Turns out, she would like me to come help her in deciding the simplest way to organize the furniture in her new kitchen. She and her hubby just acquired their first house and we helped them move in over Saturday and Sunday. Ok, I am wondering before I am going - what's to decide? You've a kitchen table and 4 chairs and a jelly cupboard that Pa made for you, one corner of the room without cupboards, stoves or refridgerators I am mystified about the misunderstanding.

Earlier, I had been talking about the picture "Shall We Dance?" with a buddy.

there is a scene in that film where Susan Sarandon's personality gives the best outline I have ever heard about what you are actually promising when you take marriage promises. I am truly grateful I'd had that discussion just before my sister's call, because I was capable of being "present" and "mindful" and look a bit deeper than I could have, typically, into what sounded like a mad request. In summation, Susan Sarandon's personality explains that when you are saying, "I do", what you are truly saying is that you're going to be an eyewitness to the other person's life, that you will be there to see the good, the bad, the vile, the common-or-garden - briefly you may be a bystander to their life so that at the end of their life, they will know their life didn't stay unseen. Naturally, the writers of that picture script, and Susan's delivery of it, are more eloquent than I'm being here, but you get it.

It strikes me that we need an eyewitness - more than one, occasionally.

We need to feel that our lives matter, that WE matter. I love my sister, and I am glad I was there to witness her excitement and terror over being a new homeowner. She failed to require assistance deciding on where to put things - she wanted to know that what mattered to her mattered to some other person - right then - regardless of how common-or-garden. This affirms another suspicion I have had for quite a long time : it is not the "big" events in life from which we draw our sense of belonging, but instead the accumulative "little" moments on the way which too frequently stay unseen.