When I was about five years old, standing beneath a tall eucalyptus tree at our desert farm, I turned to my two younger sisters and said, “Someday we will be big and they will be little,” referring to our parents. Though I don’t recall the circumstance that evoked this declaration, I do remember my sisters’ nods as we marched off to play.

Last week, I visited my 95 year old father. For much of the time that I was there, he stared out the window to the fields he once tilled and talked about his early years. As I listened, I realized that dad had indeed become little with time, his body growing tired and his memories slipping from reach. He called me by name, but then thought I was his sister. And in that moment, my heart embraced his--as he struggled to make sense of it all.

Our greatest teachers are those who help us see beauty. They need not lecture in a classroom, but they may. Perhaps our teacher is a neighbor who tends a garden that bursts of life. Maybe a child's smile is the canvas upon which we learn to see. And then there is music and one amazing centenarian--Alice Herz Sommer.

“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”
― Mary Oliver

Since early childhood, I have scribbled in notebooks and on scraps of paper about my life and those dear to me. It was my way to make sense of that which was confusing. When I retired last year, I was able to focus on the book I had always known I would be writing. I journeyed through the highs and lows of my life and found extraordinary beauty. In June that book will be published. 

I received the jacket cover a couple of days ago. It's both humbling and encouraging for me to behold. And....I am filled with gratitude.  

Just saw the film, Saving Mr. Banks. I thought the movie was about the making of a movie, and in a way, it was. But (and it is a huge BUT), the film really was about me--and you--and all of us. As children we saw things, felt things, and concluded things that may have frightened us or confused us. Maybe we tried to re-make that which we saw, felt and concluded. After all, we were and are amazing creatures with incredible abilities to transform our reality. How else could we let go, forgive, and move forward.

Look into a child's eyes...who cannot see the magic?