Ordinary To Extraordinary

Lessons Learned…

From A Brown Paper Bag

We talk about the “jump” from ordinary to extraordinary in most any department and we realize that the “jump” we are speaking of, in a word, is the infusion of “creativity.” Creativity, as a full byproduct of a busy imagination, sees the infinite potential dwelling within the bounds of the ordinary, and then can see beyond that to the path that will lead to extraordinary brilliance. Creativity is imagination affirmed. Creativity is imagination with confidence. Creativity creates extraordinary. We plant the seeds for this type of thinking in children when they are very young and quite honestly, it requires a rather counter-cultural perspective. Marketers, who instruct our behavior, and the Joneses, with whom we love to keep up, might suggest or expect that we fill our toy boxes with the latest, greatest, flashiest, costliest items or gadgets or e-games, most of which make spectators of our children, but I would contest that the deepest, truest seeds of creativity are not found amongst these impressive devices. Out-of-the-box thinking comes from out-of-the-box toys; no surprise. Brown paper bags, for instance, offer limitless possibilities for anything anyone might need. From book covers, to drawing paper, puppets and crowns, from bricks(when stuffed), pirate maps, and  birthday cards, to trees(when duct-taped together), wreaths, and journals, from wrapping paper, fresh-out-of-the-oven cookie cooling paper, and cowboy vests, to masks, helmets, and valentines, and on and on and on out to the edges of one’s imagination, brown paper bags do it all and regularly make the “jump” from ordinary to extraordinary in the course of creative play. And they cost nothing more than the correct answer to the perpetual grocery store question, “Paper or plastic?” Paper, of course! Tinfoil, duct tape, pipe cleaners, empty thread spools, popsicle sticks, and countless other ordinary, inexpensive items would fill the toy box in the home of creativity seed planters. For our children to think creatively, they must play creatively, and to play creatively, they must be given simple, ordinary tools with which their extraordinary imaginations may work to create wonderful, magical, unique brilliance.

Seeing Beyond Ourselves

Lessons Learned…

From The Heart Of A Giver

She was an educated woman born in the late eighteen hundreds.  She was well-read, well-traveled, spoke fluent French and dreamed of teaching high school English. Immediately following college graduation, she married her childhood sweetheart, the love of her life, and so began their life together of promise and adventure. Within but a couple of years, her beloved young husband unexpectedly passed away, leaving her with a heart full of despair and broken promises. Devastation.  Anger. Loneliness.  Fear. Time. More time. Re-focus. Re-commitment. New strength.  She, indeed, taught high school English and changed countless lives with her excellence and full devotion.  She continued to travel and absorb the beauty and the wonder of our amazing world.  She never remarried, but she fell in love with the children at an orphanage in Taiwan, whom she had encountered during her travels. Every school year she loved, challenged, and served her very fortunate high school students, saving every penny she made, so that every summer, inTaiwan, she could offer her hands and her heart to the children there. For years and years and years, this was her life; a life of service and endless giving.  Time and age have an unkind way of ravaging our dreams and caging our plans, leaving us to gaze longingly upon that which we can no longer do. A retreat to bitterness would surely be understood, but Maybeth selected a different option than this. If she herself could no longer travel to her loved little ones in Taiwan, she would work from home to package up her love to send across the world to them in large boxes. Tirelessly, she sewed dresses, shorts, shirts, and pants for these children who had nothing. Hundreds and hundreds of clothing items were packed in hundreds of boxes as a steady stream of love continued to pour into that orphanage. She continued this work, this joy until the day she died.  Her legacy of selfless, generous, endless giving humbled, taught, and inspired each one blessed with the great opportunity of being able to peer into the window of her heart.

Brothers...

