I happened upon a husband/wife argument in the craft aisle at Walmart. Topic: money. I innocently wandered in their direction, amused to be privy to such a hot topic. He had the last word and as she pushed her cart past the center Hershey kiosk, a 2 pound bag was hurled into her cart as she sighed under her breath, "Chocolate's my only salvation."
She had me thinking, 'What's mine?'
I've been force-fed potential bitter news in recent days. Topic: health. It's hard to stomach the whole aging process; increased risk for disease, too high of this, not enough of that, fill in the blank. It's being 9 years old again at the dinner table. Feeding a family of seven on a modest one-income household looked a little like this: occasional chuck 'steak' dinner with a puddle of Heinz-57. My creatively efficient mother would throw that sucker on the grill and divide the tough leather slab into sevens. (For years into adulthood, I couldn't figure out what the big deal was about steak.) Needless to say, this meant for a long night at the kitchen table as Mom kept watch from her post at the sink, enforcing the 'finish your plate' rule. Among the moans and sighs at the thought of having to choke that stuff down, you could hear all the neighborhood kids having left their dinner tables to play Kick the Can, even ringing the doorbell to ask if we could play. Yet there I sat; one hand plugging my nose as I chewed and chewed and CHEWED on that grisly hunk of meat.
Muddy hands and a dozen pots in, it hits me yesterday: THIS is my salvation! This is where I forget the future and get lost in the present. This is MY sweet escape, my fort, my desert oasis, my chocolate kiosk. Time returns to a quiet pace and the hours tick by. I pause & thank God for my hands, my wheel, His dirt. And I chew.
