically, the kitchen, which I consider the heart of the home, was a room I avoided like the plague during that year. I knew that if I entered, I wouldn’t make it out without depleting the extra energy I needed to push through my busy days.

Fast food had become normal; my oven, a neglected appliance. The dining room was a place to linger only as long as was necessary to gulp down a slice of pizza or a burger.

But sitting before that bowl of real food made with loving hands, placed gently in a warmer and transported 120 miles to our home earlier that day, had reintroduced me to the place where my heart longed most to be.

A few days after leaving the job, I prepared my own slow-cooked meal, and as I scooped out portions to each family member, a surge of love and joy took hold. I was ready now to feed my family, both in food and through my presence in ways that had not been possible for far too long.

And in the midst of it, I became aware that if not for that wonderfully nourishing meal several weeks earlier, the moment would have passed unappreciated. In that gift of warm sustenance, I’d been given a poignant reminder that we cannot offer others something we haven’t first taken in ourselves.

In doing whatever is necessary to create space in our days to ensure we’re nourished, we’ll have something to offer back those we love. And they, in turn, will give to others when it’s time.

A potato, a carrot, a tender chunk of meat – the healing powers of the pot roast.

A bowl full of love that wooed me back to life.

. . .

Roxane Salonen lives in Fargo, N.D., with her husband and five children, ages seven to 17. A church cantor, book reader and coffee drinker, she also works as a faith columnist and features writer for her city’s daily newspaper.

Roxane is the author of two children’s picture books – First Salmon and P is for Peace Garden: A North Dakota Alphabet. Find her pondering on “faith, family and following the muse” at Peace Garden Mama: roxanesalonen.blogspot.com/

requiem for a nap

I loved you truly, madly, deeply for three and a half years.

And now you’ve abandoned me.

It wasn’t an abrupt breakup, not the kind that knocks the wind out of your chest by its utter shock and surprise. No, you snuck away slowly over time. Disappeared for a day or two, then returned again, feigning faithfulness, smiling slyly as you assured me you’d stick around this time.

But as the weeks wound by, you grew more and more distant till you slipped away completely, only a fleeting glimpse of the stranger we once knew. And your leaving for good was just as harsh, just as cruel as any heartbreak I’ve ever wailed to mourn.

I’m left to learn how to live without you.

I tried to fling myself at the imposters and suitors that sometimes sauntered round to fill your void: Catnap, Car Nap, Quiet Time. But none of them could take your place, the beautiful hours of sweet silence we used to share together.

Oh, Nap. Dear beloved Nap. You were my standby, my stalwart, my savior. Some days, you were my everything.

So what now? How do I fill the ache left by your absence?

Each afternoon we mourn your loss, each in our own way. I whine to anyone who will listen; he wails and whimpers to the four walls of his bedroom where he’s been banished, where he waits without your soothing presence.

ALL DONE! he laments in loud protestation.

Me, too, sighs my sanity. Me, too.

on surprises: lenten and papal

For over a week, half a post for Ash Wednesday sat waiting for me to finish it. And it started like this:

Anyone else feel like the gentle green of Ordinary Time just got yanked out from under their feet, and now they’re sitting plop in the purple of Lent, scratching their head and wondering how we got here so fast?

Is it even allowed to be Mardi Gras before Valentine’s Day?

Or am I the only anxious one who still has Christmas thank-yous on her to-do list?

From whence it wandered into ramblings about how maybe the fact that the dates for Easter and Lent change every year keeps us on our toes, on edge even, makes us more mindful or less likely to lull into complacency.

Which bumped into Scriptural allusions about how you know neither the day nor the hour.

(Which was apparently going to wrap back round to parenting or family life or something else that this blog claims to be about.)

But then we all woke up to the papal game-changer of the century (or rather, six centuries) and the looming start of Lent seemed even more surprising as we all sat around puzzling and pontificating (ha) about how we could possibly have a new pontiff by the time these forty days finished.

So now what are we supposed to do, I wondered. I thought about scrapping this post completely. But then it struck me that if this news is the Hayley’s Comet of ex cathedra announcements, I better scrape together two words about an all-points-bulletin Catholic news story that will surely never come again in my lifetime.

And that was precisely when it hit me:

Perhaps the early Ash Wednesday and the unexpected announcement from Benedict aren’t so far apart after all.

