Tonight

This afternoon, I came home from school and poured a Diet Coke into a Christmas cup. My son started watching his current favorite show, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and my daughter joined a video call with her two best friends. I turned on the Christmas tree, then sliced butter and tossed it in a pan and put it in the oven to melt while I mixed different kinds of Chex cereal with peanuts and all the pretzel sticks my son hadn’t already eaten (there weren’t many). 

Today, our governor closed school through the end of December, starting Monday. I feel uncertain and determined to fill this time with every joyful thing available to me. I put the Chex Mix in the oven and then mixed a batch of the best chocolate chip cookies.

Right now, I spend so much time worrying about what’s going on in the world. The world changes in flashes before my eyes, and I’m trying to process it all and figure out how to help, but I feel insignificant, ill-equipped, and lonely. I’m not even sure where to start.

Last night, I finished reading This Time Next Year by Sophie Cousens. Near the end, she wrote these lovely lines: “She picked up a perfect red leaf from the ground, examining the intricate pattern of vessels mapping its thin surface. So beautiful, yet only created to last such a short time before its role on this planet was over, and it would decay into mulch. An unremarkable existence, and yet to look at it--how remarkable.”

If Sophie Cousens is right, and every unremarkable life is remarkable in its own way, maybe what makes it remarkable are the times we get out of our own heads and let our lives touch and help others.

Tomorrow, I won’t be snapping the world into shape, but I’m making cookies and I’ll be handing them out. I’ll be signing the cards to let people at work know they are loved. I’ll be kissing two little people good night every night and hanging on their words as they recite poetry and show me breakdancing moves. I’ll be listening to what the students at school say about their classes, their workloads, their worries as they approach a long stretch at home. I’ll be smiling with my eyes at each one as they pass me in the mornings. I’ll be pressing books in the hands of people I know. I’ll be praying without ceasing.

Today, I may be sad and a little scared. But tomorrow, I can start where I am and create all the joy I can for the remarkable lives I encounter.

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