A Gift

So, I have been obsessed with cleaning my house. Like obnoxiously. Like no one in my house is speaking to me obsessed. I've been trying to undo 5 years of not doing in one week. Like windows and blinds and drapes....ugh. What is wrong with me? I keep thinking if I can get on top of the cleaning and organizing, losing 25 pounds should be a cinch.

So it's been icky and dusty and exhausting and frankly, pretty frustrating. I live with an interesting group of people who believe in fairies. As in, a bathroom fairy, a laundry fairy, a put things away fairy....you get the drill. Needless to say, this fairy has been pretty pissed off (thanks Lori for the plaque :) )

Yesterday Rhia told me I had to drive her to Annapolis so she could be a pirate for a party for a pre school. I was just downright irritated! How could she interrupt my cleaning binge in the middle of the morning just when I was thisclose to getting it all done? She said we had to be there at 10:30 and it would only take an hour. So grumbling, we set off. We drive down the highway, me complaining the whole while about the traffic and not knowing where I was going and blah, blah. We get to Quiet Waters Park and I ask the guy at the place you pay the money to get in where we are supposed to go, pay the money and go wait. Rhia calls her friend, who is late, so we wait. And wait. And wait. The friend gets there and we soon find out we are at the wrong park. You can imagine my mood at this point--I mean really, I have things to do!! Toilets to clean!! Carpets to wash!! Cabinets and Closets to re-arrange!

So Rhia takes off with her friend, who rapidly gives me directions to the next park. I of course, get lost but eventually find the right road. As I get to the end of the road, it slowly dawns on me where it ends. The beach! The Bay! Right on the water! Whooppeee! Maybe this won't be so bad. I grab a blanket out of the back of my car and go sit at the water's edge....Ahhhh.

It occurred to me that sometimes when you least expect it, God gives you a gift. Yes, I could have been home cleaning. Yes, it was inconvenient and time consuming (what was supposed to take 1 hour took 4) Yes, I got sunburned and was starving but I got to sit for a long spell looking at the liquid light, no responsibilities, nothing I could do, no way to get out of it. I had to just sit. And wait. And boy, did I need it....

"....People who live beside moving water have been given the gift of living lights, and even if they never come to recognize it as such, any other light, no matter how clear or brilliant, is pale and static to them, leaving them with a sense of loss, of vulnerability, as it they have suddenly found themselves without clothes.

"I have to be near the water, " they will say.....But what most of them are really saying, without knowing it is, "I can't live without that lights that dances with me. I wear it like a living skin, without it I am incomplete." .............excerpt from Sweetwater Creek by Anne River Siddons

You should have seen the light dancing on the water yesterday. It was glorious. I was grateful. Thanks Rhia!