Impressions meet reflection || January with my daughter:
- Snacking on juicy cara cara oranges and persimmons, tangy kiwis and pomelos, and crunchy pears at the farmer’s market with my discerning little fruit critic.
- Keeping those rain boots – vibrant unicorns and candy pink soles on one pair, and perhaps a fading gloss on the taller, more sombre, grown-up ones – stationed right by the door, because it has rained several days in a row.
- Stomping in puddles aplenty, chasing swooping seagulls, examining accordion-like annelids, and saying a teary, windswept goodbye to our favorite yellow umbrella, broken with a rib sticking out, on a particularly blustery afternoon.
- Looking up and soaking precious sunshine on city jaunts in the sunnier days that follow, where one of us spins in her sparkly sneakers and declares “Mama, I love myself!”, giving her Mama such warm fuzzies that even the cup of freshly brewed coffee in hand pales in comparison.
- Answering innumerable whys bursting forth from an indefatigable observer with a rapidly expanding vocabulary, and noting all the previously glossed-over things one now needs to learn the precise names and functions of, like specific road construction equipment and that obscure button in the elevator.
- Mentally being on my toes while physically coaxing myself to settle into some version of Patanjali’s Sthira Sukham Asanam – a posture of stable ease and comfort – elusive as it may have seemed.
- Managing to get us on the yoga mat, both of us at times, bundled up and reluctant, for what might possibly be the shortest daily flows in the history of this ancient practice, and yet being surprised at how spontaneously awareness and gratitude (and giggles) can come flooding in.
The first month of the new year has brought a myriad little surprises, but it has also served as a reminder to lean back into good old foundations: be present enough to discover joy in the everyday, learn with a sense of play, and always respond with simplicity. Hope you’ve been finding your groove too and doing your thing the way only you can. Go, you!