Making a moment count

It is Thursday and the temperature has moved beyond 89 degrees in the northern part of Chicago. It is pretty hot for a girl who relishes in 50-60 degree weather. Earlier in the afternoon I took a sweet patient I am very fond of to the Chicago Botanical Gardens where I threatened I would have gray hair by the time we got back to the rehab van because he was not being safe with his walker. He gave me a lopsided grin and patted me on the back as though I were the lost cause. I playfully pretended to toss him into a rose bush and then quickly spotted him to ensure that he truly wouldn't tip over. A constant joke-and-recover that I play several times a day. He also soothed any concerns I had about his crazy poor safety unawareness with gourmet chocolate covered pretzels. Truce.

It is now evening and I am sitting in a third story apartment with three other women who I have been studying scripture with every Thursday since December. It is sunny in the apartment and so so so hot that as we read aloud to each other, beads of sweat turn into full on drips gliding down from our forehead. For some reason I think it is so appropriate to be red faced and boiling hot while studying the words of God. As if I am sitting in the middle of Jerusalem at high noon with the apostle Paul himself.

There is a beautiful cool breeze that passes through Wendy, Jin, and I when we return to ground level. The sun has set and I am driving home with my windows wide open and a detectable lovely feeling that I don't have to show my face at work for four whole days. In the distance I am moved for absolutely no reason by a Corvette sitting perpendicular to me waiting to take a right hand turn onto Dempster St. The Corvette sits low and is dark. I don't even recall the headlights being on- it is stealth and waiting like some kind of predator. Every once in a while, the rims flicker like some kind of lighthouse morse code into a sea of cars as a result of headlights bouncing of the metal. I'm not sure why I am so stricken by this moment. The rest of the drive home I try to formulate how I would "make this moment count" in words but fail. I guess that's the beautiful irreplaceable fact of life: movement of any form within us happens regardless of reason or logic. It just happens and it's up to us to see it for what it really is.