Monday Smiles – 1/6/2014

This week, Muri and I have had a pair of elephants in our room.  You’ve had them, right?  They’re big and noisy but we want nothing to do with them.  We want to ignore them.  We both know that the best way to ignore them is not to talk about them, but because they demand so much attention, we can’t think of anything else to talk about.   And so we find ourselves together, staring off into space with nothing to say, just like those older couples we used to comment about.  One of our current elephants is how (and perhaps if) to help our daughter and her husband with a problem.  We’ll probably help because it won’t cost us anything to do so, but that doesn’t mean we’re not tired of it.  And our second elephant involves beginning the process of getting our adult son to take more responsibility in his life, something we likely should have done a while ago. But we can only start where we are, not where were.

Sunday, we decided to leave our elephants behind and take the 45 minute drive to our enclave on the beach at Dana Point Harbor.  We stopped at J.T. Schmidt Restaurant and Brewery for lunch and there we were, enjoying our lunch, but not talking again.  Those damned elephants had followed us.  Who knew they knew their way around Orange County?  Wisely, Muri brought up elephant number two.  I tried to change the subject but she insisted that we talk about him … and I’ll be damned if he didn’t agree to wait outside.  On the way to Mother’s Beach, elephant number one rode along, crammed into the back seat, so we talked about her, too.  And sure enough, by the time we got to the beach, she was gone, too.  So we sat under our favorite oak tree while at Mother’s Beach while we watched the children play in the sand and splash in the calm waters.  Of course, it was California cool and we needed light jackets to deal with the breezy but sunny 72 degree day.  We strolled the boardwalk, smiling at the antics of dog-walkers and watching the pelicans dive bomb for fish, the seagulls in hot pursuit in case anything was dropped.  We had a cone at our favorite ice cream shop and watched the people come and go, trying to guess whether they were locals or tourists.  We wandered through the beachfront stores where we admire but never buy.  And we talked about everything and nothing in particular.  We even joked about the elephants, though they were nowhere to be seen.

Have no fear, they were waiting patiently when we got home.   But they were nowhere as large as I’d remembered them.  We’ll deal with them … as long as we do it together.  Together.  It’s Monday – I’m smiling.

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Tags: family, fatherhood, love and marriage, mindfulness, Monday smiles, smiles

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