Ever felt you spend more time wondering rather than in wonder? I do. What ever happened to that little girl who unashamedly expressed her delight and pleasure at some of the smaller things in life?
I watched a young boy today playing with leaves that floated in the breeze like the blades on a helicopter rotor. He was so caught up in the wonder of the moment that his eyes were alight and he did not care what anyone else thought. He enthusiastically shared a leaf with me and described how they turned and floated with that same light in his eyes.
One of my children were like that with lizards. He took great delight in peering into a garden hoping to catch sight of and even catching a garden skink. His grandmother and he would spend lots of time wandering and wonder-filled in her garden. He would get so excited to have a little skink stay on the palm of his hand long enough for him to gaze upon it with wonder.
As a child growing up on a farm, my siblings and I would love riding on the back of the farm utility. We would stand shoulder to shoulder with our hands gripping the bar to the rear of the cab. We would press our faces into the breeze and open our mouths and make noises as the air rushed past. Our long hair would blow behind us and occasionally whip around our face. I am sure we may have even sung very loudly-and off key. We did not care as no one was watching or could hear us.
A meme on social media has resonated with me on this topic. It is a picture of a young girl overflowing with enthusiasm and with a caption that reads, ‘Remember her. She is still there…inside you…waiting. Let’s go get her!”
A similar picture with a very excited younger girl was captioned “When your flowers start blooming.” That’s me (and a few of my friends) when I see a rose bud opening up on one of my rose bushes. Perhaps that younger wonder-filled version of me is in fact still there, not too far away. Just a little less outwardly enthusiastic and more internally beserk!
Perhaps it was the same girl who dug her toes into the ocean’s surface as the long boat skimmed across a bay in the Philippines earlier this year. A few of us ‘girls’ sat low on a plank seat on the side and took our shoes off, so our toes and feet would skim across the surface of the water creating ripples and a gentle shower of sea spray. It was a time I stopped wondering and actually was present to the wonder of the moment and the sensory experience.
We have five senses. Sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. For most of us, they all work-some work better than the others. I am very visual and also spend a lot of time thinking. That means in the here and now I do not always pay attention to sounds, to what I am tasting, what I smell and even what I am feeling under my feet, through my fingers and on my skin.
When I think back to my childhood moments of pure joy and wonder, I get glimpses of living in the moment and experiencing sensory play. How long has it been since I played in mud? What would it take I wonder, to regain some of the wonder? What if I stopped wondering and intentionally focused on all of my senses to recapture some of the wonder?
Instead of a sand pit, it could be digging my toes into the sand on a beach. Instead of play dough, it could be enjoying the sensation of kneading dough. Maybe its taking five minutes to identify the bird songs all around me or to take in the scent of that opening rose bud. Maybe I will savour every bite of my next meal instead of gulping it down. That’s only the beginning.
My next wondering and pondering though is a question I have yet to answer. As an adult, is going ‘internally beserk’ a sufficient response to wonder? Is it appropriate or even necessary to outwardly express my enthusiasm as I would have unashamedly done as a child? What do you think?
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