Last week, I wrote about the arrival of spring. It’s still on my mind, though this week’s menagerie was quite different than the momentous warmth of the last. Mother Nature delivered her very own potpourri of gifts - hail one day, sun the next, and snow on another - a mix of warm, cold and in-between. And this is how I’ve felt - a swirling of thoughts and ideas. I’ll share a few…
Top of mind metaphor:
This week, while preparing for my first colonoscopy, all I could think was that I felt like Dumbledore, deep within the sea cave, being force-fed the liquid from the stone basin so that he and Harry could retrieve a horcrux. It felt that torturous and thinking of this image as I was drinking cup upon cup of the prep solution only made it worse. To the millions of others who have gone through this, I now understand, and to those who have yet to endure, may you have greater tolerance than me (and maybe don’t fixate on this image!)
Quote that made me smile:
I let my youngest son sit in the front seat while we drove a few blocks down the street. He leaned up in his seat and with outsized enthusiasm said,
“It’s my first first-person view of the trip down the hill!”
Oh the little things!
A moment of perspective & connection
On a hike with my older son, who was having a hard time expressing how he was his true feelings about something, I said that sometimes we have to travel far from our truth to realize what our truth actually is. I imagined a circular maze (like the one pictured above). We often navigate a circuitous path to find our way back/out/home etc…
And then we watched Moana 2, and this quote captured exactly what I meant:
“Remember that there’s always another way, even if you have to get lost to find it.”
I love it when the threads of our lives knit themselves together just so, leaving us exactly what we need for that moment.
Hoping that the potpourri of experiences life is flinging your way - the physical and the emotional - carry kernels of perspective that allow you to make connections, see joy and navigate your way.
P.S. To all of you who took time to share your thoughts about when we have a hard time as parents, thank you! I’ve done my random drawing, and Jason has a book of his choice on the way. If you’d still like to contribute, please feel free - your thoughts will add depth and perspective to a longterm project I am working on.
Great article. Colonoscopy = a great cleanse! I’ve even thought of doing the cleanse portion without the colonoscopy.
Kristi, thank you for another entertaining article! I love the mix of humor and thought-provoking content. I can certainly relate to the Harry Potter analogy, too!