“But ours is a transient life lived on the run, with an endless sense of process, of movement, of chasing the future. We seldom pause to shine a light upon the ordinary moments, to hallow them with our own attentiveness, to hone them with gentle caring. They pass unnoticed, lost in the ongoing rush of time.” – Kent Nerburn
When was the last time you shared an ordinary moment with someone you love?
There was no fanfare, nothing special to single it out from any other day, just a moment to remind you how precious the gift of love and life can be.
I share the following example which still makes me smile.
On any given Saturday, on one of my impromptu visits, I often found my grandparents busily working in the kitchen together making Eggplant Parmesan (a personal favorite of mine).
Having performed the task countless times before over their fifty-year marriage, the process was now perfectly orchestrated with each one having an area of expertise.
However, they both were pretty good at nibbling on freshly fried pieces of eggplant before they ever made it to the casserole dish – though I confess, I do the same thing.
I always loved watching them in the kitchen together. While the kitchen was definitely my grandmother’s domain, gramps was always there to play sous-chef (the second in command) – chopping, grating, cleaning, tasting, you name it!
And he had no pride either, proudly wearing one of my grandmother’s flowery kitchen aprons (no doubt at her request) to protect whatever he was wearing from grease and tomato sauce stains that always found their way on him.
There was some chatter back and forth. Sometimes the sound of the radio playing oldies or instrumental music in the background. Or they just enjoyed the sounds from an open window like the birds chirping or young children happily playing in the park behind their house.
And while some outsiders might look at this undertaking as mundane, time consuming and even annoying, for them it was one of a series of ordinary moments they shared over the years.
It was more than just making Eggplant Parmesan, it was making memories my grandmother came to cherish each and every time she made the dish again after gramps passing.
My wife and I mirror the kitchen time my grandparents shared – even dividing our duties when making Eggplant Parmesan and nibbling just the same.
After the eggplant is in the oven and the dishes are all cleaned up, we often turn to each other and express our enjoyment in the ordinary moment we just shared. And thankfully, we have a lot of those moments.
Kent Nerburn writes, “It is a celebration of the ordinary, a reminder that when all else is stripped away, a life lived with love is enough.”
Here’s wishing you some ordinary moments of your own.
