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“Many of the most deeply spiritual moments of my life haven’t happened just in my mind or in my soul. They happened while holding my son in the middle of the night, or watching the water break along the shore, or around my table, watching the people I love feel nourished in all sorts of ways.” Shauna Niequiest

As we gear up to a momentous moment in ours and my daughter’s life. I recount the momentous moments in mine. They are fewer than the regular moments, they punctuate ordinary life.

In the garden of life we have our show stoppers but the background creates the scaffolding around which the show stoppers shine. There is no show stopping without the background.

Building a good life is all about the back ground and the scaffolding, the every day. The show stopper is the ice cream sundae, or cheesecake in our diet. A great treat but not something to live on.

We live only for the high points at our peril. Sarah Ban Breathnach in her book Romancing The Ordinary tells us women have not five sences but seven. As well as sight, sound, scent, taste, touch she feels we have “knowing” women’s intuition and “wonder” our sense of rapture and reverence. We are encouraged to find what moves us to tears, what feeds our soul, what makes our blood rush, our heart skip a beat and our soul sigh. We are encouraged to look at the unwrapped gifts that come everyday.

“Life is not made up of minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years, but of moments. You must experience each one before you can appreciate it.” Sarah Ban Breathnach

We experience the glimpse of a sunrise we see because we are up early because of a child, the rush to get something done, or writing a blog. The morning hours before the house stirs is one of my favorite times. Sipping black coffee as I write. I used to love it with cream, “that’s another story.”

My dog Lulu woofs a low woof, what does she hear, what interrupts her sleep on the stair? I wonder as I sit here, after this wedding is over, what will we remember and cherish about this time. The planning, bonding over bouquets and boutonnieres, shopping for “the dress,” the hair and makeup tryouts?

There was a movie I watched about a man who only lived the high points, the rest of life zipped past as if on fast forward. Of course he missed his child growing up, his marriage because these are the everyday moments that build a life. We can’t remember them as easily as the highlights. The everyday builds to the big moments. You can’t just have the highlights, no one can. I don’t think we live life unless we go through the deep, the shallow, the highs, the lows, the important and unimportant.

My husband played his pick for the father daughter dance last night. I cried, I can’t remember the name of the song, only that it is a perfect choice. It seems to me there is a sound track that runs through life. I remember the songs Dad and mom used to sing as the sound track of my youth. The songs we danced to in the disco days are the sound track of my early adulthood.

Our last trip to Jamaica there was a sound track. There will be a soundtrack for this trip as well. Songs take us back to where we were, how we felt, and what we were going through. As corny as it sounds “A DJ Saved My Life” might be true.

Each person’s soundtrack will be as individual as themselves. Where our soundtracks intersect we find a bond. I’ve heard when they play the music seniors grew up with they act younger. I believe it, songs take us back to places we’ve been and people we were with.

Life is rich with sights and sounds, tastes, touch and scents. A woman from my Horticultural Society says she can’t smell Hyacinths without thinking about funerals. Smelling the air before rain I think about my mom who used to say a robin told her “there’ll be rain, there’ll be rain.” When I walk on crunchy snow, I think about walks with my dad to check on the cows before going to bed. The crisp winter air, the moon in the sky, a cow with a brand new calf beside her.

When I smell the smell of our garage in the heat of summer, it sometimes reminds me of kittens, because we found our momma cat one day with brand new kittens on a bed of nails in the garage.

Memories bring us back to special moments in the tapestry of our life. Special moments are both big and small; the small ones are often the most poignant. They are the ones that bring tears to my eyes.

“Sometimes it’s the same moments that take your breath away that breathe purpose and love back into your life.”  Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You

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