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Last week I arrived at the mission as usual, prepared to lead a class of fourth graders around California’s beautiful historic treasure. I placed my microphone and transmitter around my neck and adjusted the equipment. When I looked up, the teacher had assembled her class; a large group of 35 children and three chaperons in front of me. I vividly recall looking into the fresh eager faces of all those nine and ten year-olds and feeling a rush of pleasure wash though me. In fact I caught myself uttering aloud, “Awww….” |
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I admit that for some reason, on that day, at that moment, I was a bit stunned by their open, fresh, expectant faces. They were precious to me. Their expressions clearly revealed their thrill at being there. It moved me. In fact, I’ve thought of them many times since that moment of introduction. |
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I have considered what an honor it is to be entrusted with young people who are so openly waiting to experience the world.
The next minutes were busy ones as the students adjusted their ear pieces and radios. When everyone was ready, I smiled, introduced myself and asked if anyone wanted to take an imaginary journey back through time? Time travel!
Well, that cinched it. They had been ready for an adventure, but surely did not expect that! Their excitement was palpable. |
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We had a wonderful time together. One chaperone, a young father of two of the students, was so excited about what he was learning that he plans to come back to the mission with the rest of his family. The teacher left me saying she is inspired to become a docent when she retires.
Yes, a lovely day, although it was perhaps a fairly typical day for me as a docent at the mission. However, for some reason, that day, I found myself looking at that experience through a new lens. |
I am rereading Liz Gilbert’s (of bestseller fame Eat, Pray, Love) Big Magic. In Big Magic Gilbert makes an argument for living a creative life, taking chances, living in curiosity, and having the courage to dare to take a chance with our art, our writing, our travel, our dreams….She urges us to be brave even though we are fearful. She underscores how lucky we are to even be here on the planet at all, and to make the most of this “dazzling moment of our earthy existence.” |
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Maybe I like her book so much because I have been thinking and saying the same thing for the last thirty or so years: that we have no time to waste.
I did not consciously articulate “choosing happiness” for myself until my agonizing journey to protect my four-year- old niece from her abusive grandfather, my father, back in 1990.
All that uproar, therapy, a year-long legal battle, subsequent autobiography, and media attention, forced me to become aware of my inner life.
Many interviews and questions were put to me back then. When Oprah Winfrey asked me on national television how I managed to become who I was (code for surviving my childhood), I was at a loss. |
Subsequently, I came to realize that across my years I have made a choice. I have chosen happiness.
Part of the secret is to live in the moment and to surround ourselves with positive people.
During those years of becoming more self aware I began to more fully appreciate the great joy my students brought me. I still can’t believe that I got to spend 45 years of my life with classes joyfully brimming full of energetic college students. In addition, I layered decades of serious study and practice of portraiture art on top of a writing life. I see that I have sought meaningful endeavors. Those endeavors helped to fortify me when our children grew up into their own lives. |
Much of this conscious awarenes I tucked into my back pocket and continued on with my life, not really thinking about it. However, recently my friend Kriss, a Marriage and Family Therapist, met me for lunch and gifted me with something special. She presented me with Oprah Winfrey’s cloth-bound What I Know for Sure book. It is a collection of Oprah’s best thoughts on living life fully and experiencing joy. Oprah and I share a similar childhood trauma. We have both fought to move forward from what could have been paralyzing beginnings. |
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In this book she talks a lot about her “five star” chai tea which she enjoys in the afternoons, about walking her dogs in the forest and letting them off leash. She describes laughing with her best friend Gayle King. We see that Oprah finds pleasure in the little things. Her bigger goal, she says, is to help one person each day. She works hard, but takes joy in her pleasures and stops to reflect on them. I believe she is a joyful person, that she has chosen joy.
Across my years of teaching the psychology of relationships and then later volunteering as a life coach, I would ask my students and clients “what is right with you?” Honestly, it threw them for a loop. I could almost hear them thinking “wait a minute!I want to work on what’s wrong with me, my relationships, my attitude...” |
I could see the curve ball I was throwing out. ‘What’s wrong’ is thinking from a position of scarcity rather than a place of abundance as “what’s right?”
We have richness and joy all around us. All we need to do is stop and recognize it.
That’s some of the Big Magic Liz Gilbert describes, and absolutely one thing Oprah “knows for sure.”
So what is right with you? What do you know for sure? Of course I would love to know what you are thinking. For now I am thinking about this “dazzling” moment I get to be walking the earth, how lucky we are to be alive in the world. |
