Husband has been a great source if inspiration lately. I’m not sure if I’m paying better attention than usual or if he’s just been more awesome than his regular self, but either way, I’ll take it. Last night we were enjoying tea out on our back deck after dinner. It was what he calls a lovely, soft evening. Even though we both grew up here, there are things about the east that still amaze each of us. I had forgotten, for example, how noisy insects and other nighttime critters could be in the evening. It’s a pleasant cacophony, to be sure, but it is mighty! 

I was enjoying that sound and the sweet harmonies of Simon and Garfunkel when husband was peering at the road that runs behind our house. Then he said, “You know, I had to have been on that road with my parents hundreds of times while I was growing up. This house is older than I am; it was here. All that time, all the driving by, and I don’t think I ever noticed it. I couldn’t have imagined that here, now, with you and Daughter, is where my life would be.” That’s about as close as Husband gets aloud to sentimental and romantic, so I let it be and just smiled. 

I allowed his words to drift around me with the cool air. I noticed in that moment how pleasant everything felt. I had a satisfied belly and a warm cup of my favorite tea. I was wearing a cardigan and felt comfortable, which sounds odd but to me is a huge deal and a wonderful celebration of the coming of fall. I let myself wonder in that moment. 

I wondered what I had missed as a child and young adult. I know that Husband and I were in Disneyworld around the same time in the 1980’s, as near as we can figure. I wondered if we saw each other there. I wondered what future celebrities I had seen while walking the streets of New York or London. I wondered if I was ever in a book that anyone wrote after seeing me in a Starbucks. I wondered what things that are now important to my life I missed when they came around the first time.  It could have been a melancholy feeling but it wasn’t. 

Then I wondered what it is that I don’t notice now. What is it that will become important that I am just not seeing today? I tried to notice everything, and in my awareness I began letting other things slip away. I decided that whatever it is that I’m not noticing is ok. It will let me know when I need to be aware.