Small Town, Big History

This morning Søren and I drove to Glendora to visit my friend. We got in the car at 7:30am. On the onramp to the 405, I took a breath—first one, it seems, in a long time. This begged the question, “What was that all about?”

For three days I battled with anxious thoughts about taking time off for the visit. Even though an hour or so was being carved out to meet with a mutual client, I wanted to visit my friend. Still that taskmaster was contentedly annoying my mind, conflicting my heart: “There’s the packet due on the 15th and I have to deliver materials to SLO for the conference and what about the stack of Romeo and Juliet essays to grade and the emails to return and what about the LAUNDRY?”

Funny thing, Friday morning, the instant I merged onto the 405, the nagging thoughts vanished. I enjoyed listening to music while my youngest son drew pictures during our hour-long drive to Glendora.


When we arrived half an hour early, spontaneity tickled my mind, “Let’s explore this cute little town.”

I turned left and Søren made an observation, “Castle top trees.”

I looked out the window. Sure enough the street was lined with castle top trees. Søren’s imagination made me smile, “Shall we find a café for hot cocoa?”

“Sure.”

So, at 8:30am two city mice walked hand in hand down a wonderfully sleepy main street an arms length from frenetic Los Angeles.

Being the youngest of four, you would think my smallest son would get special attention, but this is not the reality for my quiet, contemplative Søren. My attention, I’m beginning to recognize through this Sabbath experiment, is consumed by an illusive and voracious taskmaster gulping my time hand over fist! And this second trip to my friend Christian’s reinforced this discouraging truth.

This trip, like our last was reminiscent of kinder, gentler times in SLO when my children were toddlers, babies. Sitting with Christian, conversing about marriage, motherhood, and faith took me to a once upon a time place. I know I am in a stage of life, my youngest child, after all is 10 (double digits) and my eldest a sophomore in college. I know that I am a career minded girl in the midst of two entrepreneurial endeavors. And then there is that very small thing of creativity, and the MFA I’m chasing.

Even still, I have a huge need for what I experienced visiting with my friend in that small town—Sabbath. I need to make soup for lunch during the middle of the week, need to sip tea. I even need to do dishes. I simply need to walk away from the encumbrance of pesky stacks—essays to edit, curriculum and lesson plans to prepare, conferencing with clients (though I must admit there was a bit of this during my visit), and yes, LAUNDRY.

The icing on the cake was that my son got to hang out with his friends who are younger instead of being the youngest in the crowd. Ironically, I think this allowed him to bask in his true development ability, emotionally speaking that is. I saw hints of peace on his face and in his countenance this trip and the last. My son got to slow down. We all needed to step down from our tiptoes now and then.

I teach my students they can learn from history. Today I made history. I spent a few glorious hours in that small town enjoying friendship. Looking back, being released from routine was Sabbath and in my world, this is big history.