Lemons and Sunshine and Everyday Love

in solidarity

There are many who believe digital communications will cause the slow death of any ability we have to connect human to human on a meaningful level.

I am not one of them.

Just this past Sunday, as I sat here desperately missing my now-at-college daughter, I clicked on the link to Very Truly, Julie. The blog's author is, like me, a writer and a creative director. Julie Marr and I have never met, but in the short few weeks I've read her posts, it's clear we have a lot in common.

The post offers a lovely account of the making of lemon bars for a brunch Julie attended that morning, hosted by her neighbors.

That's so funny, I thought to myself. I, too, had brunch with my neighbors this morning. But right now I am heartbroken and pathetic and surely incapable of homemade pastries. 

Then I read on.
The irony wasn't lost on me, while baking early this morning, that it felt like life had thrown a few lemons my way as we delivered Italia to her freshman year of college yesterday. The rational part of me is thrilled that she's launched into an exhilarating next chapter, but mostly I'm wondering where the sunshine will be without her clouds of perfume and constant smile, her inside/outside beauty and all of that everyday love.
The post left me breathless, and I left a heartfelt comment on Julie's blog and went to bed, feeling strangely comforted that another mother— whose life looks so much like mine—was also simply putting one foot in front of the other and marching through it: morning, into afternoon, into evening.

The next day I found a gentle Julie email in my inbox. She talked of kindred spirit moments and happiness on the other side of oh-so-difficult transitions, and she shared a beautiful post she had written the night before taking her son to college two years ago. She signed off:

love and a good week to you in lots of little, comforting ways.  it's going to get less raw.  keep the faith! 
I have thought of that email a thousand times this week and have felt its honesty at work in my own heart. And I've been deeply grateful for the (really quite random) digital connection that brought Very Truly and Julie into my rss feed, and my life, just when I needed them both.

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