"My great-aunt Alice, Miss Rumphius, is very old now. Her hair is very white. Every year there are more and more lupines. Now they call her the Lupine Lady. Sometimes my friends stand with me outside her gate, curious to see the old, old lady who planted the fields of lupines. When she invites us in, they come slowly. They think she is the oldest woman in the world. Often she tells us stories of faraway places.
"When I grow up," I tell her, "I too will go to faraway places and come home to live by the sea."
"That is all very well, little Alice," says my aunt, "but there is a third thing you must do."
"What is that?" I ask.
"You must do something to make the world more beautiful."
"All right," I say.
But I do no know yet what that will be.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

breath of fresh air...

this week has been a week of preparing for the next stage. It has been a week of joys, and hellos. It has been a week of sleeping in and staying up late. It has been a week of seeing old friends and making new ones. It has been a gift- a time away to play. It has been a week full of surprises- early morning hikes and country line dancing. It has been what I long for life to be- a positive change into a new beginning. This week has also been a week of saying goodbye. It has been a time to change old/bad habits. It has been a week of hard conversations. It has been a week of turning from the old, turning around towards the good and better. I have had time to read a book (not school related), plant a garden, and run. I feel like my lungs are filling with newness literally. I have for a brief moment tasted life. Mostly I don’t want to let that feeling go….somehow I want to bottle it up. That way I can take it off the bookshelf when I am feeling especially rundown. I am lucky and never take the time realize it. I am cared for and never say thank you. I am honored and never take the time to appreciate that fully. It seems that my life is surrounded by goodness. It seems that people and places that make up my seemingly meaning less life really are good. I need to be reminded of this now and again….this week I look back and see that goodness!
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What two days can do...

Celebrations are times in life when what happens in the inner life becomes visible beyond the person, to a community. The private decisions, joy, and deepest movings of the soul are seen outside. I like celebrations. I like the way it draws people together. I like the way these celebrations bring to the surface the good in life. It seems that for once the good are honored and life becomes what we always hope it to be. This weekend the refreshing breeze of goodness washed over my soul. I see balance where I usually see imbalance. I see harmony when I usually see people trying to destroy one another. I see and hear laughing. Most of my time is spent in and around tears. I see and I hear hearts breaking. And somehow I watched this wedding and for a few hours I begin to see life differently. All because I can see the hope and joy in someone else’s soul. I saw celebration of an inward change between a man and woman and the recognition of beauty in someone else. I like being an on-looker to those changes and the fresh perspective of laugher and joy. Somehow the celebrations in life are the pieces that I remember. The ‘high’ points in life I look back on. They make me smile in-spite of myself and my soul begins to turn. Turn back around to refocus and re-evaluate.
Interesting what two days away can do. Ordinary becomes fresh and regular feels new again. Isn’t that what life should be? A coming back to try again and a new way to live an ordinary life.
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