Delayed Gratification

Our modern society simply refuses to accomadate patience. Our daily existence is a string of instances and immediacy. We drive through the bank. We drive through for food. We order gifts online. We can barely tolerate cell phones and resort to texting. We send email and repeatedly check for responses. We are on the verge of a nearly synchronized existence.

I daydream about the era of delayed gratification. Waiting for a letter from a penpal. I had a penpal in Arkansas as a child. Waiting for money to come in the mail from my parents when I was in college. Waiting for my girlfriends to pass me notes between classes (or even better a noted artfully folded and slipped in my locker from the current crush). I actually have a show box full of these folded adolescent notes. It was a sweet time of innocence.

So many of my hobbies and interests are things that require patience. The gratification is delayed, often for months (depending on my attention to the endeavor). The quilt on the bed in my office/guest room took me a year to make because I could not devote myself to the task for long periods of time.

 

 I am starting to feel the itch to start a new quilt. I certainly have plenty of fabric.

Gardening is the ultimate form of delayed gratification. Whether it is flowers, bulbs or vegetables, we labor and wait. Today I deadheaded my perennial garden. This garden is the source of most of my “Blooms” photos. It is a garden to attract butterflies and bees. I also weeded another bed and exposured the monkey grass and then weilded my chainsaw, chopping back the holly hedge. The eave of the house needed respite. Then I planted 3 dozen caladium bulbs. I once planted a vegetable garden with Cameron. We planted and later harvested the sweetest carrots. I dream of having a working kitchen garden. My sister had an amazing garden in Griffin. I was quite envious of that garden and her abilities. She fed her family from that garden.

The most spectacular form of delayed gratification is pregnancy. I have lingered over the memories of both of my pregnancies. Wednesday is Cameron’s 12th birthday. It seems so recent that I napped in the afternoon sun, in my Charleston crackerhouse on Woodland Shores Road. My baby would roll on my belly, poking against me. I was so amazed as the deep and fundamental love I have for this baby. I felt and thought about that baby like I did my own body. I was 7 months pregnant before I realized I needed to speak aloud all my thoughts. I was convinced my baby could hear my love and adoration….feel it on a cellular level. He is my sweetpea. He is my sunshine. My east and my west. God completed me the day He knitted that baby in my womb. Then 3 years later to be blessed with the abundance of my Evie Boy….I still weep with gratitude. Grace has been bestowed on me in the form of two truly glorious sons.

 

And now I watch and wait expectantly to witness their passage from child to boy to man. The joy is overwhelming.