274/365

The song from morning worship still played through my head as we headed west into the sunset, Let us love and sing and wonder, let us praise the Savior's name... We spent just over 24 hours at home, and I left thankful for it.

The afternoon before, we arrive back at home just after a car has crashed through three of our neighbors' fences, two wooden and one wrought iron. The car stops mangled in the middle of the corner yard. All of us neighbors gawk, incredulous, but it seems everyone survives the wreck. We arrive in time to comfort our girl, because the reverberations of such an impact can shake the best of us.

We grocery shop and stop for egg rolls and prepare a meal together. Everyone with a task, the computer screen shifts from recipe to recipe (isn't that the most convenient way to find a recipe and make a list these days?). We feast on peach crisp for dessert, probably the last of the season, while watching another episode of our on-going drama together. We skype our far-away family and smile and nod and wish we were 1000 miles closer. When our other girl arrives home from work, we heat up another plate of food and laugh over nonsense skits on late night TV.

Sunday morning brings the routines of habit, quiet and coffee and reading and memory work and ironing and jumping into the shower and leaving just at the moment to not be late. I take my place on the sofa for prayer, and the familiar voices around me offer petition and balm, both. I greet friends and try to catch up weeks in a moment. I miss faces, and I wish that I could talk to more. We soak in truth and "love and sing and wonder" at the mercies of the God we come to worship.

I leave with a friend to meet another, and soon, the gray skies pour down rain once again. We stop for for a cup of coffee, two for here, one to go, and share a piece of banana-supposed-to-be-pumpkin bread. We visit a friend, her stay in the rehab facility longer than her liking, and I hope we leave her encouraged. We ponder aging and families and laugh at our own growing frailties and weaknesses.

I dodge the rain and dash to my front door and settle on the couch for my Sunday afternoon shows. I stress out with bakers and laugh out loud at the running commentary my friend, watching simultaneously at her house, offers. We finish with a chat and a prayer, always grateful for easy in the midst of life hard.

An early dinner and a scramble for belongings, hugs and kisses all around, and we are back on the road. The sky changes as if playing a Technicolor film reel before our eyes, a fine finish to the extraordinary ordinary of a day.