A Small Moments Day

It is only midmorning, but it is clearly a small moments day. The very best days are small moments day, those moments strung together like beads.

Ohio is experiencing a stretch of cool, sunny weather. Summer is my least favorite season, so when weather like this comes along, I revel in it. It stirs me to do things, even given my widely disparate levels of energy on any given day. I had the week's laundry washed and hung on the line before 9:00. It is drying now, the sun baking its freshness into the fibers. Before I headed to the library to pick up a reserved book, I mixed a batch of bread dough and left it to rise.

Laundry and bread and the energy to do both: small moments.

I walked to the library slowly, taking note of the neighborhood. At the house in the next block where three young girls live, the front walk was covered in colorful chalk swirls, the chalk still scattered on the walk. A hula hoop of the same bright colors was tossed down nearby, probably dropped last night when they were finally called in. A little further on, a grandmother in her bathrobe leaned over her front walk railing to gently chide her granddaughter, who was delighting in riding up and down the sidewalk. "You can't ride so far on your bike. I can't see you. You went too far."

Hula hoops, sidewalk chalk, and a little girl on her bike: small moments.

The Bobbs rode by on their bikes, coming from the downtown and our local Farmers Market. He called to me, "there's a few things left!" I waved my book at them. "I'm headed to the library. Lots of things left there!" Two blocks later, I ran into a local attorney who, like me, had just presided over mock trials at a summer camp for middle schoolers. We compared notes: middle schoolers never fail to surprise you.  (Neither of us could top the tale told by my good friend Scott, who was a judge last week. On direct, the prosecutor asked the coroner, "So, did anyone bring in any frozen girls that night?" Kids!)

Friends on bikes, calling to you, and a colleague on the street corner exchanging camper stories: small moments.

The book was waiting for me at the library. As I headed for home, I stopped at the Symphony office, one block up from the library. Warren was working. He had left while I was hanging laundry this morning, and we had not exchanged kisses, which we do whenever one of us leaves the house. So I stopped and saw his morning's work, and got my kiss.

A fresh book in hand and a kiss from Warren: small moments.

Since starting this, I have punched down the dough and shaped the two loaves for the second rising. I have new books waiting. Warren is back home.

Small moments all.

A small moments day. Crystal beads strung together on a fine wire, catching the light, catching the day.