Living a Life

A few months, I came across this quote:

"Instructions on living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it." (I don't remember where I saw it...if you know, please let me know and I will give credit where credit is due!)

It stopped me in my tracks. I immediately dropped everything and designed something for my kitchen windowsill where I could read it every day, and be reminded of the wisdom in these few words.

At first glance, it looks a bit simple and naive - I'll give you that. But there is truth beyond measure in these three little statements.

The reality is, life flies by. The kids grow up so very fast. Friends move in and out of our lives. Parents die. Stories go untold. Pain happens. Celebrations occur that feed our souls. And the little things - like learning how to play a scale on a saxophone, and kicking a soccer ball for the first time, and dishes and laundry, and sitting up for the first time, and pictures drawn, and books read, and trips to the library - all get unnoticed and are passed over as if they don't 'really' matter. Yes, they make up much of what we fill our days with, but in many ways are overlooked and forgotten.

But paying attention and being astonished about all these moments changes all that. Suddenly, life become more about the moments and little things. Suddenly that pain I feel over a friend's loss becomes important. And the story of a little girl's journey to reading becomes important. And the joy of creating becomes important. And living in the present becomes important. And if I pay attention, it becomes harder to push the "shoulds" and "ought tos" to the front of the queue.

I looked up 'astonished' in the dictionary, and here is what it said: to be filled with sudden and overpowering surprise or wonder; amazement". How powerful to see a little girl learning to tie her shoes through the lens of amazement and wonder rather than annoyance at how she is holding up my errands...

And telling about it? Some would argue that because I am an extrovert, it is easy for me. And that would be partly true. Let me say here that it is a choice that I make - because I know that life is far richer with each little step of vulnerability that I take. It also makes life messier, but telling my story gives my life a depth and thickness that cannot be bought or sold. (and I don't mean to say that everyone should start a blog, but I do mean to say that life moments shared with even one person creates a far richer life).

And so, I would love to share this design with you - just open it in new window, right click it and save it to your computer. It is formatted for a 5X7 size - upload it and print it, frame it, and voila!

Enough of my soap box...it has been a full weekend - keep posted for more 'joy of love' photos in the coming days!

Love Makes us Real (or Lessons from a Velveteen Rabbit)

The kids and I sat down to watch "The Velveteen Rabbit" tonight. I read the book as a child, and I'm pretty sure I watched the movie as well.

But I didn't really expect to have such a deep emotional response to a kids movie.

And I didn't really expect my seven, five and almost-four year old to have such a deep emotional response either.

It struck me, as all four of us were crying on the couch watching the moving together, that I don't really give my kids enough credit. They are very deep. They think about things that are important. They struggle with much the same things we do as adults, just differently. They philosophize. They ask questions of things that seem so ordinary.

They feel it deeply when Toby looks like he might die.

They feel it deeply when the bunny gives up his life for Toby.

They feel it deeply when Toby feels abandoned by his father.

They feel it deeply when the rabbit comes to life.

They feel it deeply when they realize that even though Rabbit is alive in the end, it means that Tory won't have his stuffie any more.

And they realized that True Love means giving up your life and letting people go.

In the end, Swan and Horse figure out that it isn't love that made Rabbit real, it was actually loving that made him real. It isn't enough to keep love as a noun - in order to be real, and truly live, we all have to turn love into loving.

Sometimes the simplest concepts are the most difficult to really understand. And what's cool is that my kids kind of got it tonight.