We spent a wonderful Sunday together yesterday.
Well, I should first back up. We’ve not posted in a while. It’s been tough to write, and I think we’ve felt recently like we just been swamped with other things. Last night, we recognized that we need to change our evening pattern to try to create more time for ourselves to just “process” life, relax, chat, plan, plan to make plans… and so on.
Even as I write this, I laugh a little, thinking of all the “first two weeks of March” projects I must get done. Ugh! I feel so behind this semester, and really, I just long for slow, long days, where the sun seems to hang in the sky forever. I long for slow days. I long for living them fully, and upon reaching the end, wishing that we could extend them longer, perhaps into the next day. It’s like watching a great movie. It ends, credits roll, but you’re still wishing that it would continue – you’re hoping for a sequel, you’re thinking about the story and the characters, you’re contemplating watching it again, all just to relive it. Yeah, I long for days that we long to relive!
Yesterday was such a day. Time slowed, and we slowed with it. We crawled out of bed about 730am, but eased into the day. I slept in first, then Melodia went back to bed for a nap. McKinley was sick, so we’d decided that church was out (we don’t like taking sick kids to church). We made plans to take the kids to the mall, just to get them out of the house. 
Before we knew it, though, it was noon. It snuck right up on us, and yet, it didn’t feel like noon. We weren’t dreading that the day was half over. And knowing that it was noon, didn’t rush us through lunch and into the car. No, Melodia made pizza for lunch for the kids, while I dressed them (we call it “getting ready for the day”). So Wil, McKinly and Izzabelle got ready for the day.
We had lunch and all told, it was after 1pm before we were in the car and on our way to the mall. It was a chilly, blowly day outside, but the weather inside… as the Christmas song goes (…”the weather outside is frightful, but the ??mall?? is so delightful…”).
We slowly made our way through the mall, starting at the end we usually don’t start at. Bought some needed items (pants for Papi) and some wanted items (sleeping bags for the kids, a “backpack” for McKinley – really, a Camelback Mini-mule hydration pack, but it is kid-sized, has backpack pockets, and could hold her water or jugo (juice)).
We sat down for some ice cream cones – because, on March 1, you’re supposed to have ice cream, right? I mean, spring is only 20 days away… assuming that spring knows it’s only 20 days away. lol. I think spring actually tends to “sleep in” in the Buffalo area.
We didn’t leave the mall until closing time, and even in doing so, didn’t hurry ourselves, but slowly made our way back to the car. On the ride home, Melodia and I chatted about how wonderful it was to have a day where we didn’t feel hurried. We didn’t have to leave for the mall at a certain time. We didn’t have to rush home from the mall by a specific time. We could just be… be where we were, be all there, and not worry about the next place we were going. There was no next place, there was only us being where we were at that moment in time.
I’d like to live like that more often. Be where you are. Be only where you are, not where you’re going or where you’ve been. That sounds good. Real good. Yesterday we were with each other, as a family, and it was good.
Sounds like a lovely dream, to be only in the moment. I have thought of that often, usually on my drive to the office, just how hard it is to stay in the moment when life is all around you. It sure would be a great way to live life, much less stressful and I think, more like the simpler times that we can all remember in our lives….great story!