Scooping and Tossing
The other day, I arrived home after a haircut to find my beloved and our son on the driveway. It was warm for this time of year, and they were playing in the slushy snow. This was, in my opinion, an excellent plan given that we'd all been lying around on couches watching Donald Duck videos or doing SuDoKu puzzles most of the week.
An excellent plan, indeed, but not one in which I wanted to take part at that particular moment. I hadn't eaten lunch yet, and it was after 1 PM. I retreated to the kitchen to heat some leftovers.
As the microwave ran, I stood looking out the window above our stove, munching Chex Mix and watching father and son frolic in the snow. They weren't frolicking, exactly. In actuality, our little guy, who had a kid-sized, green plastic shovel in hand, was furiously scooping and tossing snow onto the driveway. Scoop-toss, scoop-toss, scoop-toss. He was really going for it, shoveling for all he was worth--in the wrong direction. (Antishoveling?)
Before my food had heated completely, the entire lane behind my garage stall was speckled with splotches of heavy, wet snow. And Daddy was just standing by idly, letting the boy have his fun.
Then I saw him head for the garage and return with our beefy shove-l. It's a shove-l because you really don't want to lift and dump with it like you would with a lighter version. This substantial hunk of metal on a wooden handle is strictly a pushing implement.
The elder Strandberg, seeing that the younger had tired of his effort to uncover a sizeable patch of lawn, was clearing the driveway again, creating a clean concrete slate. He wasn't angry or annoyed about it; he was just setting things as they should be once again.
Standing in the kitchen watching this silent movie through the windowpane, I saw the scene differently than I would have were I out in the fray. I saw myself, half-crazed and unthinking, digging, digging, digging as though I knew what I were doing--as though I had figured out exactly what it was that would fulfill my life forever, and it was this scooping and tossing, scooping and tossing. Once I was satisfied with my effort, I walked away not even aware that what I had done was worse than unproductive--it was exactly the opposite of what I was intended to do.
And then I saw a Benevolent One who had been standing silently by the entire time--without interfering, without redirecting--step in and clean up the mess. He wasn't bitter about it but rather was a bit bemused.
'She'll figure it out sooner or later,' He thought as He did the heavy lifting once again. 'Until then, I'll just keep shoveling.'
An excellent plan, indeed, but not one in which I wanted to take part at that particular moment. I hadn't eaten lunch yet, and it was after 1 PM. I retreated to the kitchen to heat some leftovers.
As the microwave ran, I stood looking out the window above our stove, munching Chex Mix and watching father and son frolic in the snow. They weren't frolicking, exactly. In actuality, our little guy, who had a kid-sized, green plastic shovel in hand, was furiously scooping and tossing snow onto the driveway. Scoop-toss, scoop-toss, scoop-toss. He was really going for it, shoveling for all he was worth--in the wrong direction. (Antishoveling?)
Before my food had heated completely, the entire lane behind my garage stall was speckled with splotches of heavy, wet snow. And Daddy was just standing by idly, letting the boy have his fun.
Then I saw him head for the garage and return with our beefy shove-l. It's a shove-l because you really don't want to lift and dump with it like you would with a lighter version. This substantial hunk of metal on a wooden handle is strictly a pushing implement.
The elder Strandberg, seeing that the younger had tired of his effort to uncover a sizeable patch of lawn, was clearing the driveway again, creating a clean concrete slate. He wasn't angry or annoyed about it; he was just setting things as they should be once again.
Standing in the kitchen watching this silent movie through the windowpane, I saw the scene differently than I would have were I out in the fray. I saw myself, half-crazed and unthinking, digging, digging, digging as though I knew what I were doing--as though I had figured out exactly what it was that would fulfill my life forever, and it was this scooping and tossing, scooping and tossing. Once I was satisfied with my effort, I walked away not even aware that what I had done was worse than unproductive--it was exactly the opposite of what I was intended to do.
And then I saw a Benevolent One who had been standing silently by the entire time--without interfering, without redirecting--step in and clean up the mess. He wasn't bitter about it but rather was a bit bemused.
'She'll figure it out sooner or later,' He thought as He did the heavy lifting once again. 'Until then, I'll just keep shoveling.'
posted by Lisa Strandberg at 6:07 PM
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