Is it there?

"Caretake this moment. Immerse yourself in its particulars. Respond to this person, this challenge, this deed. Quit the evasions. Stop giving yourself needless trouble. It is time to really live; to fully inhabit the situation you happen to be in now." -Epictetus

With time flying by so quickly, I've found myself both living in the future and trying to grab on to the hours, and days that are left and hold on to them. Already I have been here for three months and, though at the time they seemed to pass slowly, I look back on all my experiences and it feels as if I've blinked to arrive at this moment.

As tradition would have it in my Christmas world, Kendra and I decorated her mini tree to the sounds of the Elvis Christmas album at 2 in the morning on Friday night. Earlier that evening we had attended a community chorale and orchestral concert in Limoges with Melek and Benjamin (who was in the show, playing his clarinet). 

We knew we were in France when there were high school students up on stage, dressed in chic black with differently colored scarfs draped around their necks, singing in beautiful harmony to the accompaniment of a harpsichord. How great is that?

The car ride home was a vocabulary exchange of road words which quickly turned in to a lesson in essential swear words when Benjamin said, in a French accent, "The windows are all fogged up." You can imagine where it went from there. All this to a soundtrack of ABBA hits.

I'm spending today cooped up in my warm little home, the slushy rain pounding down and inviting no one to come and play. I have three new books to read, and lessons to plan for the little ones, and moments to savor.