“They keep playing ‘encouragement’ songs in my class!” my son complained today.
“Would you prefer they play discouragement songs about what a terrible day it’s going to be and how nothing is going to go right?” I asked him.
“No!” he laughed.
“There you go then,” I told him.
Just because nobody complains doesn’t mean all parachutes are perfect.
There’s nothing worse for me in the world than to be wet.
– Spoken by someone who presumably has never been on fire.
As I continue to explore the practical limitations of my current mobility, I do admit to finding myself marveling once again at how something as simple as a relatively minor injury can have dramatic impacts. And while this is interesting to me, let me make it abundantly clear that I am not grateful for this learning opportunity.
As my Grandfather never used to say, “If you learned something from getting snake bit, then good for you. Opportunities for learning can be found almost everywhere . . . but that don’t mean you’ve got to thank the snake for biting you.”
Recently I shared some pictures from Mom’s latest adventure, and the most common response I heard was “I am so jealous!” While this response no longer perplexes me anymore, it still manages to take me aback just a little. Yes, I know it’s an understandable response to seeing pictures of someone else doing something interesting in an interesting place, but it’s not my response for the simple reason if that it was a place I really wanted to be, I would already be there.
It’s important to keep in mind that “irritating” is not the same thing as “bad,” particularly when it comes to people.
Among other summer projects, I’m devoting time and energy toward better health and general life balance because:
A) It’s just a good idea.
and B) To better help my son obtain healthier life balance in his life.
Today, for instance, I went outside for some direct sunlight, not for tanning purposes, but for some Vitamin D. Having precisely zero interest in overdoing it, I set a timer, but when the timer went off I was surprised at how reluctant I was to get up and go back inside. I did anyway though, and with visions of a young turtle in my head as I did so.
Why a young turtle?
Because I once found a young turtle dead on the side of the road, not because he’d been run over, but because he’d been sunning himself and, as near as I could tell, had been enjoying himself so much that he couldn’t tell he was baking himself to death in the process.
Sometimes I like to remind myself that some people used to passionately argue that powered flight was a scientific, or at least a practical, impossibility.
Sometimes it’s all too easy to become jaded and to no longer see the wonders of the world as anything other than commonplace. That’s why it’s so helpful to view things through the eyes of a child now and then. Case in point:
What I saw: Just another Skype session.
What my son saw: “I’m looking into another state right now!”
Some days victories come in small doses, but even lesser victories are victories none the less.