Both remind us of mortality, a sobering reminder that we are all dust and to dust we shall return.

Both mark the beginning of a time of great change, a season of renewal.

Both capture the popular imagination in surprising ways.

Ever try to find a parking spot at an Ash Wednesday service five minutes before it starts? Good luck. Catholic churches are crammed on this unofficial holy day. Every year I notice more and more people packed into the pews. Something about this simple penitential practice, this smear of ash on foreheads, touches us deeply.

Ditto Benedict’s decision. Sure, yesterday was full of ignorant chatter and conspiracy theories and snarky Catholic jokes. But it was also full of surprising resonance, of reporters and religion professors and regular church-goers agreeing that resignation could be wise, that retirement could be well-deserved, that respect was due to a powerful leader who knew when to step down, when to take leave of a calling that was ending.

It’s the eve of ashes, and it all feels surprising. But it’s always jarring when death interrupts life, isn’t it? When reminders of mortality upend our neatly planned calendars of The Way Things Are Supposed to Go?

Weren’t we were just waving our palms to welcome him in? Are they really so quickly burned to ash again?

becoming brothers

They’re discovering each other, finally.

Oh, they bumped into each other for well over a year. There were the Months of Glaring At the Loud Newborn followed by the Months of Stealing Everything from The Helpless Baby. The Months of “Did-You-Hit-Your-Brother-No-It-Was-An-Accident” followed by the months of “Mama-Make-Him-Not-Play-With-That-Toy-I-Need-It-Right-Now!”

Months full of angry slaps and indignant wails and gritted teeth and time outs. Months when I rolled my eyes at the Facebook feed of perfect photos of doting siblings gazing adoringly at new babies, months when I muttered “mmm…must be nice…” while fellow mothers rhapsodized about how beautifully their newly-two were getting along.

I’d look at my boys and wonder when – or if – the proverbial love would ever be lost between them.

And then, of course, it started right under my nose when I wasn’t looking.

Suddenly it was the baby’s second winter and we were stuck indoors for January’s cruel string of sub-zero days and I glanced up from my laundry pile in the basement to make sure no one was bleeding and I realized they were playing together. Interacting instead of ignoring, sharing instead of stealing, playing instead of pushing.

They jumped together on the trampoline, one up and the other down, then both bopped in time together, sparkling eyes on two grinning faces as they popped like carnival whack-a-moles. “Mama! We’re bouncing!” called the oldest; “Up! Up!” echoed the youngest as he fell over, chuckling.

Now they’re full of giggles and goofy words and silly games. Sure, they still steal toys and wail indignantly and hit in frustration. But they also laugh their heads off together. And I can’t help but laugh with them.

I love watching them become brothers.

. . .

Back when I was reading all those books about labor and delivery for the first time, I never realized I’d be birthing more than a baby.

I was so focused on my impending motherhood, on how this scrawny, slippery newborn was going to subvert the world as I knew it, that I neglected to realize how many other lives were going to change, too. How when I brought that baby into the world, I would also be birthing a grandchild, a nephew, a cousin – so many relationships born in that same instant.

And when I prepared to birth my second, I was equally clueless about the sea change that a sibling would bring. Sure, I knew it would shift our family dynamic, scramble the focus of attention, stretch the scope of love and patience that each day would demand.

But I never realized how long it would take my two to start growing into brotherhood.

By definition it happened in an instant, but by practice it stumbled slowly. Maybe every tried-and-true relationship is like that, fumbling, faltering through fits and starts, but plodding on, persistently, even painfully.

. . .

Most of us will end up knowing our siblings longer than anyone else. Longer than our parents, longer than our spouses, longer than our own children. “Your oldest friend,” my mother used to remind us as we glared at each other across the dinner table or banged shoulders in a huff on the way out the door to school, likely muttering to ourselves about not getting stuck with that loser as our oldest friend.

And now? Of course I see it’s true. That despite the twists and turns that our lives are taking, often away from each other, whether geographically or emotionally, my siblings remain stubbornly close. We share much of the same history, the same relationships, the same sense of humor. We can’t help but come back to each other every so often, to laugh and remember how surprisingly similar we remain despite our deep differences.

Maybe this is what it means to become brothers: to go through seasons of ignoring or hating or fighting or shunning or shoving, but to come back to the stubborn truth that you’re stuck with each other. They’re not going anywhere and neither are you, and if you’re going to share the same roof or parents or piles of toys, you better learn how to get along.

