I drive my husband crazy. Well, probably not, he’s much more tolerant than I am, I should say I drive my mental version of my husband crazy.
Anyway
I am super picky about avocados. When I received an overripe bag of them in my pickup order from Whole Foods, I was:
1) not surprised,
2) validated to have my low expectations met,
3) pissed off, and
4) self-righteous.
All of which were only mildly relieved by the fact you can go online and get a full refund for any part of your order, and still keep the crap they’ve sent you.
Ok. So.
For the rest of the week, as I pulled out a FREE avocado and cut the 90% of dark spots away, I had to remind myself that these were FREE. It still pissed me off. It felt like a waste of my time and theirs.
Time is
never
free.
Seth Godin says it best:
The perfect avocado… Sometimes they’re too hard, and often, they’re rotten. But every once in a while, you’ll nurture an avocado until it’s at the peak state of flavor and texture. You certainly aren’t going to waste it….
Face-to-face is like a perfect avocado…Time is priceless…Don’t waste it if you can. Treat it like avocado time.
When I went to the south to visit my two daughters last fall, a lot of the time was spent at the kitchen/dining tables. Just hanging out; working on computers, watching them cook, bake, brown butter, slam cookies (it’s a thing), research goats…
At first I was nervous. This was precious avocado time. Shouldn’t we be doing something… important? Making exotic memories? Putting up fences (which we got around to), playing mini-golf (which we didn’t)?
But really, what I craved was what we all used to share. Casual life, normality, just soaking up each other’s presence. Puttering. I found myself treasuring the little sounds of their presence, the way their hands move when they text their phone, the way they curl into a comfy chair, cuddle with the cat, the child, the goat (always a goat in the story).
Kitchen table moments.
Living in the UK brought many wonderful things, but at the sacrifice of these little moments. The COVID-19 pandemic starved all of us for these simple things; each other’s presence, having a beer in a full pub, visiting friends and family, coffee with my friends.
I treasure both the mourning, and the pleasure.
Don’t get me wrong: I am grateful that so far, all my loved ones have made it through the pandemic all right. But, I still mourn the little things and somehow, this mourning makes them all the more precious. I treasure both the mourning, and the pleasure.
Life is never the perfect avocado. Somehow, it’s better with the brown spots.