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 A new blog to contain answers to prompts |
Since my old blog "Everyday Canvas "  became overfilled, here's a new one. This new blog item will continue answering prompts, the same as the old one. Cool water cascading to low ground
To spread good will and hope all around.  |
| Prompt: "Give everyday the chance to become the most beautiful day of your life. " Mark Twain Write about this quote in your Blog entry today. ----------- Ahha! Mark Twain! Someone who knows what he's saying and says it, so well! So the first word in the quote has my attention right away; "Give!" This is an active offering. It isn't "hope that" or "wait for." It is the door that opens instantly. Then "everyday"...another potential door. The power to hold the door knob and look out has nothing to do with fate or anything else. The day is ours, all twenty-four hours of it. Best yet, for any day to be the most beautiful day, it doesn't need a permit, a passport, or a parachute. I can find it in the steam rising from my morning tea. I can find it in the bird songs sneaking in from the open window. I can find it in the music coming from the tap when I do the breakfast dishes. This is because I think happiness may be conditional for some, and at times, for me too, unfortunately. This has to do with the thinking of "I'll be happy if..." or "I'll be happy when..." But whatever we place after those three dots may never happen. So, I think a rebellion against any conditional happiness is in order, here. For it is the declaration that beauty is not the prize at the end of any race or day, but the very air I decide to choose to breathe along the way. Giving the day its chance means listening, truly listening, to the same old story a friend tells me for the umpteenth time. It also means hearing not the repetition but the comforting rhythm of her voice. It means tasting anything I eat, say an apple, as if I'm eating it for the first time and savoring it. It means appreciating people and gestures and telling them that. It means seeing the colors in shades and shadows in anything, as if for the first time. It means choosing silence instead of complaints. As such, some days might greet me with open arms and dazzle me with connections, synchronicity, and anything beautiful. Yet, what about gray days and minor disappointments? This is where Mark Twain is challenging me and all of us. To give a chance to that gray day, which may be full of grief and stress, is certainly an act of creative courage. It is to find beauty, not in spite of the gray, but within its subtle textures. This is because I'd feel the beauty of warmth more deeply after coming in from a storm. It is always my flawed, soft heart that endures. It is the sigh I share with others and sometimes only with myself. It is resilience, I think. The most beautiful day, therefore, isn't necessarily the easiest or the happiest, but it is the one I am most present for, the one I paid attention to, the one I chose to experience rather than find fault with my humdrum circumstances. After all, if I'm dancing in my kitchen while the soup boils over or calling my cousins just to hear their voices or writing in my blog this entry, so I can search my own psyche, I'm giving today its chance, offering my attention, my gratitude, and my willingness to be amazed. May our todays and every days always turn out to be the most beautiful days for all of us. |
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