To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. ~ Ecclesiastes 3:1

T’was was time for the fourth member of our family to get sick this weekend.  I was sick on Friday, Jim last night into today.  The kids were ill last weekend, and we’ve hardly left our house but for occasional excursions to work and school when able.  ‘Tis the season of viral infections, fa-la-la-la-la-la ha ha ha ha.  Sigh.

It seems lately  I’m blessed to be invited to a variety of poetry readings, book signings, and other culturally significant events which I am unlikely to attend.  It’s not that I don’t want to read, write, and live poetry anymore.  It’s just that I’m actually writing my second book, and between a promotion at work in November (doubling my workload), a lovely new hire who joined us two weeks ago, raising kids who invariably get whatever bugs are floating around the elementary school, trying to finish strategy planning for The Children’s Heart Foundation Colorado Chapter, and getting a good start on the book . . . and oh crap I’m in charge of food for my high school reunion – I have to stop forgetting that.  I am done with Christmas shopping, but I wrapped while everyone’s been sick – taking advantage of the down time.  Well, anyway, now is not the time for poetry in my life. Turn, turn, turn.

Last weekend, we almost got rid of the last standing baby toy when my one-year-old nephew fell in love with the tiny toy piano that was much too dusty.  Unfortunately, he left it and his sipper cup behind.  We’ll reconnect with the impending holidays and many family birthdays and rectify the abandoned piano.  But our time of baby toys has now passed.  The kids have moved on to more complex games and toys. . . and books.

In the past two months we’ve read the first two Harry Potter books and then watched the films.  Last night,  while Jim was sick in bed, the three remaining Adams huddled underneath blankets next to the fireplace watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.  I thought about Emma Watson’s very grown up picture on the cover of a magazine at the hotel I stayed at in Chicago, how quickly my children have grown from toy piano to Harry Potter, how Emma Watson is closer in age to my kids than to me. How swiftly the seasons change. . . So I snuggled between two bodies still small enough to accommodate all three of us on one couch in comfort.  I enjoyed this season and did not regret the poetry reading I was missing last night.  I hardly missed it at all.

God willing, my health will only be compromised by beatable viruses, my days blown rapidly but predictably past with the seasons, and I will find, in my time, time again for poetry readings, book signings, and cultural events.  The time will come when I take comfort from my abandonment and empty nest in a new season of interesting characters, and I will miss Harry Potter, like I miss the baby toys. But I will know I didn’t miss a minute.  I’m dressed for the season, in the right place at the right time.