Sunshine

I awoke to lemony sunshine.  The day went up and up and up from there.  Lemon curd in a tantalizingly appetizing shade of cornmeal yellow.  My tongue curled as I squeezed the fresh juice and razed the thick skin against the kitchen plane.  My mouth watered as I whisked the butter into the heated mixture which bubbled on my stove top in the late AM hours of the morning.  Not only did the rich goodness coat the back of the spatula -- it coated my taste buds in an almost sensory overload of flavor.

The lemon theme continued with the chicken and pasta dish.  Home dried tomatoes sauteed in extra virgin olive oil.  Thick-sliced chicken breast browned in olive oil and flour after marinading in Italian seasoning for several hours.  What a raucous of scent that cooking action rendered unto the willing nose!  A delightful lemon-caper sauce married the tart and the vinegar-salty flavors quite nicely.  Dessert was a spring-oriented playful display of of color and flavors.  I'm reporting here that raspberry sorbet seems to have been made to place in an accepting pool of lemon curd. 

But perhaps the most valuable bright spot of the day occurred NOT when the late afternoon sunshine pierced the kitchen windows without benefit of the shades and blinded my dinner guests for a time, but when I realized that this gracious and talented group of women were there not just for themselves but for me.  The laughter and intellectual tidbits that we shared were enlightening and positively worth an evening's time.  The energy they gave off was anything but evening, however.  Their radiance was that of the morning sun which greeted me upon waking this morning come full circle.  In an instant, I knew I was in exactly the place I needed to be for this time, this moment, in my life.

How many of you can say that?