I had a vision for this summer. Maybe “vision” is a word with too much scope. I had an image of this summer, just one image that I pinned to the forefront of my mind as my aspiration. It was a snapshot of a summer a long time ago. I’m about 12 years old, sitting under a grand oak tree where Spanish moss hangs heavy from every branch. I have a thick novel in one hand and a Georgia peach in the other. The biggest challenge of the day is to keep peach juice from dripping onto the pages of my book. This day will dissolve into the next — slow, quiet and utterly unplanned.
Of course, I knew that this summer would not have Spanish moss, and that blueberries were a likely substitute for peaches in my New England setting. But that warm, unhurried ease was the only goal.
I am sitting to tap these words after an early morning class followed by throwing all manner of things into my suitcase before a trip to the grocery store and the post office that is critical before I leave town on yet another unexpected trip for “mom support” in the aftermath of surgery. Whew! That sentence was a lot. And as much as I reflect on how this isn’t at all in my idyllic image, I am even more aware that this kid to whom I am going could not have ever imagined suffering through the summer the way he’s suffering.
So, I find myself in another busy season. I have a lot of things I want to study, to ponder, to write about, to create. I thought I’d do that under a tree, with a bowl of blueberries, during days that unfolded in a quiet, contemplative haze. Instead, I’m carefully packing books and laptop into travel bags and loading suitcases in the car — again.
I know these days will bring challenges I did not anticipate. My impulse is to stay up late tonight and push through some deadlines. It is to look at the pockets of time when my patient is sleeping (Please, God. Let him sleep well!) and see how much productivity I can cram into them. It is to “make peace” with the idea that I’m going to run myself ragged and let myself get a little fried in order to extract maximum yield from the circumstances.
But experience tells me that just as the unforeseen scenario brings challenges, it will also bring unexpected opportunities. I will stay with my sister this time. I didn’t expect an extended visit at her house this summer. What a gift that will be. I’ll get to meet a new grandnephew while he is still very small. I’ll have time for in-person conversations bound by neither text boxes nor Facetime. I will be fed in ways unimagined but somehow in the plan of Divine Providence.
If I step into the new plan — the one not at all of my making — and I surrender to it, there’s a good chance that what I needed from the backyard tree image will present itself in an entirely different way. I needed rest, grace, peace and to be unhurried. It is possible that if I surrender to the circumstances, the days of summer convalescence can hold those very things. And if one unexpected scenario gives way to yet another, there is the holy assurance that he will still provide exactly what is necessary. I just have to be good with the thought that it might not look anything at all like an oak tree, a novel and an overripe peach.
Foss, whose website is takeupandread.org, writes from Connecticut.
