Twenty til Eight in the Evening

It's twenty til eight in the evening, and I am at home. I'm beginning to wander around the house, moving from tiny chore to tiny chore, idly tidying here and there. Stopping to pet the cats on the head. It's coolish for July, and I've been out in the backyard enjoying the garden, taking time to just check in on all my plant friends out there, and feeling the touch of tomato plants as I brush by. I consider this bliss, and a bliss for which I no longer feel a need to apologize.

I consider that, during the symphony season, the rehearsals will have begun only 10 minutes ago. Presbyterian churches are just beginning committee meetings. Soccer practices, football games, date nights, and church services, all would be underway about now. But, I am at home. No apologies.

I've been there, done that deal of dashing. Dashing from one scheduled event to the next. Allotting 12 minutes for the grocery store, 7 minutes in the post office, hours in the car pool line. I've been there, done that with dropping in the bed, exhausted, only to wake up to start it again the next day, exhausted.

Of course, though, I was just exhausted from living life fully, from taking advantage of all the wondrous experiences life has to offer. For much of the time, it was all good. But, even so, I wondered. I wondered what my grandparents knew when they sat on the porch in the evenings. And, I mean really sat on the porch. No apologies.

What I know now is that they worked a farm. They worked from before sunup to just after sundown. The last task I would remember of them for the evening was to slop the hogs with the bucket of remnants left from the day's meals, including supper that was just completed. Then, in the dusk, after supper, they sat on the front porch together with whatever visiting family might be around and watched the evening roll across the hill. Few cars ever passed, so it really was basically just watching that hill across the road disappear into darkness.

I've wondered about that ritual many times, even as I screeched into the school parking lot well past bedtime to retrieve my children from field trips, or band trips. Or sat in the bleachers or concert halls well past bedtime to cheer and applaud the accomplishments of the younger generation. I've wondered about that ritual even as I've sat in well intentioned meetings that have the power to hold me in that place, but for what really?

Years of wondering vaporized with a sudden realization that there was a beauty to that ritual. A closure. Measurement to the day. Barely a break in the day from plowing for harvesting or bunching tobacco or milking the cows or gathering the eggs. But, when the day was done, it was done. No apologies. It was time for rest, for reflection and conversation, for engagement of a different sort with oneself and others. A Sabbath built into every day.

Thank goodness I no longer have to wonder. It now seems very wise to me. The evenings are sacred. No apologies.