A Coffee Shop Lesson

Today, I’m sitting at my favorite coffee shop on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, blaming an elderly couple for my lack of productivity.  I have a soy latte and the crumbs of a pretzel croissant I devoured with no self-control sitting on a plate next to my laptop.  Jackhammers are making their own ruckus music between piles of dirty snow outside.  Two baristas are going back and forth between conversations with each other and serving the sporadic stream of customers stomping in the door.  When I look out the window I see buildings across the street that are the kind that initially won my heart for this city -- weathered brick, chipped mint green paint on fire escapes, intricate detail wrapped like a ribbon half way up the side.  When the splash of a yellow taxi is waiting at the stop light in front of them, the picture is quintessential New York City – and I have to remind myself I’m here and not just looking at a post card.

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Dear Norah

Dear Norah,

You started preschool this week.  Which is weird because I feel like I just found out I was pregnant with you like a month ago.  I don’t know what your vision of preschool has been, but it’s one of only two consistent things you have asked for over the past year.  (The other being a pony tail.  I’m sorry, sweetie.  If I could make your hair grow any faster, I would.  But that gift is just coming slowly, which I think is a gift to me.  I need to learn how to do hair before you have enough to do.)

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Weeding & Finishing Journals

I have a problem.  It might not be viewed as a problem for others, but it’s a problem for me.  I’m going to call it “my unfinished journal” problem.  You see, I have an entire box (let’s be honest – several boxes) full of unfinished journals from throughout my life.  For as long as I can remember I’ve kept a journal.  And for as long as I can remember I have never filled all the pages of a journal.  I start out motivated, but if I miss a few days or weeks and then sit down to write again it feels like weeds have grown over and I’m just not a gardener so I let them grow, toss the journal in to a box and start fresh.  This blog is hanging on the brink of becoming yet another unfinished journal. And if I hadn’t told people about it I think I’d find a way to tuck it neatly in to a virtual unfinished journal box and let the weeds take over.

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Transition

I’ve sat down to write this post probably ten times in the last year.  Each time I get a bit of my heart spilled on the page and then stop in my tracks, wondering if that’s really what I wanted to say.  I put it away a few months ago and I’ve just been reflecting and praying about what God has taught me through this transition.  What I’ve realized is that these are the same lessons He has taught me over and over through the past several years. Last month we celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary.  Nine years.  I’ve loved most of the parts of every one of them.  But this one felt different than the others.  Nine is not a significant number as far as anniversaries go.  There is no “9 Years!” slot in the anniversary card section at Hallmark.  It’s more of a stepping stone to the milestone anniversaries to come.  But I soon realized that this is the first anniversary we’ve celebrated without some big change on the horizon.  We’re not moving, no one in our family is starting school or a new job, and no new babies will be joining this family in the next 9 months.

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