The thing about gifts is you never know when they’re going to happen. That’s what makes them special. Then the unexpected happens and it’s something that you really needed or wanted and joy is born in an instant.
You also never know how long gifts last so it’s best to enjoy them while you have them and not put it off to later. There may never be a later.
This has been a long and busy week with multiple trips into Savannah and long hours doing new work and creating fresh and different things. While it’s been invigorating it also takes its toll.
Talking to my Mom the other day on the phone she said, “You sound tired. Your voice is low. I haven’t heard you sound like that in a long time.”
It was a good tired though; the kind that is born from doing good and worthwhile things.
Most of the past few years, my voice was low because I was weary and spent. I was running on empty and the things that had charged me back up had left and were no more. When my back’s up against the wall I try even harder and you can try too hard, as James Taylor puts it. And I did so it all just got worse.
So yesterday my friend Val at the Breakfast Club chided me because I haven’t been doing things with them lately. After hanging up with my Mom I petted Goddess, hopped on my very sober bicycle and glided to “Social” one of Tybee’s restaurants.
For Cinco de Mayo they were having chiwawa races. Val and Nick own Brutes, a chiwawa who loves sausage. The plan was for Nick to stand at the end of the finish line with sausage, scream “Who’s your Daddy?” and Brutes would set new chiwawa speed records.
It was a hoot!
Phil and Katie were there (though much younger than me Katie functions as a surrogate Mother to me) from the Breakfast Club, Helen, Grayson and others. We drank, cheered and laughed the evening away. We mostly laughed.
At one point I stopped and just noticed everything that was happening around me. Friends were together. The music of joy was in the air. The only thing that mattered in the entire universe was how fast a chiwawa could run.
What a gift!
This morning at the Breakfast Club we celebrated again the joys of last night telling stories of how the race was fixed (Brutes came in second).
Then I went home and Goddess and I played. Just as I started working Sam Adams, who plays damn good live music with Gordon and Davy, called asking me things. I love Sam, his music and his spirit.
Then I got a call and it was unexpected good news that made me happy.
Then Art and I talked forever in his Drive-way while he feed Goddess treats.
The choirs of birds were singing.
A friend who I love stopped by and surprised me.
By 9:30 in the morning I was full of the gifts of life!
And I celebrated.
As I made a joyful noise unto the Lord.
