The lessons of the picnic basket

Geeze, Louise....I lost another week. I started this blog to try to get myself into the habit of writing everyday. Obviously that's not working out too well! Time is so fleeting and just will not stand still for any of us. Point in case....it's already October. Summer seemed short this year because of all the rain, but then it seemed like we watched summer picking up her wet petticoats and sauntering out of town just a few weeks ago. And as much as I hate it, there are stores already playing Christmas music (it's not Christmas I hate....I adore Christmas....it's the stores playing Christmas music when we haven't even seen the ghouls and gobblins or tasted the warm juicy turkey and delightful dressing!....Come on folks....time passes fast enough!)

Today we are going to pack a picnic basket and drive up into the White Mountains of New Hampshire to see the majesty of the trees as they stand tall with their Sunday seasonal best on. There will be bonnets of red and orange, chapeaus of yellow and crimson and coats of varying shades of fading green. This time of year in New Hampshire, Maine, Michigan, Rhode Island, Connecticut....all over the northern states, Mother Nature is the artist and she will stand back with brushes in hand, each dipped in rich warm fall colors and she'll flicked those brushes as though you would to get the water out of a brush when cleaning it......and in perfection, as only Mother Nature can accomplish, the colors will be mixed against the sky every where we look.

I know it will be a day that will take our breath away.

I'm still going to writing class....so I thought, in view of our delightful trip today, I'd share something I wrote in one of those classes....

PROMPT: Set a scene
Write a scene that tells a story

Come on child, put your toys away. I’ve fixed us a picnic lunch. Let’s go out in the meadow and enjoy God’s handy work.

“Oh for Pete’s sake”, I thought to myself. I don’t want to spend the afternoon with my grandmother. What the hell will we talk about? She still thinks I play with toys! I’ll be 15 next week! Why did I agree to spend the whole summer here so far away from the city and my friends?

I bet Nettie is flirting with all the guys at the soda shop in town…Nettie with her beautiful corn silk hair and that rich “endowment” that always makes me feel like “Flatty Patty”. I can smell the burgers cooking on the grill; see the splatter of the hot froth as the cook eases the basket of French fries into the bubbling rolling grease. If I close my eyes I can taste the smoothness of the most delicious chocolate shakes this side of heaven…….and speaking of heaven I can see Johnny’s dreamy eyes….

“Sara Jane”….my name being yelled out pierces my dream-filled bubble. “Did you hear me honey? Don’t you want to go on a picnic?”

Oh heavy sigh……”Yes, Grammy, I’m coming”.

As I walked down the stairs and into the kitchen, the smell of fresh hot peach cobbler filled the air. Grammy was the best cook I’d ever known... why, even Mother said that. And Grammy was the tallest woman I think I’ve ever seen; tall and slender with her long silver hair always pulled into a tight bun low on the back of her head. Her skin was tough and worn from so many years on the farm. I looked at her and tried to imagine what she looked like at 15.

Mother said I was the spittin’ image of her (except for the height) and I liked that.

So I put my thoughts of Nettie and Johnny aside and gave Grammy my full attention.

I looked at the picnic basket, worn from age, but still together and sturdy with a crisp blue and white gingham towel lining it and one over the basket. I reached over to move the cover and Grammy slapped my hand—“What’s in the basket, Grammy?”

“Don’t you peek now girl!” “I’ve made us egg salad sandwiches and put in some chips, sodas and peach cobbler for dessert”.

“Why didn’t you want me to peek Grammy?”

“You just told me what was in the basket!”

“No child, I only told you part of what was in there—you’ll see.”

“Grab that basket and the camera.” “It’s such a pretty day, no telling what we’ll see—or what we’ll learn.”

We left the old farm house. “CLAP”, the screen door slammed as we walked out. Grammy never locked the doors. There were no neighbors close by and not many people visited and Grammy trusted everyone.

The clapboards on the old house needed painting but as I think back now it gave the old place character.

Old Sam, Grammy’s Border collie followed us out into the meadow. He was almost as old as Grammy (well in dog years) and he never left her side.

We threw out the blanket and I looked around and immediately remembered why I said I’d spend the summer here. It was like heaven in a golden meadow. The fragrant smell of wild flowers tickled my nose. The clouds were translucent. The warm sweet air breath-taking. We ate our sandwiches; egg salad like no other. (I think Grammy’s secret was that she added a little curry).

We talked about her childhood, the meadow and all my hopes and dreams; Grammy so totally engaged in my ideas and plans. The afternoon was magical. I looked around at the beauty of this meadow, got lost in watching a butterfly flit around us, seemingly so content with its short life. I closed my eyes and felt the warm sun kiss my cheek and thought this surely must be what heaven is like.

I took Gram’s hand and said, “Grammy, I love coming to this meadow with you….it’s takes my breath away.”

Grammy smiled the biggest smile I’d ever seen.

Then right before we were getting ready to leave I ask Gram what else was in the basket.

She reached deep to the bottom of the basket and took out a flat little package wrapped in tissue paper with a single satin pink ribbon tied around it.

She handed it to me. “What is it?”

“Just open it.”

I slowly pulled the end of the satin ribbon, which slid out of the bow as if it never meant to stay in place and pulled apart the tissue folded over it. It was a picture in a tiny frame of my great grandmother with my mother, when my mother was my age, right here in the very same meadow.

“Oh thank you Gram, thank you, it’s beautiful!”

She looked at me with her crystal blue eyes, took my hands and said, “It’s the simple things in life child that are important, spending time in nature with those you love. Whatever you do in your life, remember to take time to enjoy God’s handy work. Take time to be thankful for the simple beauties that are all around us; for all the things you have.”

“Look at the back of the picture, Sara.”

I turned the picture over. The back was covered in brown paper, worn from the years and the times someone (probably Grammy and my mom) had turned it over to read the words, now faded from time, written on the back…

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”

I ponder that day now. I think about the other lessons she taught me. And I know every summer why I return to that meadow with my grandchildren in hopes that they too will learn the lessons of the picnic basket.