Moments of Being.

A few nights ago our family went roller skating at the local rink.

Skating is something I used to do with my dad every Sunday as a young child.  I can remember holding his hand and zooming around the rink - sometimes him pulling, sometimes me skating ahead.  I was able to roller skate from about the age of three because of these regular dates with my dad.  It was something I hoped to do with my own children one day.

It's funny because when things like this happen we so often miss it.

I did the first time we went.

It was a skating party for Michael's job and we were skating and while the thought crossed my mind - the memory of the skate dates - I wasn't really where I should have been.  I was worried about what Michael's boss would think of me and if I was as pretty as the other women there and how my kids were behaving and a myriad of other things.

The other night while we were skating things were different.

I hadn't wanted to go in the first place.  I was tired.  I wanted to have a date with just Maeryn and have Michael take Jonah skating.  I figured we'd bake cookies and paint our toenails and go to bed.  All I really wanted to do was go to bed - but when Maeryn found out Jonah and Michael were skating she wanted to go too, and so, reluctantly, I came along.

I'm so glad I did.

After zooming around with both kids in turn I took a break on the bleacher seating scattered around the outside of the rink and just watched.  I saw Michael holding Maeryn's hands and pulling, her laughing, Jonah skating all on his own in slow, steady strides - so determined... and I realized - maybe for the first time consciously - that I was here.

All that stuff I wished and dreamed about as a kid - thoughts about having my own husband and family and children...  I'm HERE.  I have it.  Moments have been slipping by and I've been looking at things as "just another day" - and yet, I'm living something I only dreamed about years before.  I have this beautiful family and these incredible relationships and it was all slipping through my fingers and the other night everything just clicked into place.

It hasn't stayed that way.

Living in the moment is still a fleeting beautiful shimmer for me...but the shimmers are not quite so evanescent as before.

When we finished skating we went to Target and I bought Root Beer and French vanilla ice cream and Michael bought LEGOs and we came home and had Root Beer floats and built LEGOs and I enjoyed myself.  I LOVED life.  I lived right where I was.  I touched and tasted and felt the Right Now.  It was a good space to live in. 

Tonight I'm drinking tea and listening to the sounds of Michael's guitar wafting up the stairs from the basement and thinking about how in six minutes I'm going to be sitting with Jonah who will be doing homework - not because I'm asking him to do it, but because he wants to do it and how Maeryn is watching Rainbow Brite on Netflix and how that is such a lovely full circle feeling - thinking back on me and skating with my dad and my Rainbow Brite leg-warmers and my little girl tap shoes and looking at my own little girl in hers...  These are moments that make our lives = Life.