A chat with a friend, checking in about progress on her home damaged by the Eaton fire. Nothing to report, insurance and contractors are still battling, she says. How’s your mom? Still battling, she says. Lives in waiting.
And lives ongoing. At the shop, we tend to the gifts for weddings, friends with surgeries, travels back home, retirements. We celebrate another anniversary. Stories exchanged at the counter as we blot out price tags and bag up with tissue paper. Is there a way to bottle up the generosity and care we’re witnessing everyday? Restoration for wounded hearts, especially when the world hurts, it should read. Use as needed.
A long call in the evening, a neighbor battling with anxiety about an unresolved illness. A dinner on the pier, the salty wind blowing the kids’ faces. We protest the raids, we pick up from summer camp.
This must be the way, the only way, when 6 months feel like 3 lifetimes. We resist despair by lining the shop shelves with summer sweets and puzzles, making the berry crumble for the potluck at home. We check the news, rush the groceries over, welcome the new family, have the hard conversations. Community over comments, I tell myself again, setting my phone down.
