Olivia

Olivia blog post for Jeannie BruenningI’ve spent more time on elementary school grounds recently than I have in the past twenty years. It’s one of the benefits of having grandkids living close by.

My daughter held tightly to Liam’s hand as they made their way to his room. The door was decorated with Owls, not easy to miss. Emery and I followed quite a bit behind. If you ever have the privilege of walking hand in hand with Emery, you will quickly realize that she is all about stopping to watch an ant, chase the birds, get a drink, and run down the ramps. We dance to school in the morning and play hop-scotch on the broken concrete. She skips and hops and does steps on my shadow.

As the space between Mom and us grew larger, it allowed a group of children emerging from a classroom to force us to stop. Each student was clutching their math book like it was a teddy bear. We stood and watched the parade. When the teacher emerged, I assumed she would be the end of the line. I figured it would be safe for Emery and I to continue.

A few seconds later, a girl burst out of the room, spun on her heals and skipped down the sidewalk in the opposite direction. I couldn’t help but notice her expression of delight that radiated in the sunshine. Her eyes fixed on the sky. I wanted to hear the music that was most certainly playing in her head.

“Olivia,” I heard the teacher say. It was in a tone that suggested she may have been  anticipating Olivia’s choice of direction. As if she knew that Olivia would need be guided. “This way,” she instructed. Without pause, Olivia did an about-face and began to skip down the sidewalk in search of her classmates. She was still looking up taking in the beauty of the day.

I love Olivia. She makes me smile.

I pray that as Olivia grows older, she never looses the courage to be the last one out the door. That she’s not afraid to turn left when everyone else is going right. I hope she never stops looking up and that the sun will always reflect off her smile. And that she is blessed with teachers who gently guide her.

When the sidewalk was once again safe for travel, I glanced down at my little partner. She had her back to me and was pointing to the sky.

“Neenee, look at the birds.”

“They’re beautiful,” I said squeezing her hand. “Come on, Sweetie, we need to go this way.”

Streams

I’ve been thinking (and talking) a lot about inner tubes in the past few months. It’s an image that we use in the book Living Unstuck and it’s an image that has etched itself into my brain.

The idea of living life as if we are resting on an inner tube and gently floating through life is a great image but what does it really represent? What is the inner tube and where do I find the stream? This is the very discussion I had with myself last weekend.

These are the answers that my smarter-self had to offer:

The inner tube is our life. The image I have is a large, oversized, black inner tube.  It’s an inner tube for one, such as our lives are. We interact, get connected, we get involved, but at the end of the day, we have been given, are responsible for, and live ONE life.

The stream is the current we choose to propel our inner tubes. There are a million streams! There are streams named anger, jealousy, and resentment. I think these streams carry a lot of sickness and disease and when we choose to float down them we are at risk of contamination. There are streams known as, self-doubt, insecurity, and self-centeredness.  There are streams of instant gratification, striving for success, and prosperity. If you can think it, there’s a stream for it.

We are all currently floating down a stream in our inner tubes of life. We can try and pass the blame onto someone else for putting us in our stream, but if we are honest, we are all in the stream of our own choosing.

I don’t know about you but these words have suddenly messed up the lovely image I had in my head a few moments ago of an oversized black inner tube allowing the current to take me through life.

So what can we do when life suddenly sweeps us away and we find ourselves in a stream of yuckiness?

That’s easy! We simply stand up, pick up our tube, and go back to the gentle stream. We set our tube in the cool water and careful get on board. We breathe deeply as we release the yuckiness we’ve carried with us and  once again begin to learn to trust the stream.

The more I think about life as an inner tube, the more I fall in love with the idea of it.

 

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