“This soup is really not what I ordered,” I say aloud.

“Oh, that’s my soup,” says Judi, fellow Compassion sponsor and muy buena amiga (aka Audrey Hepburn in a previous blog).

Judi adds with a smile, “That’s okay. You can have my soup.”

I’m in Mexico, seated outside at a sidewalk café. It’s our last day in Oaxaca and I sit with many of my fellow Compassion sponsors. Nineteen of us have gathered from all over the U.S. for a week-long tour in Oaxaca, which includes a day with the child we sponsor through Compassion International. Our week together is about to come to a close.

“What happened to the soup I ordered?” I say as I wave to our waiter.

“Oh señor! Señor, I didn’t get the soup I ordered.” I say as our waiter comes over to our table.

He looks puzzled and I realize he doesn’t speak English. I point to the soup with dramatic emphasis. Hand gestures, I’ve discovered, covers a lot of verbal communication barriers.

The waiter seems to understand and nods his head. In a minute, he returns with my order, Caldo de Pollo.

Oaxaca’s public square, called a zócalo, has much to appreciate. It features quaint sidewalk café’s, including the one where our group currently enjoys lunch. Massive shady trees hover over the zócalo’s bustling and colorful plaza, their branches making a protective canopy. Roving street performers sing (some in-tune and some not) while playing their guitars. Elegant arcades encircle the square and street vendors hawk handmade bracelets, multihued paintings on homemade paper, and helium-foil balloons in every shape. Customers at the sidewalk café’s sip drinks and watch the ensemble of people strolling the plaza courtyard.

Judi says, “Look around. Look at this! Isn’t this beautiful? I’m going to sit here and take this in. Soon, we won’t have this.” She leans back in her chair and enjoys the scene of bright colors and happy melody.

I slurp my soup (politely, of course). Slurping warms it and I don’t want it to get cold. Judi continues to relish the colorful flavor of the plaza. She’s at peace, enjoying the moment. Not worried one bit, it seems, that I ate her soup before realizing it wasn’t mine.

At times, I don’t stop to appreciate what I have. Instead, I concentrate on what I don’t have. And eat everybody else’s soup.

Several days prior to our lunch at the sidewalk café, I didn’t have a heated room when our tour group stayed in a beautiful hotel perched on the side of a mountain. The hotel seemed like something out of a dream. Spiky orange and purple bird of paradise and cobalt-blue allium festooned the gardens along steep brick paths.  However, the dream stopped when it came to the frigid mountain temperature. To my dismay, my cute Mexico-styled hotel room at the bottom of the path (but still cliff-hanging) didn’t have heat. I hiked back up the dizzying path to the hotel office. I asked, gasping for breath after the steep climb, about heat for my room. “Estoy muy frío,” I explained in bad Spanish.

With a lip-pouting expression, the hotel employee said the rooms don’t come with heaters. But she had good news. She had an extra blanket if I wanted. Well, I wanted.

The next morning, I attempted to get out of the warm blanket tomb I had created in the bed. But the arctic air slashed me with an icy chill, so I yanked the blankets back on top of me.

Then an idea came to me. This particular hotel, unlike the others we stayed in, had hot water. I decided to run the hot water as if taking a shower, wait for the steam to warm up the bathroom, then get dressed as fast as possible. I steamed up the bathroom just long enough to get dressed. Hallelujah! I didn’t expire from hypothermia in the process. Although the steam made me have a very bad hair day.

I hiked up, and up, the perilous path to the dining area at the top of the mountain, somewhere in the clouds. When I arrived and entered the heated dining room I realized I had entered heaven. Did I hear harp melodies? A table displayed a huge silver urn filled with hot coffee. The joy, oh the joy!

After breakfast, our group headed to our next destination. As we rode along in our van, Judi showed me a picture she had taken earlier that morning, from her cliff-hanging hotel room. “I took this picture when I woke up,” she said. I gazed at the photo on her phone—a picturesque view of golden sunlight peering over smoky gray mountains, lighting up the valley in a Wizard of Oz green.

“You enjoyed the moment,” I said to Judi, after seeing her picture. I had been too busy steaming the bathroom to take time to notice the beautiful view outside.

Thinking about this later, I wondered. Would I have spent more time enjoying the present if I had felt warm or served the correct soup? Maybe. But life doesn’t always go the way we’d like it to.

I’m back at home now, here in warm Arizona. I’ve decided I’m going to be more like Judi. Right now, I will sit back and take this moment in.  I see the Palo Verde tree aglow in yellow blooms outside the window in my writing room.  And I hear birds chattering happily and…and… our yard is flooded. We have another leak in the drip irrigation system. Or drip irritation system as Jerry calls it. We need to get this fixed today.

I heard gushing water last night and this is when we discovered the leak…and lake in the yard. But…Ignore that, ignore that. Back to enjoying the moment.

Ignorrring!

βω♥