There is a daily inspirational quote that pops up in my inbox every morning. A different one each time. Often it is just the ticket to help me rise above the mundane. But today it annoyed me.

“Conjecture about what is to come, and the remembrance of the past, are what take away every pleasantness and joy from life. From this come anxieties, cares, worries.” Emanuel Swedenborg, Spiritual Experiences 2190

I am currently counting down the months until my daughter and her husband have a baby and the box of teeny clothes tucked under the tree gives me tingles. Added to that there are photographs of past holidays that scroll across my big screen when I am at home, rekindling the feelings stored up like last summer's garden.

How dare this notion accuse me of sabotaging pleasure by both being excited about next June and reflective of past years?

I dismissed it. 

Mid morning a small girl I do not know well arrived for a sewing lesson. Sometimes mothers linger to be sure their child feels comfortable in a strange place, but this one left the car running. She kissed her daughter and left. After thirty seconds I understood why. This child had not the slightest discomfort being in a new situation and promptly explained her intentions. 

"A doll. With a belly button. My sister HAS to be able to see her belly button, and if her pajamas cover it she will wake up in the night and WAIL. She got a doll for Christmas that didn't have one and my mother had to draw one with permanent marker. Per-ma-nent," she said with emphasis. 

While I have not previously spent time with her, I do know her parents and grandparents, and many of her cousins. In fact I was aware that this week marks an exceedingly heavy anniversary for some of them. The idea crossed my mind to gently bring it up, should she want to talk about it, but it seemed more irrelevant than asking where she plans to live when she is fifty two. 

As the sock doll came to life we chatted about her brother, who she explained has taken the terrible twos into the terrible threes. She also remarked that her father had mispronounced the name of her Christmas gift. 

"It's not Josephina, it's Hosephina," she had corrected him. "Because she is Spanish."

Her doll needed shoes, and as these are not a frequent project I mostly guessed the proportions as I snipped the hand dyed yellow wool felt. We zigzagged the top of the shoe to the sole, only because I had forgotten to go back to a straight stitch after the elastic skirt waist. When we held it up to the doll's foot I was sure she would be disappointed in the lopsidedness but quite the contrary. She was pleased. We made a second shoe and she was particular that we use the same zigzag stitch so they matched. Let me remind you that for a doll only eight inches tall, the shoe is less than two inches long and the seam up the back is, well, brief. But for her it was imperative that they were the same. 

Our hour together spun past, and she made me laugh a dozen times. Maybe twenty. This child was completely present to the moment, neither worried about whether her mother would remember to make lunch, nor regretful about having spilled juice last week. 

Then for a fleeting moment the quote made sense.