Breakfast with Ophelia

This morning I am having a cup of coffee with my grandmother.  Not in the body, but in spirit.  Every morning my little granny emerged from her bedroom in her house coat and sleep bonnet and made herself a cup of tea with honey in the same little white speckled brown cup that has an illustration of chives growing out of a barrel on the one side. After she died and the relatives came out of the woodwork to loot and pillage her home, all I managed to sneak out of the carnage to remember her by was an Avon cameo, a black and white photo of her as a teen posing like a Hollywood starlet in her sunhat and shirt tied scandalously in a knot in the front showing her midriff, and a rare, carefree smile on her face, and this cup.  My little grandmother did not have a happy life handed to her, but I believe she knew how to take the most enjoyment from the simplest of pleasures, like lounging in the kitchen with her cup of tea while reading the paper before the real work of each day began.  

Yes, my grandmother's life wasn't exactly happy and definitely wasn't easy.  I won't go into the details today, but imagine Ophelia from Shakespeare's Hamlet, if she hadn't succumbed to her grief.  Imagine if Ophelia had just kept getting up everyday.  She might be slower to laugh, often silent and stoic, but kind and wise for having survived her sadness, and so very skilled at taking joy from even the smallest of things and learning to treasure it.   That's how we survive grief and hardship after all, by learning to see beauty in the world around us and take what we can of it into our hearts.

This morning I am taking a cue from my grandmother as I sit here in my stars and moon robe from 1998, fingers wrapped around her chives coffee cup, with a million things staring me down from the to-do list above my desk.  I have decided to put on some music, take a few deep breaths and just enjoy my coffee for a while.  At the present moment, my life is overflowing with daily busyness.  I have been prepared to fall apart, but instead have surprised myself with being able to handle it all.  I've done with a measure of grace and humility, apologizing frequently for mistakes made from tiredness or absentmindedness, but continued to press on the best I can and I think I'm making it work.  Is it perfect?  No.  Do I love this?  No, again.  Will it always be like this?  I truly hope not.  Can I make it?  Apparently, yes.  So, I keep going and as often as possible I pause and enjoy the smallest of pleasures as though they're part of a practically perfect life.

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