“I want to touch the earth, I want to break it in my hands, I want to grow something wild, and unruly . . .” – Dixie Chicks
When I see something that makes me curious or that I find extraordinarily beautiful, seeing it isn’t enough for me. My senses are greedy. I want to experience whatever it is that rouses my heart.
I seek to experience life as a participant, not only as a spectator, which has often times has gotten me into trouble.
When I was nine years old, I was going up an escalator in Nordstrom’s with my mom and little brother. We passed by a mannequin that was displaying something flashy. Her hair and outfit looked too pretty to simply give it an approving glance as I slowly went by. I reached my hand out and before I knew what happened, I was standing on the escalator step with the mannequin’s wig in my hand, leaving behind a bald beauty! My mom was mortified and my brother didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful or funny, I just meant to touch the wig. I wanted to FEEL her hair and touch her dress and somehow the wig just came off!
Fast forward ten years when at the age of nineteen, I went to Hawaii for my first time. Growing up in Southern Orange County, I was obsessed with the ocean! I had seen clear water in Surfer magazines and movies, but never before in person. It was dusk when we arrived and when I saw the clear ocean water, it took my breath away! There was no way I could just stand there and look at it! I had to FEEL it! I grabbed my brother and dragged him in with me, fully clothed (I even remember what I was wearing, although I’m not proud to admit it: overalls! YUCK!). I kept going under water, trying to take it all in as best as I could. I mailed sand in envelopes to friends on the mainland, trying to share with them a piece of Hawaii as something they too could touch.
When I was twenty-one, I traveled throughout Europe as a student on a study abroad program with my college. When we visited Stonehenge in England, I was so excited to be in the British countryside, instead of following the group with the tour guide to the ancient stone pieces that, in my opinion, are overrated, I took off running in a field of sheep, frolicking as if I were one of them. My professor was very upset with me because, come to find out, it was during the time that Foot and Mouth disease was rampant among livestock. Ooops!
After thirty-two years of living, I agree completely with the Dixie Chicks when they sing about wanting to touch the earth and break it in their hands, to grow something wild and unruly. Me too! It’s not enough just to look at it. It’s easier to experience things with all your senses when you’re a kid, mainly because as an adult, if you were to do the same thing you did as a kid (i.e. run into the ocean with all of your clothes on or frolic in a field of sheep) you’re viewed as, “inappropriate, strange, obnoxious, or immature.” Either that, or people just assume you’re drunk.
It seems as though, in many ways, adulthood dulls the soul. In other ways, it has awakened my soul in that it teaches it more about what it needs, loves, dislikes and is good or bad at. As an adult, I have grown to know and accept myself. I still make myself stop to smell a rose when I pass one, and I can’t sit still to good music.
No matter how old I get, I never want what is expected of me to choke my need to experience. To touch, feel, taste, smell, DO.
Do you desire to touch a beautiful sunset? Run in the rain? Make a snow angel? Put your kids’ words in a bottle to make you smile in years to come? When is the last time you have felt compelled to DO and not just see and hear?
When we got out of the car tonight, it was a full moon and I crouched down with my three year and made him stop to gaze at the moon for a minute. He asked me, “Mom, when can you take me fishing on the moon?” It took me a minute to put together where on earth he got that from, then realized that it’s from the little boy on Dreamworks he sees at the beginning of so many movies, who floats up to the moon on balloons then sits and fishes on the moon. I answered him, “Let’s go tomorrow!” He must not have believed me because he then asked, “Really Mom? Are you being serious, because I really want to go!”
In a way, being the mom of a young one with an incredible imagination awakens my imagination and forces me to live life in 3D. One-dimensional life is too boring and slow for an active kid. It’s too boring for me at times. You probably won’t find me running with sheep in a field or destroying mannequins, but if you see me bent over in my running shorts with my nose in a rose, or swaying back and forth in church to the beat of worship, you’ll know that my soul is smiling, engaging as many senses as possible in the moment.