And sometimes even laugh your head off, too.

nurture your mothering spirit – kate

This winter I find myself not just a mama, but a pregnant mama.

This two-fold mothering is more exhausting than I ever would have imagined, and I find myself struggling, especially in the depths of winter, to find ways to nurture my mothering spirit.

What works best for me is to dabble in a variety of ways, allowing my energy level to determine what fits best at any given time. As a religious person, I find that each of these ways is also prayer for me.

1. I write. Writing helps me get my emotions out on paper (or on the screen, as the case may be). I write to my daughter in a notebook I started when I was pregnant with her; I write in another notebook for the baby that grows inside me now. I write blog posts, intimate emails, and personal journal entries. Every day, I write.

2. I sing. Throughout my life, song has been the most profound vehicle for expressing what lies deep in my heart. Psalms and table songs from Christian liturgy resonate with me, bringing back years of memories. In my sung memories, I find solace and hope.

3. I read. I read my daughter’s favorite books aloud, savoring each word and basking in her joy. I read for my own pleasure, taking a half an hour on public transit or an hour after work (when my husband is up for it!) to do nothing but steep myself in a story or an idea.

4. I create art. A dear friend of mine introduced me to collage journaling recently, so I have saved scraps of this and that for creating page after page of colorful, multi-layered visual art. I also sketch, albeit poorly, and sometimes my favorite art is the kind I make with crayons on plain paper with my daughter.

5. I walk. In particular, I love to walk in areas bursting with trees, whether residential neighborhoods or forests. I love the scent of life long-lived, a smell even winter can’t break. The shadows cast by tree branches comfort me, and the light that dances around the shadows delights me.

6. I  take pictures. I remember one snowy winter evening in my childhood when I went outside, armed with a film camera (digitals didn’t exist back then!), and I snapped photos of my backyard. The sinking sun glowed red and pink and orange, casting sparkling hues off the untouched waves of snow. I managed to capture startling beauty with that little camera of mine. Even now, when I am outside, I look for small wonders. When I seek them, they find me.

7. I practice hospitality. There is only one thing I  love more than dinner with my family: sharing a family dinner with guests. I love bringing the sacred liturgy of meal-sharing into my home, sharing the stories, tastes, touches, sounds, smells, and sights with dear friends. I love the preparation, the extra care, the special recipes, the ability to pull together a rich, familiar, memorable feast.

8. I laugh. And this is one of the many ways I know I married The One, because my husband manages to make me laugh every single day. He is particularly good at getting me laugh when I am grumpy (and as a tired mama, grumpiness develops more often than I’d  care to admit). In addition to the laughter that my hubby miraculously inspires, I have voice messages saved from my best friend who, in the first three seconds of any message she leaves, produces some bit of unique silliness that has me chortling for hours.

9. I pray to G-d as Divine Mother, Daughter, and the Love that binds them, reimagining the Holy Trinity as a wholly feminine Presence. (In keeping with Jewish tradition, which I greatly revere, I do not write out the vowels for the names of G-d.) I also love the metaphor of G-d as Father and Son, but by praying to G-d as Mother and Daughter, I find myself immediately and overwhelmingly in profound understanding of the way G-d is in relationship to the world. If G-d loves Her Daughter the way I love mine, I can imagine no greater source of awesome wonder.

These are some of my favorite ways to honor my holy, marvelous role as a mama without forgetting the rich person I was before I became a mama. Even in winter, if I take a moment for myself in one of these ways, I end up enveloped in warmth and light.

. . .

Kate Allen is a Christian mother of two: one outside the womb and one still in the womb. She writes about her mommying at Corn Dog Mama and writes about all her other favorite subjects at Life Love Liturgy.  She has an M.A. in Liturgy and Scripture from Saint John’s School of Theology*Seminary in Collegeville, Minnesota. 

the winter hill: God speaks in seasons

Every year I try to love winter. A little bit, at least, as much as a Midwesterner ought. I usually fail, flounder by February with dramatic declarations about how much I hate snow and sub-zero temps and skin cracked so dry it bleeds.

But this year I’m trying to be humbled by the cold dark, trying to see what I can learn from stark outlines of bare trees against white skies.

