(What is RSS?)A few days ago when it snowed I was walking past the garden to my car when I was stopped in my tracks by the most extraordinary scent. I couldn’t place it, I had never smelled anything quite like it. As I filled my nostrils with deep sniffs I finally worked out what it was…crisp fall leaves mingled with snow. Ahhh, wish I could have bottled it.
I haven’t been practicing being in the Now for a while, maybe that is why I have been feeling out of sorts lately. I feel like my mind occupies some strange foggy place lately. Very unfocused, a bit blue, not my usual self. Blah. Tonight when the kids go to bed I think I will meditate, try to get my head in a better place.
For the past several days the weather has been mild and Spring like. Last night after dinner I took the kids for a long walk, making a route through the beautiful old homes and up to where a tiny creek runs through the city. It is one of my favorite spots, yet I go for long times when I forget its there. All the better to re-discover it I suppose.
We stood listening to its soft music as the water trickled past the rocks. The scent in the warm air reminded me of early Spring when the earth is just beginning to stir awake.
No one was out in the neighborhoods as we walked, which made it seem as if we had a magical world all to ourselves.
Tristan was content riding in the stroller, now and then pointing out a dog or christmas lights that caught his eye. Isadora and I had a long and wonderful conversation that meandered through many topics. It was an hour and a half of pure gentle bliss.
I’m fairly exhausted from the round of activities today, but there were so many lovely little surprises. First we met some friends at a nearby college for a world drumming program. Isadora was thrilled that she would get to see one of her friends that she just adores. At the program they had over thirty drums lined up, and the parents and kids got to follow a master drummer and play simple beats while the lead player took off on some great solo drumming. Tristan wasn’t too into drumming, so we gave up our place at the drum and went to look out the windows. It was great to be in a room with so many drums, I could feel the vibrations all through my body, very energizing.
We went to lunch with my friend and her children, enjoying pizza and a nice conversation. Then we were all off to an historic inn where there was a holiday open house. Women in period costume were making breads and cookies (which we got to sample) in a huge open hearth with authentic implements. It was interesting to see the well ordered kitchen and see how few tools were kept to prepare meals with. Really makes my modern kitchen look over stocked!
In the old one room school house they had crafts set up for the kids. Again, it was so interesting to see the simplicity with which the school house had been equiped. I’m really embracing the less is more philosophy these days.
I crashed when we got home. I put on a movie for Tristan and gave him a snack, and Isadora spent some time on the computer and I spent some blissfull quiet time curled up on the couch with a blanket and indulged in some daydreaming and mental wandering. Ahhh.
This calm state of affairs didn’t last long though. My Mom showed up and asked Isadora to go to the movies with her. I lobbied hard for her to take tristan too, but the deal was we could all go or she would take just Isadora. Well, I ended up going with them and I’m glad I did. We saw “Flushed Away” which was pretty funny, and it was playing at this old movie theater which along with great retro style is also very inexpensive. It was only $8.50 for all four of us!
All in all a wonderful day, I’m glad I said yes to everything.
It was a stunningly beautiful day today. Sunshine and warmth lured me outside and I took Tristan to the park before dropping him off at Grandma’s house. There were a few other children there, and the fun activity du jour was piling up leaves and jumping in them and tossing them into the air. I love watching children at play, especially when they are truly savoring a simple pleasure like a pile of leaves. Their exuberant laughter is like audible sunshine pouring into my ears.
These moments fill me with hope, especially in the face of articles like the one I read today about how children are trying to act like teenagers at ever younger ages, and another on how advertisers plot and plan to target children as young as two. Nope, they haven’t won them all, there is still some innocence and beauty of childhood which hasn’t been sold to the highest bidder.
Today the secret call of the extraordinary was drowned out by incessant whining and had the door slammed shut on it by the PMS gremlins.
Tomorrow I shall be setting up a hotline to recieve my calls uninterrupted.
I think that the call of the extraordinary can mean many things. Sure, a surprise offer to go on a cruise would be extraordinary and not one I would turn down, but more often the extraordinary takes form in something small and quiet that we would miss unless we make ourselves open to it. We are surrounded by the extraordinary, and we rush right past it as we run our errands, look right through it while we toil in cubicles or behind a cash register, become deaf to it under the auditory babble of the tv and radio.
Today I am going to listen with open ears, look with undistracted eyes.
