Hey there, cutie!
Your Challenge Today! Re-Visit a lost personal or family Tradition by enacting it again. Change it, reinvent it, revitalize it-- whatever. Ramp it up. Make it cool. Bring some fresh ideas and energy into it! Earn 100 Stars!
When my granddaughter was little, we planted peas every year. It became a little tradition -- something just between us. When the pea pods matured, we would stand out in the sun, shelling peas, popping those sweet bits in our mouths and laughing as we tossed an errant pea or two at each other. But then, as life surely progresses, circumstances unfolded where I didn't have the time to take care of the garden. I was too busy taking care of the man who built it. Then, we moved. Not to be deterred, I slowly began constructing a new garden. Each year I added one bed, and as I grew older and the joints a bit more persnickety, I appreciated the hard work my father had put into designing and building the beds in the old garden.
Still, my granddaughter and I hadn't planted any peas. Just not enough room in the new garden. Just not enough time.
Last fall, I happened to drive past the old house and nearly wrecked my car gawking. My father's garden...his raised beds...his little paths between them so carefully designed?
Gone.
All gone.
Torn out.
It was like they were never even there.
It was just a bare, ugly, weed-filled yard.
I pulled over to the side of the road, my fingers white-knuckling the steering wheel. I took several deep breaths, trying to push that lump in my throat back down in my chest. My eyes watered. My nose ran. I was sad. I was angry. Couldn't they see all the hard work he'd done? Didn't they care?
Of course not. Sigh.
As you get older? You sort of get used to change and stumbling across that which once was...that now isn't. They tear down your elementary school for condos. The park you played in as a kid is now a shopping mall. The corner drug store and soda shop with the cool murals of the trains on the wall in the back?
Gone.
But, I do have the memories. They glitter more than the real thing -- I think its a shine of love.
This year, pandemic or no, I decided that keeping small traditions alive is important. I shouldn't whine that I am too busy, too old, or too tired. I should pay more attention to those little nuances of life that tag into a special memory for someone else. And the mystery is that you never know who will cherish what memory. Its a cosmic guessing game. Like baking cookies with your wig-crazy aunt in the sweltering summer heatwave of 1972 with no air conditioning, or riding a horse for the first time down a dusty West Virginia road while your 80-year-old uncle cheers you on, or listening to your grandpa talk about how he was sitting on a split rail fence with all his friends in 1910 when Halley's Comet sparkled overhead and how they made a bet of who would still be living when it visited again -- and he was the only one ... all these memories glitter for me.
This year my granddaughter and I planted peas again -- a ten-minute process at best; but, important all the same. To commemorate our reinstated tradition, she took her first collage selfie.
Okay, so we gotta work on that.
Summary - 106 possible Stars
Give or Throw One Thing Away -- Earn 1 Star. Today's Challenge -- Revitalize a Small Family Tradition -- 100 stars! Do 1 Three-Minute Dash! Earn 5 Stars Don't forget your rattle bath!
Big Hugs
Peace with the Gods Peace with Nature Peace Within!
Silver
