Little Pleasures

I had lunch with a friend a week ago. 

She made a yummy poached fish with herbs. She also offered some really nice water -- one steeped with cucumber and mint and the other with lemon. 

I ordered some pretty carafes today to make flavored water. There are three in the set. One for cucumber and mint, which I'd never thought to put together, one for lemon and basil, and another for some kind of fruit and herbs, probably berries or peaches or whatever else might be in season as the summer goes on. I like strawberry and basil together. I'm thinking of trying tarragon with something.

We planted herbs around the house this year. My landlady died on Epiphany and her son bought the house and moved into the apartment downstairs. I asked if he'd mind if I plant herbs out front. He thought that was a great idea and said he'd see about planting tomatoes in the backyard - in pots or a raised bed. We have to figure out where the best sun is out back. 

The spring was unseasonably cold and wet and by the time there was sun enough and warm temperatures to plant the herbs, I had left for Washington to be with Mom in the hospital. I thought I'd be there a few days and it turned out to be almost three weeks.  

When I came back, Bob had planted the herbs, and flowers as well, everything we'd talked about the weeks before I left. There was something deeply compassionate in his doing that. And today I'm drinking water that has been enhanced by the basil and the mint that we've got growing out front. It feels like a gift. Of course, it is.

I'm forcing myself toward little pleasures - like beautiful and delicious water - to help balance the sadness I am feeling over my mother's death and the dawning reality of her being gone. 

In Mary-Frances O'Connor's The Grieving Brain, she talks about the way the brain maps changes in life. When we're born, the brain maps the new landscape . . . who picks us up when we cry, who feeds us, whose face it is that meets our little faces. And when someone core to our life dies, the brain needs to map that as well. To map that they are not there any more. The empty space that is new in the landscape. Personally, I think that if we were not cushioned from the shock of such a death by this brain mapping, we might die ourselves or go mad. 

I think it helps us in the mapping of the new landscape to try new little things to meet ourselves there. Things like beautiful and delicious water. It's pretty much all I can manage right now. 

And it's enough to meet the moment.

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.