Last night, we made up 20 beds! Owen and I volunteered at the Ronald McDonald House. We realized we've been volunteering there for over three years! It all came about after we'd been dating a little while. Owen mentioned how he used to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity and I was (and am) a big proponent of volunteerism, so it seemed like a natural fit to spend one "date night" a month giving our time to something beyond ourselves and the little love bubble we were living in!

Regardless of whatever else we're distracted by during any given month, when we walk through the front door of the RM House, we're immediately both brought to the same space in the present--it's probably the closest we get to Kabat-Zinn's ideas about mindfulness.

As we go about our Friday night task list, whether it's unloading dishwashers, cleaning out fridges, making beds, or baking up some cookies, I experience a quiet yet profound sense of awareness and gratefulness for each of these tasks we've been given. Being in the present, our attention is simply focused on this ... setting the comforter, two pillows, pillowcases, and top sheet to the side. We take the bottom sheet and fling it out in the air and let it settle on the mattress. Tuck in the edges. Put the top sheet on the bed, then stuff pillows in their cases and put them on the bed. Smooth the comforter on the bed, tucking it in a bit under the pillows. Then we stand back and look down at this bed we just made and wonder, "Will this bed look welcoming to them?" And then we move on to the next room and do this all over again until all the beds are made.

And the reason for our gratefulness perhaps goes unspoken, but it's there like a third person we can sense. We have gratitude because we're the ones who get to be there by choice. We get to be the nice people who volunteer their time bringing small comforts. We're grateful because we are not the ones with a baby in the hospital a block away. We are not the ones laying in a strange bed hundreds of miles from home, wondering whether or not we'll return to that home, to our own bed that smells like us, with our child in tow.