I need regular doses of "excitement" in my life - a new (inspirational) quilting project, a drive in the country to see something "new." When I was teaching, sometimes I would just put away my lesson plan and try something different. (Sometimes the class liked it - at other times, they would wonder why I had veered from the predictable path: "Turn to page 56...") I was doing it for myself, to add some zest to my day - and I hoped they would find the change fun and useful, too.
But I recently read, in an excerpt of a book by Kathleen Norris, some words that made me realize - again - that daily life is where our character and relationships develop, where trust grows, where ideas form:
"We want life to have meaning, we want fulfillment, healing and even ecstasy, but the human paradox is that we find these things by starting where we are, not where we wish we were. We must look for blessings to come from unlikely, everyday places... and not in spectacular events..."
She also comments that in her life, "what seemed like 'dead time' was actually a period of gestation."
That doesn't mean that I don't need the joy of new (inspirational) quilting projects - or drives out of town to broaden my world... But that I should appreciate my mundane, everyday tasks. And maybe, as Kathleen Norris suggests, I should even view even washing dishes, not as drudgery, but as an opportunity to think and reflect - and perhaps even, like a child enjoying a sink full of soap and water... a time for "play."
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