We have a new refrigerator. When I woke up yesterday morning, thoughts of replacing the frig weren’t on my radar screen. That changed pretty quickly when I reached into the suspiciously warm box for milk for my coffee. The focus of the day shifted from buying and planting herbs to weighing repair and replacement options for our refrigerator.

A great local company, an understanding salesperson, flexible delivery guys willing to add one more frig to their day, and my milk is cold this morning. All consuming yesterday, but a pretty easy fix in retrospect.

I’m not really thinking solely about refrigerators here. I’m thinking about how quickly things can change. I’ve been hearing about so much illness lately. An email, a phone call, bringing news that yet another friend is facing new challenges. Things that can’t be fixed with a credit card and a delivery truck.

Why is noticing and appreciating the good things that surround us on an ordinary, uneventful day often so elusive? I’m reminded of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, when Emily returns to relive her twelfth birthday and finds it so painful that people don’t appreciate “every, every minute” of their lives. She asks the Stage Manager if anyone “realizes life as they live it.” Sadly, the answer is, “No. The saints and poets, maybe – they do some.”

Maybe it’s the human condition to let the routine and ordinary slip by all but unnoticed, but it might be worth the effort to grasp a few of those moments and appreciate them a little bit more. I plan to try.