How Can I Serve You?

Frangipani

Sharon fruit....custard apple.....pear

 All orange reflection..

A dear friend is treating me to a late birthday lunch in a high arched, light filled restaurant.

The pumpkin soup is  frothy, creamy, salty.

The tiny bread roll is warm, the butter-pat smoothly spreadable.

The tart tatin is a  mound of appley sweetness - although a bit fridge chilly.

 When the the snake-hipped French waiter comes to clear our table I hand him my plate before he has time to pick it up.

Oh no, he says. I don't want you to do any work  - this is my job.

I want to swoon at his feet. It's not the absurdity of considering the lifting a plate as work but his total commitment to the concept of service, of looking after us so considerately, that stuns me. As if he knows that we do plate lifting and its equivalent a million times a day and just for this moment he is saying,

 Allow me, let me do it, let me take care of you.....you don't have to do it all, all the time.....

Words he's not saying of course but I've put them in his mouth because I want to hear them...the kindness of them.

 I do want someone to take it all away - the pain of it. But sometimes there is another voice in my head which says,

I can do it - but I don't have to do it on my own.

 There is always help ....if I only remember to ask - and trust.

Sometimes there is a different voice which says,

 It's not always about me and what I need. What if I make it about you instead?

How can I serve you?