Z Is For Zebra

There's been a little cabin fever in these parts. It can be expected around this time of the season each year. We might as well mark it on the calendar for it's anticipated timing. The roar of the holidays past, the hum of the daily and weekly routines a little mundane, both coupled with the pathetic gray looming above.

A little annual celebration, while distraction for a short while, was inevitably followed by the morning...a predictable somber wetness.

There's been enough bickering to drive any patient individual to remind him or herself to breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth, and to do so deeply and slowly at all times.

And on other days, said patient person declares, "To heck with the rain and chilly air outdoors. Layer up, waterproof yourselves: we're going to the beach. YES, the beach. Now."

And whaddya know. The beach guards it's promise of calming (ah hem, therapeutic), lapping waters, chilly salt-filled breezes, and a peace felt by no other wonder. It gives way to restored patience. As the rain pitter patters down, leaving momentary proof of it's drops on the ocean's otherwise calm blanket, I am reminded of Greater things. Contentment in the place and space known as here and now. Peace known as the Creator. Clearer Outlook understood as the reminder from Above.

These things, in the chill of a mid-January morning make the lack-of-feeling in one Mama's toes after dipping them (yes, still rubber booted) in the great open sea, a fleeting concern.

There's been an (anticipated) slowing in the world of referrals (again) which likely contributed to this "I'm going to lose my ever loving mind" morning. Perhaps. No, certainly. The inner-thoughts of "I cannot wait to hear two small boys and one small girl bickering together. I wonder how it will be. I wonder when it will be. I cannot wait for it to be," become a phenomenon which will certainly, in it's own time, reverberate within our four walls.

And won't that be one sweet day.

Until then. Until that day when three small children play together well and poorly, until they smile and cooperate, and until they bicker, until the thought of imperceptibly raising my voice occurs once more, I will pray for Great things. I will seek contentment from Above. I will wait.

Because "it's a 'z' Mama!...Look, this rock is like a 'z'....Hey!...'Z' like for Zebra" moments cannot be missed.

The bickering of three will be sweeter than the bickering of two. Inevitably louder. Though sweeter all the same. Yet, the bickering of two is the reminder of what is to come.

[You] got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight

-bruce cockburn