One never knows when, where or with whom one will have a meaningful interaction. I wasn’t prepared for the depth of the question or response I had with a checker at Trader Joe’s.
After the usual, “Did you find everything you were looking for today?” and “So how are you doing today?” he followed up with, “What plans do you have for the spring?”
Not one for perky repartee, I answered, “Nothing extraordinary.”
“Well, one person’s nothing extraordinary is another person’s incredibly extraordinary.”
Okay. Great line and so true. I was thinking of the usual tasks that are on the unwritten to-do list, to grocery shop, cook dinners, keep the house tidy, fold laundry, maybe look for some flowering annuals to plant.
I had not considered our just having returned from a trip to Iceland. Seeing the Northern Lights was on David’s bucket list. I did say, “I will be visiting a friend in San Francisco in a couple weeks.” He asked for how long and if it was for business. Then I added, “And I will be going to the Maryland Film Festival this weekend.” We talked about what will be showing, what I planned to see and the benefits of being a Friend of the Festival.
Pretty cool when I thought about it. I tend to get stuck in the minutia of the moment or lost in the overwhelm of everything to be done. But actually stopping to think about where we were just a few weeks ago, the adventure and pleasure of another film festival weekend and looking forward to visiting my California friend and having tentative plans while I am there is pretty extraordinary.
Add to that, Mothers Day is coming up. I have two amazing sons thanks to two brave women, their birth moms so on Mothers Day I can celebrate the gift that motherhood is for me and honor the other moms. I wrote stories for the three 2013 Heal My Voice projects. The first, Harmonic Voices, True Stories of Women on the Path to Peace, is coming together now and the launch has been scheduled for May 30th. We will be visiting family in Seattle sometime in the summer and we are talking about getting away in the fall.
When I stop to think about it, my life is quite extraordinary. Thanks to a conversation in a grocery line, I had the chance to reflect and acknowledge that and truly appreciate how fortunate I am.