Quote from Mary Oliver

It’s Sunday evening and my brain is full…make the packed lunches for tomorrow, pay the council tax, feed the dog, text that friend about that meal, try to relax…oh no, wait…put the washing away so tomorrow everyone can find the items they need to leave the house clothed, pop the dishwasher on. The more I collate a list in my head, the more I could add, that seems to be home family life goes? I’m not sure I would alter it, although I would add a few more pauses, deep breaths and if someone would like to volunteer to make the packed lunches I wouldn’t fight them.

In the mundane cycle of life, the daily chores need keeping in check, the to do list can at times be overwhelming and every now and then I try and make room for some magic.

This weekend after the routine sports activities, my son and I jumped in the car and headed to a local independent book store, as an author was appearing to read a couple of chapters of her latest book. I’d seen the event of Facebook earlier in the week and hadn’t really planned to attend. After perusing the shelves and adding to the Christmas list, my son found a cushion and for half an hour was entertained by (in his words) ‘a real life author’ in this case, someone who writes about monsters for a living…pretty cool. After the book event we wandered down the high street, browsed some stores, grabbed a snack and headed home. As I drove home, I realised thanks to the autumn breeze and the sun shining, it had been the kind of Saturday I thought Motherhood would be…except mostly it’s not.

Sometimes the best moments in life are the unexpected and the spontaneous . Every Saturday morning watching my son in his martial arts class is predictable, live Author readings are not. Perhaps we need to plan for a little of the unimaginable? Now, whilst the word ‘unimaginable’ might have you thinking about flying to space or deep sea diving…on Friday evening I hadn’t imagined the day ahead would go the way it had, so perhaps leaving a little space for potential joy is a positive step forward.

Being open to saying ‘yes’ helps the unimaginable to happen. You also need to step out of your routine and do something different, this I have to be honest isn’t my strong point. Years of teaching and working in a time tabled environment have meant I like a certain level of control and predictability…but the unimaginable can’t happen if you do what you always do, by definition of always doing it makes it imaginable.

In my mind I’m certainly making space for unimaginable events to happen, in the privacy of my brain I’m constantly twirling and travelling to new places, thinking what the foods would smell like and recognising the glitter behind the unknown…stretching my thoughts to the unimaginable is the only way I can get through the mundane moments in life. So this week make sometime to think big, to dare to dream and to wonder how…who knows where it might take you by next weekend?