Embracing Impossible Notions

Good Evening My Friends!

It is unusual for me to write at this hour. The muse has not so gently landed on my shoulder, and urges me to write. Honored, I submit.

Just about every parent of a 3 year old will admit that the question "why?" has become the bane of their existance. At the age of 2, 3, 4 and often older, children are one with their magical thinking. The time in their lives when everything is new, and anything, yes anything is possible. They cannot understand why the grown-ups in their lives can't see the possibility of grown-up impossible notions. I think I got stuck at this level of wonderment, for everything to me is infinitely possible and real.

"Mommy can I bring the dirt and seeds inside and sleep with them? I don't want the seeds to get lonely."

Dreading the thought of cleaning that mess up, she replies without hesitation, "NO."

"Why?"

"It will make a big mess that mommy will have to clean up in the morning."

"Why?"

"Because we can't have dirt in our beds."

"Why?"

"Because it's not normal, and the carpet and sheets will then have to be cleaned."

"Why?"

"Because Grandma is coming this weekend and I already have to clean the rest of the house, and I can't do it all myself!"

"Why?"

etc...................................

For a brief time they know the wisdom of questioning the answers.

As time unfolds, our children stop asking why, and surrender to the agenda of "normal" . Parenting is the toughest of gifts. Being in the moment with our children is sometimes less preferable to having your fingernails removed. But before you know it, the opportunity to be present as this person emerges into the world, is gone. It often feels easier to be dismissive when they ask the seemingly impossible of you. Reading another book, when you have no clean underwear for work tomorrow, dinner dishes are still in the sink, it's 8:45 p.m. and you've been up since 5 a.m.. It all starts to blend into one overwhelming experience, and then before you've had adequate time to complain, they are gone, and there is no one to complain to or about. Except yourself. And as for me, I have heard my long tortured story

ad-nauseum.

Alice comments repeatedly that her father often had 6 impossible thoughts before breakfast. Oh how that man's willingness to embrace magic charmed his daughter. Not only was Alice charmed, but she learned to embrace impossible notions. She learned to ask questions, and to expect answers, even if she had to find them out for herself. The gift of embracing impossible notions is very underrated. As a societal adult whole, we have learned to embrace answers, any answers, even if they are answers that are joy-robbing and mental border enforcing. How blessed to be a person who answers questions for the others. How magical to be the person who questions the answers of their own lives.

We surrender our magic with our desire to play hop-scotch and share our peanut-butter-and jelly sandwiches with the squirrels. How sad to witness the willing surrender of joy in someone we love.

Many times in my life I have had the honor of witnessing people standing on the edge of their lives, wanting desperately to take flight. I have gently tapped them on the shoulder and pointed to their backs. Shocked, they find that they have wings, and can fly past the edge of the abyss that had kept them imprisoned in their limited agenda's. But they have never flown. And how does one care for wings if one has them? And what if the wings fail, and falling ensues, and what if they aren't really deserving of being magic afterall?

Most times it has been easier for these people to deny their magical, and powerful wings, and go trodding back to the agenda's from which they were fleeing. I watch with a tear in my eye, smile understandingly at their choice, flutter my wings above the edge and remain in hope as they walk away.

I believe that it won't always be this way. I believe that courage is tough, and embracing impossible notions about ourselves is even tougher. The price we pay in mustering our fearlessness and living extraordinary and brave lives is rewarded with true Joy, incredible self-knowledge and empowerment.

The minute we stop questioning the answers, is the minute we choose normal over extraordinary. For me there is no option. I continue to question the answers, and find life to be an adventure filled with joy-filled sorrow, and love-filled aloneness. The sky is the limit, and there is no sky. The enchanted life and world I live in is worth it.

Believing the impossible into possibility is your destiny.

I invite each of you to question your answers, and continue to embrace at least 6 impossible notions before breakfast. Shouldn't that be life's most essential RDA?

Surrender your enslavement to what you think you should be, and embrace the beautiful magic of what you dream to be. Miracles happen when you fearlessly take flight!

Much Love,

Laurie