Lessons Learned…

Courage During Recess

It was broken, of that there was no doubt. The bones in the lower arm were out of place and the pain of that must have been beyond excruciating.  Five minutes earlier, the first graders were all joyously and energetically swinging across the monkey-bars, laughing and cheering one another on. It was really a happy, sunny, very typical noon recess. Until the fall. Just a simple slip of the hand caused the fall onto a grassy spot, and it wasn’t even particularly high, but the landing was just right, or perhaps just wrong, to create the break. An audible collective gasp by the bystanding students, pierced by a heart-wrenching scream, followed by a low steady moan which was shrouded by an eerie playground silence, all occurred within seconds of time and perpetrated the evacuation of the playground, the call to 911, and a small circle of very focused and very concerned staff caregivers  positioned around the very brave first grader. “My brother,” the first grader whispered.  Within moments his big brother was delivered to the child’s side. Smiles, through the pain, were exchanged, and then began a faithful brotherly vigil that brought peace, comfort, security, and strength. A remarkable, beautiful demonstration of the power of family love.  Their eyes remained locked, the moaning ceased, and together they would fight through this. Very few, if any, words were shared. The peace was in the presence; the very familiar presence. Right there, right then, in the noontime breeze, on the playground grass, through intense and agonizing pain, a little but very brave first grader drew great, almost unimaginable strength and courage from the presence of his big brother, as together quite lost to the rest of us they awaited the sound of the siren and the arrival of the paramedics. The healing had begun.

Lessons Learned…

About Flying

Some things are not meant to fly despite how alluring the prospect might be. We were immensely enjoying a gorgeous summer day of frolicking in a cold northern Wisconsin lake, swimming, canoeing, waterskiing, and playing King Of The Mountain on the neighbors’ waterski ramp. We, the neighbor kids and all of our crowd of cousins, were all quite accomplished swimmers hailing from a variety of competitive swim teams and clubs, but the neighbor kids were additionally extremely accomplished water-skiers. We were willing skiers, but completely novice and a bit humorously so, especially in our none-too-graceful, highly unchoreographed falling.  When there was a rather short but tired lull in the water activities, the suggestion arose that perhaps the next activity ought to be everyone taking his or her turn at attempting the waterski ramp.  With doubting, yet highly curious hearts, all of the cousins volunteered to ride in the boat and spectate the daring feat performed by each of the neighbor kids. With special skis on, these kids effortlessly flew over the ramp, landed the jump with an elegant splash, and continued to ski past the friends and neighbors on the docks and on the shore whose mouths were agape in amazement at the flying exhibition they were witnessing. Over and over again with precision, perfection and seeming nonchalance, smiling to the crowds, and leaving us all in the boat fully speechless, the neighbors continued the show.  Who’s next? We cousins all made certain our hands were well tucked into our pockets so that there could be no mistake about our fear-filled unwillingness to volunteer. That was not to be the option. We all needed to try. It was easy, we were informed.  Needless to say, against our better judgment and our limited understanding of physics, we each took our turns. It was not nearly so elegant a sight. And the feeling off ascending the ramp, soaring off the top with the boat and all loved ones down below, flying in a superman-kind-of posture just beneath the clouds, and ultimately landing in a supreme belly flop at the end of the ski rope, was a never to be matched experience filed in the department of humiliation archives with an embarrassing touch of throbbing pain. We lived. We laughed. We learned beyond a shadow of a doubt, that some things are simply not meant to fly.

Life In The Neighborhood...

Lessons Learned…

About Neighbors

Life is fast. Activities are many. Involvements and commitments fill our calendars. Squeeze it in, pack it in, as much and as quickly as humanly possible. Often times far from families. Faster. Faster. Faster. Until in exhaustion from all of our running we realize that we have forgotten to breathe. Breathe. What are we running for? What are we running from? Can we really ever keep up with or catch up to the Jonses? What happened to chatting over the garden fence with the neighbors? Life happens in a neighborhood.  From walks around the block with strollers to training-wheel bicycles wobbily being ridden on the sidewalks, from trick or treating to selling wrapping for school, from borrowing a cup of sugar to sharing a bag full of tomatoes, from watching the house next door until the family returns from vacation to bringing over a meal when a tragedy has struck, from searching together for a lost dog to working together to drag out a fallen branch, from borrowing a cool sports car for prom to giving someone a ride to the hospital, life happens in a neighborhood. We need each other. We need to be connected. We need to belong. Children need this, we all need this. We can set a head-spinning pace and race with all we are worth to keep up with ourselves, but at the end of the day does the spoil outweigh the fatigue? What would it mean, what would it look like to occasionally jump off the merry-go-round and instead linger over the garden fence to catch up with the neighbors, to make a connection, to engage friendship?  The human heart was made to be in relationship and yet we run disengaged keeping our empty distance. Not so in our neighborhood. We made a different choice here.   Our neighborhood, although a hodge-podge collection of individuals in every way,  is modest and connected, generous and attentive, and together we laugh and share and grow up. Together we are stronger. Together we are better. Together we are blessed. Perhaps it is time to stop running and check on the neighbors.

