Blogging friend, Renee, writes so beautifully (and I swear she is in my head), that there is almost no reason to blog. At least not this time. She puts beautifully into words and gives a name (unknown to me before) to this nostalgia that ebbs and flows for me. Mono no aware.
In one of her email blasts, she also included this quote, which I had read some time ago, but was so glad to have it brought back to mind.
“Life is amazing. And then it's awful. And then it's amazing again. And in between the amazing and awful it's ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That's just living heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life.
And it's breathtakingly beautiful.”
~L. R. Knost
Joy was my word of the year a couple years ago, yet I find in this constant stretch of home educating, that sometimes it can slip away without my wanting it to.
So I added it to that lovely list of 7 questions I borrowed, now 8 questions in our home. (I mentioned them at the bottom of this post!)
And with this awareness and desire to climb from the low spots, I do love the Jewish new year celebrations, reverence, and traditions that fall at this time of year. During our nature walk last week, the kids and I ate apples dipped in honey and shared our regrets and burdens before tossing stones into what little water remained in the creek.
I hope you are experiencing joy this week.
Beautiful. Thank you for sharing that blog post. It rings so true. It's funny...I was just talking to Jhonen about the symbolism of seasons in literature which came up as we were reading Charlotte's Web. We easily talked about what winter, spring, and summer might symbolize, but when we got to fall we both paused for a minute. The end of summer, beginning of fall is the time period in Charlotte's Web when the tone shifts significantly to this exact thing - mono no aware. It is hard to describe that feeling and the blog post did it perfectly. Jhonen's description was, "Fall is....worry." Which I thought was an interesting and sort of poetic word choice.
ReplyDeleteJess, you have some of the most amazing, deep conversations and experiences with your kids! :) J is such a sensitive, insightful kid, in such a thoughtful way. That is poetic. Did he explain why he thought that? I am curious as he doesn't seem like an anxious soul, nor do you.
DeleteHe is very sensitive, and a bit of a worrier. I think he realized that winter is often symbolic of endings and goodbyes and death...all things he worries about, so the season leading up to that would be a symbolically anxious time.
DeleteThat makes sense. The awareness and intuition kids have is amazing, but the worries and anxiety that can partner with those qualities are unfortunate.
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