This Is Now

‘When Laura and Mary had said their prayers and were tucked snugly under the trundle bed’s covers, Pa was sitting in the fire-light with the fiddle. Ma had blown out the lamp because she did not need its light. On the other side of the hearth she was swaying gently in her rocking chair and her knitting needles flashed in and out above the sock she was knitting.
The long winter evenings of fire-light and music had come again.

Pa’s fiddle wailed while Pa was singing:

.“Oh, Susi-an-na, don’t you cry for me,
. I’m going to Cal-i-for-ni-a,
. The gold dust for to see.’

Then Pa began to play again the song about Old Grimes. But he did not sing the words he had sung when Ma was making cheese. These words were different. Pa’s strong, sweet voice was softly singing:

.“Shall auld acquaintance be forgot,
. And never brought to mind?
. Shall auld acquaintance be forgot,
. And the days of auld lang syne?
. And the days of auld lang syne, my friend,
. And the days of auld lang syne,
. Shall auld acquaintance be forgot,
. And the days of auld lang syne?”

When the fiddle had stopped singing Laura called out softly, “What are days of auld lang syne, Pa?”

“They are the days of a long time ago, Laura,” Pa said. “Go to sleep, now.”

But Laura lay awake a little while, listening to Pa’s fiddle softly playing and to the lonely sound of the wind in the Big Woods. She looked at Pa sitting on the bench by the hearth, the fire-light gleaming on his brown hair and beard and glistening on the honey-brown fiddle. She looked at Ma, gently rocking and knitting.

She thought to herself, “This is now.”

She was glad that the cozy house, and Pa and Ma and the fire-light and the music, were now. They could not be forgotten, she thought, because now is now. It can never be a long time ago.’

(Little House in the Big Woods, HarperCollins [1971], pp. 236-238)

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I am treasuring, savoring, enjoying these days of now with aching thankfulness.

I see now that my mama’s love of this stage of the almost-one-year-old is more than just a love of motherhood in general. There is a special, golden sweetness about these hours of happy play and discovery. Learning to love music and words and expression, charming Daddy with silly faces, splashing in warm bubbly baths, coming back for affectionate snuggles and noonies. I am filling myself up to the brim with this sweetness to savor always.

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(Greta sitting in her toy-box)

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Greta loves it when I play a Judy Rogers cassette for her in my CD player in the kitchen. She crawls as fast as she can over to it, climbs up to the shelf, then smiles and laughs and bounces up and down. Usually we listen to "Why Can't I See God?", and usually mommie sings along. Soon Greta Rosie will too. :)

Evening listening for quieting busy little persons during supper and bathtime has been another of my childhood favorite cassette tapes, "G'night Wolfgang". I was thinking the other evening that perhaps it would be a good idea to get a copy of it on CD for when the cassette dies. I wondered, though, would it even have the same comfort factor without all of the familiar warbles?