Before I Forget

Sometimes "beauty where we are" means lightening up, scrapping the plan and being joyfully surprised by what happens next.  Tonight our ten-year-old begged us to let him skip dinner and keep playing -- on the village green; in the meadow where he invariably gets nettle stings; out on the rocks where he slipped and got a whopping scrape last evening but amazingly didn't seem to mind (yes, we all seem to be accident-prone lately).  My head produced a few arguments about the importance of family rituals and consistent routines (I think it might have even trotted out those statistics about kids getting better grades when they regularly eat at the family table), but in the end the winner was that louder, more compelling argument for fresh air, exercise and wholesome old-fashioned play.

And guess what?  We and the teen had a fantastic meal, talking about politics and culture and his English class's read-through of Death of a Salesman (he was Willy, but wanted to be Linda; and his Canadian teacher teased him about not sounding American enough).  We laughed -- a lot.  And it was lovely.