This weekend, I’m relaxing and traveling. Vacations are the best and I feel so fortunate to be where I am and to have this time created for me. It’s one o’clock and we are all just waking up and finishing breakfast. Kids are showering and getting ready, we’ve had ironing and dressing lessons with the step-kiddies, have tidied up the house and are getting ready to go out across the state today adventuring. Essentially, it has been another completely delightful Sunday morning.
Today, however, our goal is to head out and explore our world. We are on a mission, one of the most important sort. Goal one is to find a raw bar somewhere along the waterfront where we can grab some crab, shrimp, and oysters. Goal two is to find a seafood market somewhere shore side and to bring home something fresh caught to grill for a late dinner. Goal three is to leave heads up pennies for the finding wherever we stop or go exploring and to consciously bless each one with wishes of good will and fortune. If these three task are achieved, then tomorrow we’ll be heading off somewhere early to explore a museum. If not, then we’ll be back to tour another area of waterfront communities until we find our treasures. As such, the pace of life is to be accomplishing exactly what we’re most enjoying.
Days like today do take a little team efforts and planning. My partner and our youngest are getting the car and cooler ready for travel. My oldest boy is at the store getting $2.50 worth of rolled pennies so we each can have our charmed fifty cents in our pockets ready and waiting, and bags of ice so the cooler is chilled if we find our dinner someplace early. My daughter is going to be making sure we have our picnic travel items ready (mainly the tenderloin biscuits my honey put together this morning and the fresh fruit assortment the kids prepared that would be ready to take to picnic vistas wherever we end up going). Having everyone here and enjoying each other is helping to teach our kids how to create a happy, healthy, and community conscious family.
Kids need to learn how to treat others, to help one another, to appreciate what they have, and to be a part of their own conscious lifestyle choosing. By teaching them to take that extra moment to leave coins in a ceremonial act as a token of goodwill, they share not only their good act but years of cultural tradition with strangers. Transcending time, space, distance, and conscious knowledge, they get to be a part of something bigger than themselves: the American cultural identity. As good parents, taking the time to create or pass positive traditions on to our kids is what we ought to be doing. As people, it simply feels good to be a part of something happy that involves active doing.
Most people today seem so self absorbed. We are absorbed in participating in the process of civility. Add a little sunshine, balmy breezes, cloud watching, and starlight from the heavens, plus some great walks and time together with the family—and the reward of seeking bounty from the sea while spreading happiness and our whole day will (hopefully) be both charmed and charming. Cheers to being nice and doing the right things perpetually, everybody…
May all your pennies forever remain heads up on the finding.
