Now is Now

"But Laura lay awake a little while, listening to Pa's fiddle softly playing and to the lonely sound of the wind in the Big Woods.  She looked at Pa on the bench by the hearth, the firelight gleaming on his brown hair and beard and glistening on the honey-brown fiddle.  She looked at Ma, gently rocking and knitting.

She thought to herself, "This is now."

She was glad that the cozy house, and Pa and Ma and the firelight and the music, were now.  They could not be forgotten, she thought, because now is now.  

It can never be a long time ago."

--Laura Ingalls Wilder

This is now: Patrick playing the bass drum with his school band.

Snuggling during a drive-through car wash = now.

Bike riding on a gorgeous spring day...also now.

So many beautiful moments.  Breath-taking.  Ordinary.  Little tiny gifts wrapped in a bow that changes every single day.  I try to be just like darling Laura Ingalls Wilder and notice, listen, savor and freeze them.  They are passing and fluid.  Moving and changing and morphing and growing and adjusting and then in a whisper...gone.

When I read those words out loud to Caroline the other night, tears were streaming down my face.  Oh to hold that moment of lying in bed next to her, smelling her just clean hair, feeling her body right against mine, listening to the words sprinkle out and create the now.  

I held my breath.  

I tried to squeeze that feeling in my heart into a corner that had never been 

and make a sacred spot for it.

I kissed my girl and tucked her in and soaked it all up.

Now is now.

How grateful I am for the myriad little pockets of time that make each day a grace-filled gift.

What does your now look like?

How do you savor it?

If you tell me your secret, I'll tell you mine.