Maybe it’s because I have new views from windows to notice this year, or because the winter has been (mostly) light on snow. But I find myself drawn to the dark lines of the landscape around me, the hills that slowly emerged as leaves blew away last fall.

When we moved here in the spring, the homes around us were hidden behind green trees and lush grass and rows of shrubs. Our new house was tucked into a corner of a hill with woods behind, and I marveled at the soft roll of the land as we walked through the neighborhood. But until winter stripped the yards bare, I didn’t realize how dramatic the hills leapt up around us, how many more I could spy from our upstairs window than I ever imagined when they were hidden in summer’s lush leaves.

At first I felt silly about discovering the hills six months after we moved in. What had I thought was underneath the rising sweep of trees around the road’s bend? But I couldn’t follow the fullness of the line until it was traced white with snow, the hills rolling higher and reaching further than my summer eyes could see.

Every morning now I rise to watch the hills, still surprised to them wrapping around me in this new place I call home.

. . .

I notice God in seasons. The surprise of springtime buds after the long winter, promised and delivered. The lush drench of summer green, fertile and waiting. The burst of autumn leaves, brilliant and fleeting. The hushed blanket of winter snow, stilling and silencing.

I find that God speaks differently as the seasons turn. However I feel or see or hear God at the time, whether in whispers or in silence, in laughter or in wind, it seems amplified by the world outside and echoed in the land around me. Like the shimmer of a summer lake in the brightness of morning or the cold blue dark of white stars scattered in fall’s night sky. God’s voice becomes warmer or colder, soaked or dry, brightly colored or drabbed in grey.

If I open my eyes, if I pause to look around, I am surprised every single time to find God there, outside as well as within, fuller than I expected.

. . .

Lately as I watch the hills, the words of Wendell Berry sift through my mind:

The hill is like an old woman, all her human obligations met, who sits at work day after day, in a kind of rapt leisure, at an intricate embroidery. She has time for all things. Because she does not expect ever to be finished, she is endlessly patient with details. She perfects flower and leaf, feather and song, adorning the briefest life in great beauty as though it were meant to last forever.

(from MaryAnn McKibben Dana’s Sabbath blog)

I love the image of God as the hill – the old woman resting in pure delight of her craft. Working and waiting. Patient and at peace. Resting in the beauty of the moment around her.

When the world presses in with its frantic whirling, I find stillness and strength in this image of the hills: God’s steady, quiet witness to our lives rolling on around the strong, silent center.

She has time for all things. I wonder if this is what draws my eyes to the hills this winter: a longing for more time, deeper time, fuller time. For a God whose strong silence stills the racing worry of my own heart and mind.

For a God whose depth and width and breadth I can only start to trace when the world around me grows cold and dark.

cores and edges

It’s one in the morning, the bleary-eyed hour. He’s up crying for me and only me, no other consolation will suffice. I stumble across the dimly lit hall, make my way to his bed where he sits with tousled hair and wet eyes, sniffling in the dark. I need you to stay! he wails into my arms. Mama, I need you to stay with me!

Inwardly I groan, already tired from up-too-late working, craving the warmth of my own bed. I know he won’t fall asleep with me next to him; I know his brother won’t have anyone to hear his cries if I drift off here without the monitor. But I can’t say no to the sobs of a small boy. I curl beside him and pull his heaving chest close. You’re okay, I soothe as I stroke his messy hair. It’s all fine now.

But of course he doesn’t rest.

His antsy arms wiggle in and out of blankets, legs thrash back and forth as he rolls around trying to get comfortable. In the delusional mind games of nighttime parenting, I convince myself that if I can model peace and quiet, it will be contagious. So I lie there, still and silent, breathing deeply in and out, willing him to sleep.

It doesn’t work. (It never does.)

I lie there next to his tossing and turning as his feet kick against my shins, his knees poke into my stomach, his elbows bang into my arms. I’m tired, too! I want to complain. But I stay still, my body perched on the edge of his bed, a straight and solid line, and I think about what it means to be the edge.

He has to push against me – kick and thrash and push and roll away – and these nighttime jabs, innocent and innocuous, are only the beginning. Because that is how the child defines himself against the parent: you are the edge, I am my own core. Only if I push against you do I learn the limits of myself.

. . .

Two hours later, his brother awakens in the room next to mine. It’s been ages since we’ve been up in the wee hours like this, but we’re traveling, I’m solo-parenting, everything is topsy-turvy. So of course I pull him close when I see his chubby arms outstretched, wailing mama! mama!

