Fragility: easily broken, shattered, or damaged; delicate; brittle; frail.
A list of life’s simple joys:
hot chocolate in winter
a cup of coffee
wearing flip-flops in summer
reading a good book curled up on your bed/favorite chair
the sun shining through the kitchen windows
bubble baths
japanese cuisine
jumping in puddles
kissing
being happy
talking a walk
catching snowflakes on your tongue
daydreaming
freshly baked homemade cookies
music
the ability to create
fresh morning air in summer
rainfall
thunderstorms
laughter
Think back. Way back. When five feet tall was a skyscraper and climbing a tree to the top was like looking over the whole world. Children, full of awe and wonder – always wanting to learn, touch, smell, grab, say “Where do babies come from?” What happened to that child-like innocence? The sense of adventure and imagination that could take you anywhere you wanted to go in an instant?
Somewhere the vibrant expression of childhood is lost; a transition occurs between being a child and becoming an adult: “Inside the snow globe on my father’s desk, there was a penguin wearing a red-and-white-striped scarf. When I was little my father would pull me into his lap and reach for the snow globe. He would turn it over letting all the snow collect on the top, then quickly invert it. The two of us watched the snow fall gently around the penguin. The penguin was alone in there, I thought, and I worried for him. When I told my father this, he said, ‘Don’t worry ... he has a nice life. He’s trapped in a perfect world.’” (The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold); some children often think they live in a perfect world and adults long for childhood again – to live in a carefree world – wouldn’t that be nice?
The eighteenth century poet and engraver, William Blake, wrote that children grow out of innocence due to the experiences that the world forces them to recognize; life can become a burden – a tax on the body, a weight on the soul, a tangle of the mind. Through those experiences, though sometimes painful, awe can be found and revitalize the childhood spirit within.
Copyright April, 2009 by Alicia
Next installment: The Body -- Renewal