Our dining room table is like everyone else’s – well, anyone else who’s cool with the overall living process and recognizes that random stuff finds its way on the table-top every now and then.
We were able to visit our Arkansas family a week ago for a whirlwind weekend and had a really amazing time reconnecting with everyone we don’t get to see as often as we’d like. We left on a Friday, drove for 11.5 hours, stayed Saturday, Sunday, and were back on our way Monday. No worries – it was definitely worth the drive, and I’d do it again in a heart beat.
But that’s not what this week’s reflection is about.
I particularly remember the sweet silence of entering our Chicago home and reminiscing. And then I remember the surprise – Cody brought up all the stuff on our dining room table (we just kind of threw the stuff down… it was bed time!), and I assumed he was about to complain about the mess we already made. But he didn’t. He said, “Did you see our table? It has all the stuff we love on it. Your manuscript and a pen for editing, my moleskine notebook with work notes I was jotting down, some nice China plates for when we hosted dinner last weekend, the books we’re reading, a picture of Mary and Jesus saying ‘God Bless Our Home’.” He could have kept going, but he didn’t have to.
We took with us – and brought back – our basics: artifacts that represented our love for words, ideas, and people. That means we are becoming the people we imagined we could be, together.
It’s just a snapshot of daily life, but it’s a picture of a life we’re building together. And that’s pretty special.