Chicken Soup

 Reading: The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer

Listening to: The sounds of dinner cooking

Outside: Blue-gray skies threaten rain

The other day, my two-year-old son's grandfather informed me that my little boy does, in fact, like chicken soup. "He loves chicken soup," he said, and I was quietly and profoundly surprised. I don't know why I was surprised. Was it because I'm pretty much the only soup-eater in the house? Or because my daughter turns green when she sees a bowl of it? 

Sure enough, I gave him a bowl of Campbell's Cream of Chicken soup yesterday for lunch, and he devoured it. He was in his own little world of bliss.

Lena and Indiana, snack time - 
Summer 2022

And that was astounding to see. It really was. To see that pleasure on his face. This toddler whose mood swings are vast and furious and unpredictable, slurping away contently, tapping his little foot in the air.

For almost ten years, my life has been an endless round of laundry and Mom's Cafe - I am no longer the carefree girl who used to skip rope on Field Day and win; or the early-teenager who lost herself in Shel Silverstein's poetry; or the twenty-something woman who worked three jobs and studied university English classes. I am 40 now, and my life couldn't be more different: CBeebies and Play-Doh videos dominate the TV, replacing Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Used bundles of children's clothing pile into my Ebay shopping basket, replacing the Clark's shoes I used to buy. My fridge door and my mind has become a jumbled, highlighted schedule, with so many things to keep track of. My Writing Cave, decorated so carefully, has been a nursery for two years. (My creative process is now relegated to the confines of my bedroom.) 

I tidy up each morning's toddler toys, trains and trucks and blocks and dolls scattered like used artillery shells across the living room, only to tidy them again in the afternoon, again in the evening. I wash load after load after load of school uniforms, of winter gloves, towels and bedding. I am the unsung hero, the servant in the shadows, the angel of the house, invisible, making things bright and clean and neat again. 

It's a hell of a lot of work.

I guess, until the time comes that I am no longer spinning all of these plates in the air - my children, impossibly grown, taller than me and sipping their own coffees, fired up about studies or work or romance - I guess, until then, I must remember to Live In The Moment. To find my own chicken soup. 

Maybe it won't be the big things that I remember from this time in my life. Maybe loss has struck too hard, and those closest to me are fewer, and maybe my children are squabbling over the TV remote again. Maybe I'll burn dinner again. Probably. 

But maybe I'll remember, in all the chaos, between another load of laundry and the weight and heft of carrying my son all the way home from the grocery store because he doesn't want to walk but he doesn't want to go in the push-chair - maybe, just maybe, I'll remember how he made us laugh at the dinner table that evening; maybe I'll remember how my nine-year-old daughter helped me find a fork, or offered me a glittering stone, or loaned me her prized penguin stuffed animal as a Snuggle Buddy at bedtime. Or that sunset that splashed against the sky just right, like red waves on a red sea, stopping me in my tracks. Maybe I'll remember those tiny moments, so perfect in the imperfect lives we live. Those little chicken soups. 

I guess this is just to say, be sure to enjoy your chicken soup, whatever that is for you: a quiz show or a ski slope or towels fresh out of the dryer. The way your dog smiles at you when you get home. Take those little moments, the ones you think you'll forget, and enjoy the hell out of them. Drink deep.

Happy Friday, everyone.