Visualizing Sweetness

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the people to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” This quote is from the author of The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint Exuperay and is very sensible advice. Besides being extremely poetic, it calls to me about visualizing what you want in your life, and advises that if you learn what it is you want, and see yourself having it, you will find a way to get it. Visualization is one of the several practices we use in Learning Circles to achieve what we want more of in our lives. During this very commercial time of year, I keep coming across articles reminding people that it is experiences that we value truly. One advertisement says that we never look pack happily and say to each other “remember that text…” but rather when we are remembering something happily, it is an experience of time spent together with loved ones, or adventures we had, or when we went somewhere and saw something new, or met someone interesting. “Things”, even the shiniest, most wanted thing wears out, gets old, we tire of it, or it is outshined by the next new thing to come along. Think about what you remember fondly from your past. I remember sitting with my grandmother while she had a coffee in the afternoon, and dipped a cookie in it and shared it with me. I remember her combing her long hair, and singing to me. The other adults in the house were busy, the other kids were at school, so it was before I was five years old, but it is a treasure that has never worn out, never gotten dusty, and certainly never lost a piece or part so that it didn’t work anymore. It works just fine for me, like watching my mother bake, or being bundled up so I could sit in the garage and watch my father and brother refurbish an old broken down two-wheeler that my dad had bought for me for $6. He replaced the flat tires, and spray- painted the bike white, and it wasn’t so much the bike, but the effort that they put into it that blew me away. I yearned for a bike, and although it was not through my own efforts that it became mine, my world expanded, as I took another step into it. But it wasn’t my yearning that got me that bike, and put my feet on the road to wider horizons, it was the yearning of my darling dad, who read the want ads, and spent what little extra money we had on bike tires and paint, so that he could give me, a seven year old, a bike. Last night I had a rare dream of being with my parents and brother, all who have passed on now, visiting lifelong friends. In my dream, my mother leaned over to me, and gave me a kiss. It was so sweet, that I swear I could feel her lips on mine. And if I had that dream, it is because so many times in our lives together, that sweet thing happened and I am just now remembering it again. Now is the time I yearn for the sweetness of family life as it was, and I have it all in my head and my heart. Be sure to make sweet memories for your children to carry around all their lives, so that their dreams, even in advanced age, are of the sweet kisses you gave.