I sigh, snuggle back into the bed with him, snarl at the clock’s laser red reminding me just how little sleep tonight will bring. Again I break a long-set rule and let him nurse mid-night, anything to soothe so quickly. It’s strange and simple all at once, this nursing of a toddler, reminding me how fleeting babyhood flies, yet lingers far beyond first steps and words. He’s still not far from newborn days but every day he inches further.

Struggling to stay awake, I watch him rest there lying in my lap, his arms lazily grazing my shoulder, his legs trailing off around my middle, his feet curling round my back. Now he is the edge and I am the core. He wraps around my self for comfort; I am again the source of life and warmth. He is the one I push against now, wanting to be finished, sleeping, away, alone. But he reminds me that this mama work always calls me back to core: do what is simple, loving, present.

This is how I define myself against my child: I must rest here at the core, heart’s center from which you must push away to become your own. Only if I stay here can you become your own strong edge.

And only if I stay here can I learn the strength within myself.

. . .

Cores and edges.

Maybe family is just that. Always jostling up against the jagged corners, then easing back into smooth centers. Always struggling to define ourselves against the other, then grateful for the comfort of the core that knows us best.

We push and pull, resist and return, stretch and surrender. We need and we need from each other and we never stop needing. The needing changes as seasons turn, of course; sometimes we need to round ourselves into softer cores, sometimes we need to harden our hearts into tougher edges. But the give and take of learning to live together is just that – a give and take. Moulding each other, letting ourselves be moulded.

Learning when to push out into the edges. And when to pull into the core.

there & back again: one morning’s walk

I feel their smiles press upon us as we pass, their sunglassed faces turning down to see my son lounge in his stroller, dangling his feet over the front bar as he babbles to the waves, a morning song to greet the dawn. We are all beach-roaming as the sun sneaks up, some strolling at a snail’s pace, others leaping by like nimble deer.

But everybody slows to smile at him.

I try to read their faces in the fleeting instant as we pass, white-haired women gripping their husband’s arms for steady footing in the sand, wrinkled men with the deep tans of seasoned snowbirds. They see my baby first – I am only his plodding handler at the helm – and he squints into the sun with sparkling grin for everyone that passes: bikers, joggers, walkers, wanderers.

I wonder what they see when they smile at him. Distant memories of their own once-mop-topped toddlers? Heartpangs for far-off grandbabies? A long-gone longing for children they never had? Amused annoyance at the awkward stroller that blocks their usual morning stroll?

I yawn as I shove the wheels through a stubborn stretch of sand, dreaming of the cup of tea left on the counter, still warm, still untouched as I whisked him out the door when morning sky began to lighten, to let the others sleep, the ones who did not stir before dawn like the youngest. Still, an early walk does good, awakens body with the mind and soul. Even if, like most of my mothering days, it was not the plan. Not what I expected.

I stop and stoop for shells as we comb the beach, the shiny blues and purples, pinks and greys that line the tide’s edge. Sometimes I’m so absorbed with staring at the sand below my feet, not wanting to miss a perfect one, that I nearly steer us into oncoming traffic. Other times I stare so far off to the horizon that I nearly wander us into the waves. Every time I find my way back by meeting the smiles of the elders we pass. The wise ones who walk with us.

I wonder what I will think and see when it’s my turn to walk the morning beach with wrinkled skin and whitened hair. Will I smile with fond remembrance at the parents that pass, offer a wry glance of sympathy or solidarity with their tired eyes? Or will I secretly delight that the dirty, needy, achy, sleepy days of early family life are gone, replaced by so many changing seasons that I barely remember back to the predawn cries, the whiny teething, the endless diapers?

I watch the women more closely, try to wonder myself into their eyes. Both, I think. I will be both. The nostalgic and the never-again. The wistful and the thankful.

Suddenly I find we’re near the point where we began. I stop, surprised, exclaim to the dark head of damp ringlets in the stroller seat below: Can you believe we’re already back? I thought we walked much so farther.

Still in disbelief, I turn back from where we came, scanning the line of trees dotting the beach to see how far we’d gone.

What did I miss when I was absorbed with everything flashing under my feet? Or when I lost myself in the distant horizon? What did I miss in the passing of the present?

It always seems shorter on the way back, doesn’t it?