Gifts

This is my first post on my new blog. I want to say something...profound and deep and life-changing because this blog was born out of a really profound and life-changing moment for me. I'm having a hard time with the deep and profound, though.

I guess the fact that this blog is about small things sort of makes that unnecessary anyway.

But here's the thing: I realized that I have forgotten how to listen --to my longings, to my own judgment, to the beauty all around me. I have been so busy punishing myself for my perceived shortcomings that I forgot to listen to my strength, my generosity of spirit, my sense of serenity.  I've been trying to rediscover the beauty I know is inside me by beating the living hell out of myself.

As a strategy, this isn't really working very well. This blog is an attempt to do better.  Each day, I want to write about some tiny baby step forward--a meditation on something small that might just have big implications.

Yesterday, my younger daughter Jane gave me a bouquet of dandelions.  She saw them, she thought they were pretty and she wanted to give them to me --it was that simple and that wonderful. When was the last time you gave something with that kind of purity --without thinking about how the gift reflected upon you or without ulterior motive of some kind?