Pastel Pause in the Afternoon

Sunshine. Shadows. Heat. Can you Pause?

Afternoon lull. Close your eyes.

How often do you stop? How frequently do you look at the colours, see the lines as the sunshine lands through your windows? Do you feel the warmth as it streams into your space? 

Relax. Hear the distant traffic, the sounds of children laughing, the birds awakened to spring. 

Use this moment. Take it as permission to listen and to see what you would usually not notice. Each day we get to decide what we want our lives to mean. In How to Cultivate Meaning and Well-Being Through Simple, Everyday Actions, you will become aware of the power of our choices. We get to appreciate or deny, to weigh our belief in the good in the world, to banish or to celebrate.

Give yourself this one minute regardless of what you are going through today. Don't rush through it. Savour it. Feel it. Bask in it. This minute is always here for you.

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.  

Viktor E. Frankl

Let the brightness of the yellow make you smile. Let the pink soften you. Allow the shades of orange to lift you to hope. I hope you giggle at the waters filled with so many tiny bubbles or shed the tears you've been holding. 

May your spirit re-awaken. 

May this pastel pause in the afternoon remind you to notice your special moments. (Tweet this)

How will you use your next minute? (Tweet This)

5 Boys and a Dog Named Radar

Mrs. Packet was the mother of a friend of mine from my teenage years. 

She was tall and lean and mothered five sons, the one she called Number Two was my friend. Four of her sons topped 6 feet 3 inches and the remaining one had red hair. The looks of that son were never talked about because all the boys had such different faces anyway, not one like another, except four of them had long legs.

Mr. Packet was what might be called a busy man. He hardly ever seemed to be around and I don't remember his face at all.

5 Boys and a Dog Named Radar

Mrs. Packet was adorable. She had convinced her sons that she was quite deaf, but I think she used this as an excuse to her advantage. Who truly wants to hear what comes out of your five boys anyway, verbally or in some other manner?

Once when I was visiting, I escaped into the kitchen and saw her as she sat quietly sipping her tea. Silently she sat in the dark pretending maybe of a life without so many growing boys and men around her house.

She looked at me at first as an oddity, a girl no doubt who might actually listen to what she said. We chatted for a few minutes although I don't recall what it was about. Maybe it was in reference to something I was wearing because surely she didn't have that kind of conversation with any of the five. I don't remember repeating anything so I kept her secret that just maybe she wasn't as deaf as her household believed.

The Packets had a dog named Radar. He was small and wiry and ran in circles around the tall legs and the red-haired one that lived in his house. Radar barked as each boy sped down the road every morning and announced joyfully each past-curfew arrival late in the evening. But of course, Mrs. Packet didn’t hear any of it, maybe.

I wonder now, decades later, what those five boys did with their lives and if any of them have a dog. And I hope that Number Two turned out as kind as his Mom was to me in the silence of that kitchen.

Some Moms choose to be deaf. (Tweet This)

Five boys and a dog named Radar keep a Mom quiet. (Tweet This)

For more on my interest in large families, read No Pretend Siblings Needed.

*Mrs. Packet's name has been changed but Radar's name has not, if you think you know this family, say hello from me.