The Livin' Is Easy

We had guests last night: my sister, Martha Stewart, and her husband, Mr. Martha Stewart and their youngest daughter, Keira Knightly. They were just passing through but Martha and I sat up last night with tea, talking. Keira and The Child were tucked away in The Child's room, laughing and planning The Child's ensemble for the first day of school. Then this morning Martha and I sat in the cool of the morning with our coffee, talking some more. Martha and I have led very different lives, made very different choices, but in essentials we share far more in common than I sometimes remember.

They are gone now, off to visit their eldest daughter, the one who is going to make them grandparents in a couple more months. I need to get to the market, to pick up olives and chevre and some peaches. I haven't made a cobbler yet this summer and that's just wrong. There are just a few weeks now before school starts and before I will, hopefully, be working. Just a few more weeks to sit in the twilight with wine, smelling the rosemary and lavender scented air, pretending that I'm really in Provence and not the back garden of a Seattle neighborhood.

As the family were leaving, Mr. Martha Stewart bent his head to one of the roses in the front garden. "Look!" I said, "He's stopping to smell the roses". It was a joke but it wasn't. It was, in fact, a powerful symbol, a reminder that none of the things we all have on our agendas today are more important that being mindful.

It's still summer and today I feel particularly inclined to remember that and enjoy all the uniquely summertime treasures before schedules speed up, leaves start to fall and sweaters reassert their prominence in our wardrobes.



Janis Joplin "Summertime"