Season's End

So, Blade Beak and Star Baby are still not laying.  Of course, I am starting to wonder if this is merely their means of protesting the nomenclatures my children so lovingly bestowed upon them . . .  Regardless, I am still buying eggs at four dollars a dozen at City Market or, on the more hectic badly-planned weeks, the grocery store.  And lately, life often seems to be taking on a more frenzied quality.  My summer semester at A-B Tech is drawing to a close, my students submitting paper after paper while I grade at a furious pace, trying not to let the virtual stacks overwhelm my virtual deskspace.  And as hard as I try, I can't seem to forget how little time I have left to spend with my chicken-naming munchkins before I am expected to start acting and dressing like a grown up and return to work full-time for the first time in their existence.  Sometimes I feel overwhelmed.  But every afternoon, just as the wind starts to blow the tease of a storm,  I remember about dinner, and I walk outside to see what gifts my garden bears.

Today it wasn't much--lettuce, a few tomatoes, a handful of beans, two cucumbers (one of which Chloe snatched up for an impromptu snack)--but along with the chicken breasts I had defrosted and some golden-red beets from my mom's friend's garden, it was enough to inspire a lush salad, complete with mozzarella and toasted walnuts. For all this I love my garden.  It forces me to create from that which I have.  It reminds me to head outside for a moment and truly breathe.  It teaches me patience and expectancy and excitement.  But most of all, it speaks of change.  The tomatoes that were hard and pale yesterday are a plump, rich red, falling warm into my palm today. The cucumbers we watched emerge as tiny wrinkled fruits beneath their yellow petals now crunch crisp and wet in my little girl's mouth.

It's the magic of birth: the fact that a new life, an entire, perfect entity, can make itself known in a few short moments.  And then, of course, that entity begins to change and grow at an unfathomable speed, laughing at anyone over thirty who even tries to keep up.  Very few days go by that an older mama or papa doesn't stop to remind me to treasure this time when my children are young because it will pass so quickly.  And so, in spite of  the work and worry that piles up around me, I am trying to treasure it all.  Not just the intentional summer outings that I've meticulously orchestrated, but the spontaneous and true adventures as well.   The moment of madness when McLean turns the volume on his new favorite song way up and we forget ourselves and become pop stars.  The way Chloe's perfect, wiggling little body infects my own as I ditch my heavy mama-bag and dance barefoot downtown.

I feel a new season coming. I know that in just a few short weeks, McLean will start kindergarten, Chloe preschool, and I work.  Our lives will change drastically, and I have no idea how that change will feel.  All I can do is embrace what I have now.  The magical moments with my children as well as my periodic lapses in sanity.  Even my two impeccably named chickens who are still not laying.