honey and lemon

Right now I'm in desperate need of honey and lemon. Unfortunately, my throat has started to get scratchy and my sinuses have been feeling stuffy all day long. And I keep thinking back and remembering the spoonful of honey and lemon juice I used to get when I had a sore throat.

Now I just use honey and lemon cough drops instead of the real thing, but it gets the job done. The memory though is one of those blurry edged memories from childhood that is forever etched in my mind with some kind of romantic sentimentality. The honey on the spoon and the big green glass bottle of lemon juice that somehow seemed medicinal all the time, not just when it was used to soothe my throat. 

It's kind of like spoonfuls of peanut butter for me. Every time we went to Grammy's apartment she used to let us take a spoon - the kind with the "K" on the handle - and load it up with a giant lump of peanut butter. Somehow Grammy's peanut butter always seemed better than the kind we had at home even though I'm pretty sure it was the same.

It seems strange how long ago it all was. A time when I was too young to realize that Butler was an actual place, with people besides Grammy. To my 4 year old mind Butler meant Grammy's apartment complex, and the park down the street. It meant spoonfuls of peanut butter, a tin full of beads, trips to the park and visits with Sally. And I loved it.

Funny how you don't really realize how much things have changed until you take the time to remember them as they were.

It's hard to move forward without looking back. It's hard to have the right balance - remembering what you should, enjoying what you can, and looking forward to what is ahead - but the it is out there somewhere.

If I've learned anything in my life it's this: You can't be who you are or who you will become without having been where you were.

Life isn't always fun, but each moment carries you to the next one, and hopefully we become older and wiser, better able to absorb the hits we take and throw back a few of our own. 

here's to

the honey and lemon, 

and the spoonfuls of peanut butter