A Tough Lesson For A Little One...

Lessons Learned…

At The First Piano Recital

Six years old with a brand new dress, curled hair adorned with a complimentary bow, and fancy patent-leather shoes; the world was perfect in this moment and this little girl’s smile matched the shining sun. Recital day was here. But for one who had never been to a piano recital, who didn’t fully comprehend what was in store, this experience to this point resembled a lovely and very special party. The simple sweet piano selection was memorized and had been for many weeks. The Princess Waltz was the ideal selection for an occasion such as this very first recital. We were to bring the music with us to the recital.  My family was dressed up and ready to travel to the downtown YWCA where the recital was to occur in a large reserved auditorium. Upon arrival, we noticed that the auditorium was fast filling with supportive family and friends, quietly finding suitable seats and engaging in hushed, congenial conversations along the way. All of the piano students, at least fifty of us, were to convene at the front of the hall, near the stage upon which we were to present our selections on the huge shiny black grand piano which sat front and center. Our teacher, a stern perfectionist-type retired concert pianist, organized us into our seating order with a wave of her hand. We were to play in our age order, which meant I was to play first. At the appointed time and following necessary salutations and recognitions, our teacher commenced the recital. Silence. My name was called. My patent-leather shoes clicked on the tile floor all the way to the stage steps, which I ascended with The Princess Waltz in my hands.  She stood at the top of the stage stairs, at the corner of the stage rather like one of the guards at Buckingham Palace and collected music as the performers, in this particular instance me, proceeded to the Steinway and prepared to play. Silence. My patent-leathers couldn’t reach the pedals, the gravity of the situation descended around that piano bench with oppressive heaviness, and in that painful silence a six year old’s mind went blank; The Princess Waltz was absolutely nowhere to be found. From her corner, after an eternity of silence, the sentry-teacher began heralding each note of The Princess Waltz to me as one might call off bingo numbers. The gentle musical flow of that sweet song was fully lost in the punctuated call and response playing. She could have brought me my music but she did not. Crushing mortification. Crushing. And then it was done before anyone could fix it.  In the shocked silence that accompanied my clicking walk from the piano to the sentry’s  corner to collect the illusive music, one didn’t dare make eye contact with anyone in the room for each one unequivocally understood with brimming tears the depth of hurt which had just occurred. I didn’t return to my seating order and didn’t ask permission either, my party dress and I, instead, found our way to my family where on daddy’s lap I melted into a puddle of embarrassment. Sometimes, hopefully not too often, our lessons are learned through circumstances that break and hurt.

Winter In July...

Lessons Learned…

On The Toboggan

Out the back door of our home in the country was a gigantic hill covered with trees, bushes, and berries of various sorts, and wandering circuitously through them all were paths, some secret and some not as secret. These paths were the routes to countless adventures upon which the children, grandchildren, Labrador Retrievers, and other friends would meanderingly rove throughout all four very distinct seasons of the year. But one particular path contained no winds or bends; it was stick straight. It was the fastest way to the bottom of the hill, and it was the winter season’s path of choice among the crowd of adventurers. It was the toboggan run, this path that was carved straight down through the trees. Upon this path, upon the toboggan, the riding team could quickly gain enough speed to send the forested world whizzing past in a white and chilly blur of excitement. With dogs frolicking and barking, pig-tails and snow wildly flying, raucous laughter rippling among the woods, and several evel knievel cousin toboggan drivers taking turns at the helm, time danced away on the wintery breeze for these rosy-cheeked adventurers on the back of the toboggan. Once through the trees that hugged the steep, straight path, the toboggan would burst out full-steam into the vast open field that rolled in gentle downward waves across twenty acres.  Hanging on to each other  fiercely yet hilariously with woolen-mitted hands, carefully keeping all appendages tucked safely and streamliningly onboard, the esprit-de-corps riders enthusiastically chased the previous riders’ path hoping beyond hope to exceed their distance record. Then together, with all woolly hands on the rope, the rider team, knee deep or more in snow, would lug the beloved toboggan back to the hilltop for another greatly anticipated run by another anxiously awaiting rider team.  Over and over and over and over again we learned to play, to share, to help, to be on a team, to love the outdoors, to take turns and be glad for each other, to drive, to ride, and that laughter and cousins and winter are another perfect recipe for awesomeness.