Changes. My high school graduation ceremony featured David Bowie's Great Life Lesson; it has been my anthem ever since. What is it my grandmother used to smile devishly at me? "When a door closes, somewhere a window opens." Who knew David and my sweet grandmother held the same philosophies? She always was a hip woman!
I try not to let small things overwhelm me: today's drama will pass, 'what-she-said' will be forgotten, this week's flat tire fiasco will be reduced to a sentence or two by the weekend and then disintegrate into nothing. Even big changes, in my mind, are just disguises for newness. A clean slate. A freshly-sharpened pencil on the first day of school! White sneakers.
If there is one thing that is sure in life --besides death and taxes--it's that whatever you have right now, however you're feeling, will inevitably change. This idea has helped me endure many hardships: heartbreak, grief, natural childbirth labor (3 times!), changing jobs and careers. Everything has an end. Suffering has an end. This cycle has helped me see the bittersweet behind life's great moments. It's why I cried at my own wedding, savor turning on the Christmas tree lights the first time (Ooh! So pretty!), and take the time to dance with my children to Lady Gaga (Ga, Ga, Ooh la la!) Nothing lasts forever. All good things must come to an end.
With this knowledge in my head, and especially in my heart, it has become important for me, a part of my very being, to account for life's ordinary happiness: contentment. I feel it when my children sit around my table eating the breakfast I made, when we sit after school and have snack, bake cookies, color on the sidewalk, chat our way through dusk. When my family merges with another and we all click, that conviviality becomes a thing of beauty to me. When great tunes waft out of my kitchen to the patio where my friends and family are eating, drinking, laughing and talking, I feel that secret collective consciousness that whispers: "This too shall pass, but we are here now."
This simple life takes some coordinating. It takes time and energy to find and maintain great friends who fill you with warmth and a sense of belonging. It takes patience to sing "I'm a Little Teapot" every time the water's ready for your coffee. It takes a loving mind to play Candyland five times in a row. It takes skill and organization to feed your family and friends on a Sunday afternoon. These things aren't memorable in themselves, but they build a cushion , a home inside your soul so that when life throws something at you, or your family, or your dear friends who feel like family, you find that no matter the roller coaster, there is something stable, and it is You.
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