Rewriting the ish

“It smells like candy out here, Mommy.” The country air dripping in honeysuckle breezes, I breath in deep; she is right. Like candy.

No time to savor or investigate the source, clock is ticking, motor running, day already spinning. Candy-air and chasing rabbits will have to wait. again. I am weary of the sweets of life deferred, insides screaming for the spinning to slow. Oh, we have been here before, haven’t we? This ebb and flow of simple to busy, busy to frantic, frantic to burn-out, and back again. Will the lesson ever be fully learned? Recalling Ann’s words– the ones God used to awaken me three years ago- I can’t help but wonder. Will life ever be fully carried in our unhurried hands for longer than just a season? Hurry always empties the soul…and I wonder how it is I can even wonder after the emptiness filling me up. It is plain in front of me: the counters scattered with schoolwork and mail, the car littered with the debris of tardiness, the excess of my words, “Go, Now, Hurry, No.” And it is no wonder.

Our life, our choices, our family…on paper, goodness, it looks good. And it is good…ish.

Perfection’s lie set aside, I can’t shake the knowledge within: we don’t have to live with the ish. Good is there to be had. And the Good of one season, may be the ish of another. Flexibility, pliability, the bending of will and fear – all tools required for extracting the ish out of our Good. In steps of seeking, of faith, we make new choices; start writing new chapters of our life. Will the new be better? Will souls stop leaking life through holes poked in hurry? I honestly don’t know. But we pray and we seek and we chase…we ask…What is it we need to rewrite our good-ish to good? For our family, slowness is key. In the slowness, we hear one another, we see God around us, notice He made the air smell like candy, just for us. But slowness, it requires of me. Almost more organization and for sure more surrender; yes it asks big of my prone to wander…But in the slowness, words land softer, smiles linger longer, and Joy amidst the reality of bickering siblings and clogged toilets, is deep and it is real. Slow is the crusher of ish.

There are plot lines from our life’s new chapter that push me, even scare a little. Still, I can already feel the emptiness begin to empty out, knowing we aren’t settling for another season of the getting by, of the okay. This chasing down of the sun, the seeking after the Good, it is with my people- we are in it together. And goodness…It sure smells like candy.