Life is a pot of soup

I was sitting at the kitchen table tonight, one hand holding up my head while the other made circles with a spoon in my homemade turkey vegetable soup.

I make a mean turkey vegetable soup. It’s a powerful medicinal bastion that can kill a virus just by its aroma. In fact I believe my turkey vegetable soup is the one and only cure for the common cold.

I sat there stirring the bright colored vegetables and big chunks of turkey meat in a golden-hued broth, steam rising to meet my nose. I watched everything in the bowl take on a speed of its own after I lifted out my spoon.

I was feeling sorry for myself—a self-depreciating talent I am a pro at when I want to be. I was convinced that on the cusp of my 55^th birthday I hadn’t accomplished anything worth celebrating, except for the fact that I was very good at running the two-week marathon from paycheck to pay check. 

Just call me “Stretch Armstrong-Caldwell.”

And I kept stirring that turkey vegetable soup.

“Muffin,” the kitten, who sat like a statue at my feet waiting for a piece of turkey to drop off my spoon, maintained the patience of “Job,”  as motionless as a cat statue in ancient Egypt. She knows it is worth the wait.

Another house companion was outside doing what a grown cat does best—catching unsuspecting birds and mice.

Earlier this evening while working in the barn I followed a trail of  down and feathers to find a robin who won’t be making the fall migration this year, poor fellow. And over there under the “My Barn My Rules” sign is another has-been winged thing, a sparrow. The survival of the fittest hunts here. His name is “Louie.”

I keep stirring my turkey vegetable soup, and my thinking—a revolving door I often lose myself in—takes me places as I try to find good feelings about being 55 and at this juncture in my adventurous life.

The band ‘Five for Fighting’ is singing “100 years” in the background. I flat stare the soup, the kitten, and the falling leaves outside the kitchen window.

It’s difficult not to compare myself to people around me who have the things I don’t have that I wish I did—yet most of those things, my late grandmother would have me know in her spirit whisper, fall darkly under #10 on the big list. Not good.

Then the turkey vegetable soup that I have been staring into for 30 minutes begins to talk to me. Funny enough, I listen to its story.  

“Once upon a time, there was a turkey carcass, some broth, a few spices, a carrot, two onions, some fresh peas, and a scoop or two of elbow macaroni sitting around the table, pointing fingers at themselves for all the things they thought they couldn’t do.

The soup pot said, “Jump in,” and so they did, and something amazing happened. Together they became an amazing soup.

Herein was my lesson.

There is more success in my life and in me than I give myself credit for.

I am a powerful pot of soup.

(One thousand bucks in my bank account would be nice though.)