It's been a little while since our family has been a single unit, and today we went to the zoo. Audrey has been with her grandma in Indiana for the past week, and I am still reeling from our trip to Alaska. It has been a wonderful experience taking time to just explore the world with my youngest daughter, Violet. The world is a different place through her eyes. Things are challenges in the world of Violet; to reach higher, to run faster, to open more drawers, to stay awake longer, to chase-down the rabbit in the yard....everything is a motivator for her. It is also a challenge for me, sometimes, to remain in the mindset of a not-yet-two-year-old.
I need to be reminded, at times, of how we all view the world differently. There are times where I am befuddled when contemplating the actions of others in this world. I think we all are. To be reminded that our views are different is important. Whether it is one of my children, someone I work with, or a person in the news, we all view things in a different light because of the lens created from our combined experiences.
The past few days has been spent with friends from out of town, visiting from Indianapolis and also from Idaho! I have been lucky to see so many important people in my life his summer. These are the people who help shape my views on large portions of my life, helping me with insight and opinions. Like a blade that needs a stone to stay sharp, so are my friends and family to my perspective.
There is a feeling of having reached the pinnacle of summer, and we are now beginning the decent towards fall and school. While there are still a few weeks of lazy, hot summer days ahead of us, the main activities and adventures have been had, and we are mostly biding our time with the sweet aftermath of our experiences. Pictures and trinkets from travels surround us. Memories and sunburns stay with us as we try and stay cool on a smothering summer afternoon.
Audrey has started swim lessons, and enjoys them immensely. While short in time, she gets the chance to cover her basics, play some games, and "go into the deep" as she says. While it has only been two days, I like her enthusiasm and am infected by it....inspired to find something new to add to my own life, something to broaden my perspectives with. I want to find something that scares me, or challenges me to "go into the deep" with my own life. We forget all of the intense experiences we have had at times, the things that we had to go through and come out on the other end of a different person, richer for having had the experience. We challenge young people to do this all the time with their lives: swimming, travels, religious ceremonies, new foods, etc. We do this constantly, yet often forget to keep pushing ourselves through new rings of fire in an attempt to better our own lives in various ways. So maybe with the last days of summer, I will search for some new depths to travel to, or things to experience, or even ideas to explore that will push me "to the deep" of what I am used to.
If we expect young people to follow our lead, I hope that I can do the same things I am asking of them. The interesting thing is, I am leading to somewhere I don't know. We are all in this life, trying to find answers to questions we don't know how to ask yet. Everyone is seeking different answers to different questions. However, we learn to ask these questions after seeing the world through our perspective and experiences, our lens. I will keep working to add depth to my life, and I hope that the people in my life will also continue to do so, so that when we meet, our experiences will help us all to sharpen our understandings in life, as we continue to search for meaning.
-a
No comments:
Post a Comment