lost and found

I was cleaning up and filing the pile of papers one tends to accumulate on the corner of the desk over time...you know: newspaper clippings of recipes, reviews of a books, comics relevant to your life...when I came across this comic from July.


I thought of the upcoming holiday season, how we all have grandiose plans after the first of the year to knit (or sew or craft) that special something for that special someone for the next holiday season--after all, there are months to plan, purchase, and create. We don't start right away. It's too soon following the holidays. It seems silly to think of the next season so soon.

Then it happens. Life. Spring is full of activity cleaning up the yard, planting, going for those much-needed family walks and bike rides to "blow out the cobwebs", field trips to museums and the beach, and (for me) wrapping up the end of the school year as spring passes to the much-needed summer. All of a sudden, it's half way through June. We concede it's time to plan and possibly purchase the products for the "special something", but how can we create when the sun and water are beckoning? The aroma of sunscreen hints at better times outside with mint iced tea, sidewalk chalk art, weed "flower" collecting, and snacks of fresh-picked vegetables. Summer ends much too soon. School and lessons begin afresh for the new "year." The warmth of summer draws to a close. We prolong those last few warm weeks with dining alfresco on the patio, watching the last of the garden and flowers work their magic. Finally the leaves begin to change color and texture, falling and blanketing the ground. The air has a crispness in the early morning. Seemingly overnight, the sun's hours have been cut, and with it so has the time to leisurely work on the "something special". As with the change of the seasons, so changes our ambitions of accomplishing the many projects for the holiday giving. They don't all get completed. Maybe it's time to stop and call to mind why that "something special" was on your list.

Please remember it's the time together, not the gifts, that create memories of joy and love. A year from now, five years from now, what will be remembered dearly are the storytelling, the board game playing, the time spent in common gathered around the table or on the floor.