Three years ago life picked me up by my ankles and shook me for all it was worth. Terrifying as it was, it had the same result as an old fashioned doctor lifting a newborn up and smacking its little butt. Not the most gentle way to start a new life, granted, but my re-birth definitely got me sucking in lungfulls of air and life.
I wrote awhile back about how my granddaughter, Alice, reminded me of the simplicity of life during a time when death loomed large and black and complicated in my life. She has continued to show me the beauty in simple things. The buzzing of bees. Playing in sprinkler rainbows. Picnics in the woods. Soaky baths. Good naps. Sticky popsicle kisses.
My return to writing, and especially my decision to write for children, has made me focus on the small, simple, beauties all around. The forest creatures that live on my driveway and how they are so different, but each simply perfect at what they do. The trees who grow and create entire worlds in their simply beautiful branches. How so much of life simply happens without us noticing, until we slow down and really pay attention to all the beautiful things around us.
My choice to write in rhyme has forced me to pare down my words to the most simple, most beautiful. To find the beauty in a job that I was bone weary of and bring that beauty to life, in the most simple way possible. To search for the perfect rhyme and in the process discover how the simple change of one word in a sentence paints an entirely different picture, sets a different mood, tells a new story. To re-discover how much I love language and words and the worlds I can create by simply putting words on paper. And then to cut the unnecessary words, to simplify, in order to put the focus on those that are important.
I’m swinging in my hammock, under a big sky, next to pasture full of spring calves, watching a round moon rise over jagged treetops and I am realizing that finding simplicity has made my life overflow with beauty.
There is a bible verse I remember from my childhood.
"Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:3
I’d have to agree. But I disagree with the teachings I learned as a child: That heaven comes after life on earth. I’ve learned a different lesson. When I became like a child, when I began noticing beauty, when I cleared the confusion out of my mind and remembered how to live simply, I entered heaven.
Love,
Chris
I wrote awhile back about how my granddaughter, Alice, reminded me of the simplicity of life during a time when death loomed large and black and complicated in my life. She has continued to show me the beauty in simple things. The buzzing of bees. Playing in sprinkler rainbows. Picnics in the woods. Soaky baths. Good naps. Sticky popsicle kisses.
My return to writing, and especially my decision to write for children, has made me focus on the small, simple, beauties all around. The forest creatures that live on my driveway and how they are so different, but each simply perfect at what they do. The trees who grow and create entire worlds in their simply beautiful branches. How so much of life simply happens without us noticing, until we slow down and really pay attention to all the beautiful things around us.
My choice to write in rhyme has forced me to pare down my words to the most simple, most beautiful. To find the beauty in a job that I was bone weary of and bring that beauty to life, in the most simple way possible. To search for the perfect rhyme and in the process discover how the simple change of one word in a sentence paints an entirely different picture, sets a different mood, tells a new story. To re-discover how much I love language and words and the worlds I can create by simply putting words on paper. And then to cut the unnecessary words, to simplify, in order to put the focus on those that are important.
I’m swinging in my hammock, under a big sky, next to pasture full of spring calves, watching a round moon rise over jagged treetops and I am realizing that finding simplicity has made my life overflow with beauty.
There is a bible verse I remember from my childhood.
"Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:3
I’d have to agree. But I disagree with the teachings I learned as a child: That heaven comes after life on earth. I’ve learned a different lesson. When I became like a child, when I began noticing beauty, when I cleared the confusion out of my mind and remembered how to live simply, I entered heaven.
Love,
Chris