“I ran up the door, closed the stairs, said my pajamas and put on my prayers, turned off the bed and hopped in the light, all because you kissed me goodnight”

Well, the truth is, I’ve always been a little funny about being pressed for details if I’m not ready to give them up.  Aren’t we all?  It’s hard for me to quickly open up about details of a trip, event, movie etc when I’m still processing it myself.  Maybe it’s rooted in not wanting to talk about something being in the past when I’m still reveling in the fresh memory of it, or maybe I just don’t have the brain space to adequately describe where I’ve just been before I’ve had the time to see it a little more wholly.  I’ve always struggled with feeling a little unkind fresh from an adventure because friends and family will generously ask how it went and I uncharacteristically dodge verbosity and say, “it was really fun!” and pretty much leave it at that.  Then, two days, one week, a month later, I’ll just start to babble on about it and unload all of the details ad nauseam.  This just happened in returning from Charleston a couple of weekends ago with my favorite ladies–Drew asked how it went, I said it was fun and kind of clammed up.  A few days later we were driving somewhere and all of the information just kind of burst out…”and then we…and after that…” and so the stories were told.

This long introduction is all to say that Drew’s graduation was, ahem, really fun! and I suspect that as I process the details, the weekend will become a lot like pictures of my spare little tomatoes and Grace on this blog: plentiful and maybe a little too much.  We cherished every single second having Jo Ellen here, it was really wonderful to be able to share a landmark with family and to get some good Baton Rouge energy in our house and lives.  Drew was gracious and lovely and I’m sure that I came as close to bursting with pride as a woman can.

As I was off of work for a few days, we spent the majority of Monday in silence–that perfect home sweet home kind of silence–while I read a book (Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl, great foodie memoir!) and Drew played chess.  We finally shook ourselves out of our lazy day fog and headed to the local fish guy to get supplies for sushi (oh yes, I took pictures, just you wait) and came home and quietly rolled sushi together.  The best surprise was that while I was looking in the fridge for more things to roll up in the nori–mmm, leftovers in the sushi!– we decided to roll in some left over cole slaw and man was that a happy surprise!  I know it sounds gross, but really is was a fantastic addition, especially with the tuna.

In much the same vein as my feigned silence on the subject here, Drew and I didn’t really start talking about the weekend and the implications of Drew being “finished” with school until last night over dinner.  In the way that only young people can, we’ve regarded the graduation not so much as a doorway, but something of a steel wall at the end of a very fast approaching train that we’ve been strapped to for just under 3 years.  It sounds dramatic, but I kid you not, it has been a little surprising to step through a door and stand looking around in this new space called Future.  Ahhh, hello Future, I didn’t see you lurking there.  I am entering into the home stretch of my final tenure with The Hook (3.5 weeks and counting) and Drew is getting ready to be a nurse and somehow it seems like there is an awful lot of air in the air all of a sudden.

One thought in zen philosophy is that water heats gradually and boils suddenly–it is a gradual process which may make it seem slow, especially with a furrowed and impatient brow, but when the change takes place, it takes place instantly.  Knowing that doesn’t shake the surprise, especially realizing that each new day will still be a march forward with one foot in front of the other marked, for me, with an infinite amount of hope along the way, but it is fun to think that perhaps in the arena of this one pot, we’ve just come to a boil.