It's much better in person

By Meg Ferrante

My oldest woke me this morning sticking a camera in my face. Not to shoot a disheveled picture of me trying to fight the light, but to show me a photo he'd just taken of the sun coming up.

The first one out of bed, he'd peeked outside to check for what he hoped would be snow. No such luck, but he'd noticed the morning light fighting it's way up in a clouded, wintry sky. So he grabbed his camera and recorded the still of the moment.

"Come on, Mom," he said, showing me his masterpiece. "You gotta come out here. It's much better in person."

I went to the door, and sure enough, he was right. I love the picture he took, but how can it really compare to the real sight? The real light? The morning chill and that dry smell of the woods and grass all mixed in with something rotting and something somehow citrusy?

A good friend stopped by to see us today, with cookies and a lap harp for the boys. The house is not at its finest, I hadn't showered and breakfast wasn't ready. I think there were dishes in the sink from last night. I really could have used a good hour or two to tidy and make a nice brunch. But a full three hours later, after eating eggs (and cookies!), drinking copious cups of coffee, watching a lap harp recital (oldest picked up on it quickly and is smitten) and playing probably 17 hands of cards with the boys on my dirty family room floor, she and I agreed it had been a perfect morning.

Now, as I'm sitting down to write, I realize that all the best moments of my life, the most dramatic, the most memorable, the ones that are frankly worthy of a movie scene, are the ones I experienced in person. Where I put my heart and mind into the mix. And without thinking about dinner menus or the laundry needing to be folded, without thought for the story I committed to writing that I should have started a week ago or the youngest's shots that aren't quite up to date, without distraction, I was in the moment. And being there was good.

I'm off on the less exciting task of scrounging the next meal and trying to finish those dishes. But when I keep myself open to it, they're just brief dull moments in a long string of downtime, linking the hours between the memorable moments that make this life so worthwhile.

Here's to a magical Christmas!