JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

It’s canning season. Grocery stores display packs of glass jars and lids as well as boxes of berries and peaches. In my homeschool yahoogroup, moms exchange advice on recipes for preserves. It’s been years since I dared to make jam but I’ve done it a few times. What a combination of harvesting and hope: a way to feed a family and the soul. Take the abundance of summer and preserve it in a jar for the cold barren days to come. Make a memory and scoop it out with a spoon onto a piece of toast.

If only other areas of life could be captured in abundance and canned for later consumption. Time of course would be a good one. Take a wintry winter weekend stuck inside and save it for a sunny summer usage.

But I am realizing that I need a certain energy level in order to do what I need to do. This past week I’ve felt too tired at night to write. Instead of publishing posts, I’ve gone to bed. I need a certain level of emotional reserves in order to interact in relationships, whether in-person or on-line. Otherwise I should sleep.

For weeks like this one, I wish I had a jar of two of emotional preserves in my cupboard. I could go open the jar, grab a spoon and serve myself some energy reserves. Within moments, I’d be enjoying strength I’d saved from a day of excess. A day when the sun had shone and the flowers had bloomed and I’d danced in the electricity of being alive. How sweet it would taste, that jar of emotional preserves. If only I could figure out how to harvest and can those moments of abundance that are as sweet and ephermeral as summer fruit.