Amazement

"Can you remember a time, perhaps when you were very young, when life as it was - just the fact that it was early morning or any old day in summer - was enough? When you were enough - not because of what you looked like or what you did, but just because everything was the way it was. Nothing was wrong. When you were sad, you cried and then it was over. You were back to a fundamental feeling of positivity, of goodness just because you were alive. What if you could live that way now?"  Geneen Roth - Women Food And God

I love the above quote because, yes, I do remember that time, and that feeling is what I want back.  That feeling is the person I want to be.  I wonder why growing up is often synonymous with losing one's sense of wonder and joy.

I felt this feeling for a brief moment this morning while I was walking my dog.  I passed under a large flowering tree, and when I looked up into the branches, I saw tiny pink petals raining down upon me.  I stopped, stood and watched as these fragile fairies danced slowly, gently to the ground.  In that moment, I felt amazed.  A feeling I used to be quite familiar with.

When I was little I loved to play outside.  I loved looking under rocks and finding bugs, I loved all plants and animals, I loved discovering new things about the world and gaining new understandings.

Somehow, with age and with the demands of life, that sense of amazement has become dulled - but it is not gone.  There are some huge events that have amazed me beyond belief - like the birth of a child, and some not so huge that have amazed me in a quiet way - like like hearing and seeing a great horned owl in the middle of an afternoon - or like a waterfall crashing down into a canyon - or like petals falling from a tree.

I think for a while I was somewhat overwhelmed with life - I wasn't taking the time to look around at all of the wonderful, amazing things there are to be found, and I wasn't pausing to allow amazement to occur.

One of the most important, and unsuspected, things I am gaining from my new healthier lifestyle is that I am getting my amazement back.  Thank God.