It’s pre-dinner, just the two of us. I’m chopping garlic and half-singing along to “Can’t You See” by the Marshall Tucker Band (can I get a hey-yo Nourish Ladies?).
The 6-foot stretch of my youngest son — just shy of eighteen — is sprawled on the floor, feet up on the couch, eyes closed.
The kid rarely does this — nothing.
I catch the scene, maybe more importantly the feeling, out of the corner of my eye and try to resist looking straight at it. My father once told me, during one of my angsty what-am-I-supposed-to-do-with-my-life conversations, that you don’t usually get at things by going directly for them.
“More often you kind of bump into them sideways,” he said.
I don’t naturally trust that things are alive and well without me doing something. My kids used to say, “Stop asking if I’m okay — I’m just reading.”
Sideways feels different. More like a glance.
There’s something quietly astonishing about this pocket of contentment. It feels a little like encountering a wild mustang at the edge of a wide beach — calm, self-contained, but aware enough to move if you approach too directly. Which is probably why both the moment and I feel a little skittish.
I keep chopping, eyes on the cutting board, attention just off to the side.
Then, quietly, I reach for my phone. There’s something in this moment that wants to be captured.
The chopping stops.
Beckett opens one eye.
“What are you doing?”
Maybe the work for some of us isn’t protecting a full moment from disruption or trying to hold onto it so much as trusting — just a little — that what sits underneath it might be solid.
Not fragile.
Just deeper than the surface.
Love, Jill