Work is Love Made Visible, or, The View From The Other Side

Well. Whatever that bug was, you don't want it. (Although I think some of you have had it.)

News here at the house, because life goes on...

Sometimes I forget that the tasks in front of me ARE my life. What I mean is, life won't start once the work is done. The work IS life. I can dread and resent it, or value it for its own sake, and for the rewards it yields. In the dark of winter, with the ice, the flu, the ear infections... tasks can seem almost insurmountable, and certainly unrewarding.

But then occasionally I get a sudden glimpse from the other angle. It is abundance beyond measure to be able to donate my time and efforts. Nothing will ever be more precious than these children, and I can never, ever devote enough energy to them. It is worth spending a little time looking at life from this angle.

We are all working hard on a fund-raiser for the preteen's Japan group. He takes Japanese culture and language classes every week, and works at various enterprises to raise all the money he will need to go to Japan for 5 weeks in the summer of 2008. This month, the big event is a silent auction. One family got a band to agree to perform free of charge that evening. Another family's hip-hop and break dancing club will entertain. Frontier Airlines is donating two round-trip airfares FOR A DOOR PRIZE!!!

It's in a really funky old Victorian building here in Northwest Denver. ( I think this staircase looks like the one at the Mollie Brown House.) The event is next Sunday, so the push is really on.

We are soliciting donations of food for the event and of items for the auction. OH, and selling tickets to the event. (Anybody in the Denver area want to check it out?) I am making a big poncho, and two tabletop moss gardens for the auction, and also offering a spring migration birding excursion.

(I have never led a birding excursion before, and I'm pretty excited!)

Yesterday, I decided to expend some of my returning energy by getting some overdue books back to the library. (I considered asking if there was some kind of flu amnesty.) Well, Rose overheard my plans, and winningly proposed that she be allowed to come.

I don't often take her on outings because she is so easily overstimulated. If she gets all giddy, she runs away. She's too big for me to control physically. I explained all of this to her, and she promised she wouldn't run.

She was SO GOOD. I let her check out her own books, and she was so excited to hand over the library card that she forgot to give the librarian her books! Then she quietly jumped up and down while waiting. No running, though, and no defiance, no noise.

Sooo, in a fit of blind faith, I took her to a gallery and then out to tea. The gallery is in an old church, with some wide open spaces, and she did finally break into a run in there, but recovered nicely.

The tea room is a tiny, packed with dainties and frills kind of place. She got her own cup and saucer. She was enchanted with the little sugar bowl and spoon. She HAD to use the tiny china salt and pepper shakers. She gently touched the beaded lampshade on our table lamp. Bless her heart, she was too excited to eat her (beautiful) food, and coped by sitting on the floor, facing the wall and reading her books. We brought her food home.

I was very, very proud of how she held it together. (By the way, her kindergarten teacher called one night last week, and said that she was sure that the misbehaviors recently were attributable to the sickness and the antibiotics. She assured us that all is well. WHAT a huge comfort!)

So. I'm sure if you put on your "life is hard" glasses, you can see the challenges and exhaustion. If you, like me, are trying to look at it from another angle, you can see that I have no reason to feel sorry for myself.