It is interesting how our responses can shift. Before I had chickens, children wasting food left me frustrated. Now I'm tickled. It scoop it up and head out to the hens who cluster at my feet to get the best noodles. When I eat out I eye the abandoned salad and squash carried on the trays of busy servers, wishing I could abscond with it for my girls. 

For years I saw rain as an impediment to my plans. Now that I have my hands in the dirt every day I welcome it for the life it gives to thirsty beans. I check the weather on my phone not to count the predictions of sunshine, but to see how long it will be until the clouds break forth. If the wait is too long, I rig up hoses and turn the sprinklers towards the corn rows, and then the tomato cages. This is all while knowing that pretend rain is not as satisfying as the real thing. 

As I sit here John is driving to Philly to rescue our daughter who is stranded on the side of 95 with a dead battery. My response to circumstances like this has not changed one iota in thirty years. My body is holding on to fear until he and she are safely home. I was afraid when I waited by the road while John and a truck driver changed our tire in Nebraska fifteen years ago. I shivered with anxiety when he did not appear behind me when we were driving in caravan from California to Pennsylvania. He had run out of gas and since cell phones were not yet standard he could not tell me. So I panicked. Perhaps an evolved mother would not be anxious. I can't say. 

A friend told me that our purpose on this planet is to whittle our egos down to size. That is rather like sawing a Sequoia to get a toothpick.  So when a few skirmishes showed up this month to make me face my assumptions, I took it as a blessing. I can't work on a flaw that is hidden.