31 Days {Day 20}: Reclaim the extraordinary

I have a restless soul.  I’m suspicious not everyone around me is inflicted with a restless soul.  I mean the type of restless spirit that’s always looking to the next big thing, challenge, or event.  A soul that feels like the next Big Thing will finally settle matters entirely.  High school graduation.  College.  A fantabulous first job.  Marriage.  A promising career change.  A kid.  Another kid.  New house.  Big trip.  PhD. Next Big Thing.  And another Big Thing after that. And

I get frustrated with this restless soul of mine.  I don’t like feeling compelled that I must always prove myself worthy against the next Big Thing.   It’s tiresome to stride from mountain peak to mountain peak through life.  My leg muscles get stretched and all charley-horsey.  And yet still my soul urges onward.

reclaim the extraordinary | paper doll tales

It’s a gift, then, to restless souls like mine, to find oneself in a sheltered valley of child-raising years.  It’s a stage of life where my mountain range is so stretched out that I couldn’t, even if I tried, straddle two peaks in a single stride.  So I’m learning a subtly addictive new joy: the ordinary.

The Little Things are soothing my soul these days.

Little Friend.

And Little One.

A pumpkin spice latte sipped on a drive across an interstate threaded into a patchwork quilt of fall leaves.

A baby cooing herself to sleep in afternoon dusk.

The liberation of driving alone to the grocery store.

A fragment of a poem that’s been running through my head for days.

A deluge of loosed yellow leaves that catches my eye as I change a diaper.

Snuggling into a blanket to watch a new favorite TV show.

A scrumptious butternut squash soup that I crave and miraculously have all the ingredients for in the pantry.

A caterpillar undulating across the sidewalk like a bristled, severed cat’s tail.

A fireplace.

A handful of fresh sage.

Reclaiming a favorite necklace that had been “borrowed” and hidden by a small admirer.

Remembering what is is to be a child unleashed in a wide open field with only dandelions and violets as distractions.

A daughter who holds up a thumb sucked into prune-wrinkled oblivion for my inspection.

Oh dear restless soul of mine, there is so much extra-ordinary about the ordinary.  Eat, drink, absorb, watch, and be satisfied.  For this life, in all it’s extraordinariness, is what I can hold to my soul’s content.

For the full list of 31 Days of Quotes to Inspire posts, wander over here.

 

 

2 Comments

  1. Jo said:

    ah, yes, here’s to the ordinary. The “extra” lies not in the thing or experience itself, but in our perception and embracing of it.

    October 21, 2012
    Reply
  2. kirstin said:

    Beth, I’m like you. I love ‘next big things.’ I think it’s why I love to plan vacations, and make budgets. Both imply something on the horizon, something big, some sort of change.
    And even though I’m a slower learner than you (says the girl in the middle of a giant home renovation that she probably shouldn’t have taken on), I love this reminder to look to the in betweens. Thanks friend!

    October 22, 2012
    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.