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It's
ironic that we forget so often how wonderful life really
is. We have more time than ever before to remember
it. The men and women of generations past had to
work long, long hours to support lots and lots of children
in tiny, tiny houses. The women worked in factories
and sweatshops and then at home, too, with two bosses--the
one who paid them, and the one they were married to, who
didn't.
There
are new generations of immigrants now, who work just as
hard, but those of us who are second and third and fourth
generation are surrounded by nice cars, family rooms,
patios, pools--the things our grandparents thought only
rich people had. Yet somehow, instead of rejoicing,
we've found the glass half empty. Our jobs take too
much out of us and don't pay enough. We're expected
to pick the kids up at preschool and run the microwave at
home.
C'mon,
let's be honest. We have an embarrassment of
riches. Life is good.
I
don't mean in any cosmic way. I never think of my
life, or my world, in any big, cosmic way. I think
of it in all its small component parts: the
snowdrops, the daffodils; the feeling of one of my kids
sitting close beside me on the couch; the way my husband
looks when he reads with the lamp behind him; fettuccine
Alfredo, fudge; Gone with the Wind, Pride and
Prejudice.
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Life is made up of moments, small pieces
of glittering mica in a long stretch of gray cement.
It would be wonderful if they came to us unsummoned, but
particularly in lives as busy as the ones most of us lead
now, that won't happen. We have to teach ourselves
how to make room for them, to love them, and to live,
really live.
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