Caliper

Gazing longingly at the work table in my art studio, wishing I had time to dive into my next sketchbook, I spy buried beneath the markers, colored pencils, glitter, fibers, beads and scraps of my favorite colorful papers the scrapbook created back in 2010 encapsulating our year.  Titled “525,600 minutes”, inspired by the Rent theme song “Seasons of Love”, the concept the book is built upon expands on my Christmas card messaging that we measure our year in love.

As I flip through the pages I’m struck not only by how much my boys have grown in only three short years, the changes striking as they move from boys to men, but by how much we really packed into that time together.  Our seasonal traditions of egg dying, blowing out candles on top of cakes, vacations at the desert and the beach, pumpkin and turkey carving; along with more pedestrian activities like hockey on the frozen pond in the backyard and skateboarding, all chronicled in thirty-two 6X6 pages.

Today, before he leaves the house to spend yet another day with his friends, I tell Nick I miss him.  He starts seriously, “I know”, and ends with “I’m here now” and a hopeful grin. It’s never been more evident that our time these days literally is measured in minutes as both boys move on with their lives.

It seems a little like kismet that I stumble upon this book today, fresh from yet another round of thinking maybe I haven’t done enough, said enough, invested enough time to make a real difference in my boys’ lives. Today I’m grateful to be gifted with the creativity that compels me to capture the story of us, both the ordinary and the extraordinary, in a way indelibly marked as my own.  I’m reminded that yes, the time we have together is enough; it’s documented lovingly and emphatically.

We often believe that in order to ensure the values and behaviors we want our children to exhibit are really ingrained, we need to go overboard in saying the words out loud (sometimes in raised voices, even). We forget the power that living side by side, under the same roof together affords in communicating our beliefs and philosophy for living.  It’s in the way we greet each other, how we handle the joy and duress that goes with the everyday business of life, how we love each other, how we say goodbye.  It just may be that being together, even if it’s only for a few minutes at a time, allows who we are to be more fully absorbed than anything we could ever say.

How do I know this to be true?  One of the last pages of the scrapbook is a photo of the boys on either end of the wishbone rescued from the Thanksgiving turkey we dined on alfresco in the desert that year.  Underneath I’ve written “Nick ended up with the “bigger half” - he wished for a safe flight home.”

Maybe I should give myself a well-deserved break from second-guessing?   When I see reminders like this I think I’m doing just fine. This book, I decide, belongs in plain sight.