What to Leave In, What to Leave Out

I can't pinpoint when it happened, but what started as a rose and a thorn being shared at the dinner table morphed into a notebook of daily in-between moments...I guess that is exactly what in-between moments are about though! Unplanned and of an unknown sort, yet so very important in the grand scheme of BIG things.

Every day I write down an in-between moment; I've never been at a loss for finding one, and some days I recognize many. I can say, this little ritual never gets missed and I look forward to it each and every day! It literally takes me 2 seconds. There is nothing glamorous about my dressed down (sometimes messy, sometimes funny, but always real) in-between moments. They aren't the BIG or trivial or cool moments that some of us tend to share on social media. They are just daily happenings that I find significance with.

Last night as I walked out of the studio with a plastic vase of hand picked flowers I stopped for a moment...I stood on the sidewalk in awe that the day was done, I was able to see the sun setting, I had a living object in my hand, I could hear the sounds in the distance...and I was feeling overcome with gratitude. Such simple pleasures of standing on the sidewalk and just being for a brief moment, something that I had not done on that particular sidewalk before, although I had stood in that exact spot thousands of times. I sat down for a moment to take it in and sent a text message...today, I hope something has reminded you of how blessed you are! I got a picture response of a dandelion being held by a daughter as she snapped a shot of her daddy on his bicycle in the background. Such small, simple pleasures surround us when we take a moment to savor it...

I got home and immediately wrote down my in-between moment of the day. And for the first time, I decided to flip through and revisit the previous moments...all of them. Life is far from perfect, yet it is imperfectly beautiful. We strive so hard to create ourselves...we set schedules, do what is necessary, work, play, make excuses, inspire people, take vacation, make things...and sometimes we find that in this creation we actually lose grasp of who we really are. I challenge you to take a moment to stand on the sidewalk for more than one second, take it in. Listen to the breeze when you walk outside. Feel your feet in the grass. Find shapes in the clouds. Ultimately, find the moments that are noteworthy in your narrative. Remember that the narrative is yours only. Write it down, if you desire. Just love your moments. Live them fully.