Today was beautiful and I had had great plans to have a big day – pumpkin patch or big family hike to work off the turkey. Didn’t happen. Instead, we had a quiet day at home. I got a few things done, went for a small walk in the woods but really just took it easy. It was nice.

Being OK with doing little took me a long time. When someone asks me how I am my answer is “busy.”

I’m usually trying to cram as much into every minute of the day. I think we get caught up with feeling good about ourselves only when accomplishing something. Being busy all the time is destructive.

It’s hard to recharge when you are always rushing around. Your mind requires quiet stillness to stay calibrated.

Doing nothing is challenging, but it’s amazing the things you notice when you are still that you would have missed.

 

“So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.” T. S. Eliot

At a crossroads in my life, I went to Japan to to take a job as the Head (only) Instructor in a small school outside of Osaka. I had classes all day with different ages, from 3 year olds who I mostly just played and danced with, to grandmothers who taught me about Ikebana and Japanese cooking and so much more.

They were “conversation” classes so only a fairly informal lesson plan structure was required. There is so much pressure on the Japanese kids to excel, I found I was just as interested in finding out who they were and giving them a chance to learn to speak freely without worrying about passing or failing. This was quite unusual for them.

My favourite class was the six to eight year old class. In the beginning, they were hesitant to speak up and always looking around at each other for approval. By the end of my time there, they had learned to be modestly silly at times and have some fun with learning.

Although I thought at the time that I was making a difference in their lives by teaching them, the truth is when I look back I learned so much from my students too. Being a teacher is an awesome responsibility. There is so much more to it than a lesson plan.

 

“[Kids] don’t remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are.” ― Jim Henson, It’s Not Easy Being Green: And Other Things to Consider

There is a feeling you get right before you are about to do something wrong. A little twinge to let you know that in that split second, there is a choice. It happens in the midst of a heated conversation and sometimes things are said that shouldn’t be.

Most often you could stop them before they come tumbling out but then…you don’t. Or instead of a cookie you eat the whole box. You know you will regret it. You tell yourself not to. But you do it anyway.

Why is it so hard to listen to ourselves? It takes practice and conscious discipline.Not easy, but the little rush you get from rebelling against yourself flits by and is replaced by the dreaded guilt of the ‘should not have’ and that sits around weighing you down for a long time.

 

“She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it).”

~Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.” ~Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

On my 5th birthday, after the song, as I was taking a deep breath and making a wish, my friend swooped in and blew out the  candles on my cake (you know who you are Mr. Coles). What followed was nothing short of pure devastation. It took many years but I finally forgave him and even invited him to my birthday dinner again when I was 18. 

For a five year old, that’s about as bad as it can get. As I got older the hurts didn’t diminish of course, they got more complicated. And deeper. Sometimes, forgiveness seemed unimaginable. It’s not easy, but holding on to hurt just keeps you stuck in one place and that place is pretty inhospitable. Generally it’s not about you really anyway. When you forgive, it doesn’t necessarily set the other person free – it lets you let go. 

 

Life is valuable. Someone who feels powerless, may think that taking life away will make them feel powerful. It doesn’t. Obviously.

Real power is found in acts of love, compassion and kindness. Even, or maybe, especially to someone who doesn’t appear to want it or seem to deserve it. So many people are hurting silently, until they can be silent no more. You truly never know how helping someone out of a dark place could make all the difference in the world. The lesson here is not political, religious or nationalistic. It is about being human; it is about the value of life and it is everything.

 

There was a rainbow over the bridge as I drove over it yesterday. It made me smile, as rainbows tend to do. Somehow just seeing it made me feel a little bit luckier, even if I didn’t find a pot of gold, maybe my day would get a bit brighter. Which is silly really because there are no ends, since rainbows are actually a perfect circle. But sometimes facts don’t matter. Sometimes you just need to see something of beauty that you don’t totally understand and let it just be magical, like it was when you were little.