Stepping Stones

A ‘wow’ feeling, a quick swiping clean of whatever is on my mind so it seems blank for a second to take all in without distraction, and a slight sense of regret that I can’t make the moment last longer… That’s how a magnificent sunrise or a vibrant sunset, a child’s laughter or sounds of glee from a table of adults, makes me feel. In those moments I don’t want fumbling for a phone for a photo/video to steal away the awe.

Being a writer-type, I can have that reaction to words as well as to sights and sounds. If I’m reading them, I can bookmark the page, re-read, re-think as long as I want to, but if I’m hearing them, my brain and I start a wrestling match. Memorizing the words takes priority.

Yesterday I heard this phrase…balance, structure and elegance equal deliciousness… Throughout the day I repeated them aloud, toyed with various applications, delighted in the epiphanies that popped up.

The brain aerobics worked! This morning I could recall them, BEFORE I remembered radio programs are also podcasts that Siri can help me find any time, but I would have missed the fun. (The program - IA on NPR; the topic - diversity, craft beer and the future of the brewing industry; and the speaker of those words - Garett Oliver, a brewmaster, author and editor).

I have experienced various milestones in my life - like graduations, marriage and motherhood, a rewarding career, entrepreneurship, retirement - always with the preconceived sense that having ‘arrived’ I would be successful and happy and ‘finished’ with accompanying frustrations.

Guess what? I’m happy and successful (by some standards), but finished? Heck no! Those milestones are stepping stones. I’m hopping, skipping and jumping to the next delicious adventure, diminishing frustration with balance and structure. Elegance will happen.