I stand in the kitchen and listen to the quiet. The children are walking around the neighborhood, a freedom they’ve recently earned. The older two are now responsible enough to make sure the little two make wise choices, something we talk about over and over and over throughout our days. I relish the quiet now, but I can see myself standing in the kitchen years from now, making chicken and green beans and wild rice, but only for two. Then in the quiet I’ll hear my memories laughing and squealing and having fun. I’ve learned that it’s rare for memories not to become sugar-coated over the years.

I snap the beans two or three at a time and wish they’d come straight from the garden. One day, I tell myself, I’ll have a garden. One that actually produces enough to make it worth it. But by then I won’t need as much and I’ll (maybe) have more time, so that should work out nicely. I want peas, maybe purple hulls or lady peas or both. I want to sit on the front porch, rocking back and forth, shelling until my fingers are raw.

The pot sizzles at me as I move it onto the burner and I snap back to now. Even in the quiet, there is a cacophony of sound.
Snap.
Sizzle.
Hiss.
Hum.
Swish.
Bubble, bubble, bubble.

I love my todays. Sometimes they are exhausting. Other times, exhilarating. We laugh, guffaw even, together often. Occasionally we catch tears running down each other’s cheeks, overwhelmed by the moments.

I love my yesterdays. Drenched in sunshine and rainbows, they smile back at me. A few dark clouds hover in the background, the moments that will never go away but drift farther and farther away.

I love my tomorrows. Full of hope and promise. I love to dream and think about what will be, knowing darn well that nothing happens exactly as planned. It’s the swoops and swirls of life that make life what it is, makes us who we are.

I wonder who I’ll be then.
I wonder, too, who I am now.
But I do know this: we are more than just a collection of memories, more than a bucketful of dreams.
We are bits of this and bits of that, full of stardust and matter and imagination.
We have always been and always will be.
Matter is neither created or destroyed, remember.
Created in the image of God, I stand in the kitchen and wonder…