Miles to Go...

Sometimes being a parent, spouse and employee makes me feel like a pinball. All I do is bounce from one thing to the next, put out fires, never really enjoying anything...just doing.

A few weeks ago I was having breakfast at my parents with several other couples (all my parents age). While bouncing my infant daughter against my chest I found myself talking to a long time friend of my father. He had recently been diagnosed with an incurable, degenerative lung disease. The diagnosis hadn't stopped him. He continued to work (he is a farmer and artist). He harvested his beans, brought in his hay and after breakfast was splicing wood to sell to a pulp factory. But today he was sitting on my parents couch with The Poetry of Robert Frost: The Collected Poems on his lap flipping the pages.

He shut the book and looked up at me. "I know it's in here, you know the one." He said. "Whose woods these are I think I know..." Together we found deep in the recesses of our memories the words to Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening. He said the last line with intensity. "I've got miles to go..."

It was a moment in the middle of a busy day, that was part of a busy weekend. I don't remember what we had for breakfast or if the kids took naps or not. But I took away a deep desire to stop and enjoy each moment as it happened. I have started putting down my Blackberry when I feed my daughter. Instead of checking email or reading the New York Times, I watched her eyes looking up at me. I stopped rushing my sons bed time. Taking the extra minute of time when he stayed snuggled in my arms. Our lives are made up of moments. We can't get them back and we can't remember all of them but we can live them as they happen.