There’s a problem with unexpected pleasures.
They’re too unpredictable.
As my daughter and I benched ourselves in a local park to eat a picnic lunch, we immediately noticed a fascinating visual: two teenage girls, in long Mennonite dresses, playing basketball with a young boy. I snapped a number of photos from our distant vantage point, thinking to use them in this entry when something even more surprising happened. Finishing up, one of the girls hopped onto a skateboard and whirred past us. I only managed to capture her image as she receded down a winding sidewalk, her dress flapping around her legs.
The surprise made me smile.
Unexpected pleasures are pleasurable for the very reason that they are unexpected. In the gray world of the predictable, surprises are a splash of color. In a grid pattern schedule, they are the curly-cues. If only we could anticipate where they’d appear.
I’ve often wondered, while watching a nature video, how long the filmmaker had to hunker down in a blind to get nature to cooperate. I know from my forays into the mildly wild woods of Pennsylvania that one has to have exceptional luck or timing in order to see anything unusual.
Unless one hunkers down. There’s no substitution for being present. In the moment, when the moment comes.
And that’s the lesson I take away from today’s bench. If I want those curly-cue instances in my life, I have to make time for them. I can’t force surprises. But I can park myself where I can notice them as they flit by.
Or skate past.
There were other small delights. The dad who let his little boy tool around in the skateboard park on his Big Wheel. The couple that introduced their toddler to ducks. Best of all was Grace, hair perfectly coiffed for the evening’s ballet recital, sharing ideas for how she plans to creatively use the summer. I suppose she would have told me those in the normal flow of life. But here, sitting together in the speckled shade on a pleasant June day,we had just the right environment for sharing.
And for catching unexpected pleasures.
They’re too unpredictable.
As my daughter and I benched ourselves in a local park to eat a picnic lunch, we immediately noticed a fascinating visual: two teenage girls, in long Mennonite dresses, playing basketball with a young boy. I snapped a number of photos from our distant vantage point, thinking to use them in this entry when something even more surprising happened. Finishing up, one of the girls hopped onto a skateboard and whirred past us. I only managed to capture her image as she receded down a winding sidewalk, her dress flapping around her legs.
The surprise made me smile.
Unexpected pleasures are pleasurable for the very reason that they are unexpected. In the gray world of the predictable, surprises are a splash of color. In a grid pattern schedule, they are the curly-cues. If only we could anticipate where they’d appear.
I’ve often wondered, while watching a nature video, how long the filmmaker had to hunker down in a blind to get nature to cooperate. I know from my forays into the mildly wild woods of Pennsylvania that one has to have exceptional luck or timing in order to see anything unusual.
Unless one hunkers down. There’s no substitution for being present. In the moment, when the moment comes.
And that’s the lesson I take away from today’s bench. If I want those curly-cue instances in my life, I have to make time for them. I can’t force surprises. But I can park myself where I can notice them as they flit by.
Or skate past.
There were other small delights. The dad who let his little boy tool around in the skateboard park on his Big Wheel. The couple that introduced their toddler to ducks. Best of all was Grace, hair perfectly coiffed for the evening’s ballet recital, sharing ideas for how she plans to creatively use the summer. I suppose she would have told me those in the normal flow of life. But here, sitting together in the speckled shade on a pleasant June day,we had just the right environment for sharing.
And for catching unexpected pleasures.
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