supposed to be

I’m supposed to be doing so many things.

But I object. I want to slow down. To remember, be grateful, create. To push the “pause” button on life and just love it.

Do you ever look back at your life and see days, moments, that are simply golden, the sweet memories that you will always hang on to?

I think of a magical picnic to celebrate my birthday last June, where Jessina packed a charming lunch basket and Jess and I danced in the lake (yes, in the lake) and time seemed to slow down, just for a moment. Or reverse. It was an old-fashioned girlhood kind of day; made more wonderful by the quiet beauty of the woods and lake and by four friends who, like me, sometimes wish they lived in other decades.

I remember sitting on a patch of grass under the starry sky and singing to our heart’s content with the same lovely Jess.

An impromptu sleepover with Melody where we were as giddy as six-year-olds.

Moments when friends have just been there and loved on me – Mel and Rachel hugging me while I was inconsolable over something, not minding that I was doing the ugly cry and they couldn’t actually fix anything – but just being there and loving me anyway.

Coaxing Katie into seeing Wicked with me – and being utterly shocked, as I usually am when my coaxing works, when she agreed to get standing-room tickets and watch it.

So many moments with the small one: the way she exudes little-girl love and gifts of drawings and shiny stones; the way her eyes open wide when she laughs, the way she lets me just hold her and cuddle her sometimes and the nights that she tucks me in at night because I go to bed first and she likes to feel grown-up.

The eight girls in my Bible study who I’ve fallen in love with, hard, this past year. So many moments and memories and laughing and talking and hugging.

A picnic in the arboretum just a few weeks go, good conversation and quietness and watching the stars come out and a movie. In the midst of a stressful and confused few days, it was a lovely moment of peace and rest and delight.

Walking into Philadelphia from the train station to my first internship last summer, wearing heels and watching the summer sun glint off the tall buildings and a skyline that I love. I felt old and young and absolutely charmed to have the opportunities that I did; that I delighted in my morning walks and the wildflowers I counted on the way to my office.

When I hit a note in voice lessons that I never thought I could, and my teacher looked at me with amusement. I told you you are a soprano. You just need to believe me. 

The dizzying whirl of my first successful viennese waltz two weekends ago. I was horrible and tripping over Robbie at every turn, but I didn’t fall down and I somehow stayed on my feet and he didn’t end up just carrying (dragging?) me across the floor the way Seidle graciously did last time. It felt fun and elegant (and who cares how it looked?) and I was glowing.

My first pair of point shoes, and the incredible number of connotations that has. Rite of passage into womanhood. Clumsiness and frustration. The smallest size anyone ever makes, because apparently I have such a high natural arch that my already tiny foot becomes even tinier when I stand on pointe.

The first time a boy – who I really, really wanted to call me – actually did.

People. Conversations. Friends who know you better than yourself, who you realize with a sudden surprise that you know their heart almost as well as you know your own – and they know yours. Jessina and I pointing out things about each other and understanding each other and laughing at the horribly uncomfortable confusion of life together last night.

The moments when something happens to briefly turn a room of strangers into a room of friends, and we smile at each other and laugh and think that people are wonderful.

Is “thank you” even sufficient for all this grace, beauty, love?