September 16th, 2019 What makes for a better life? The ordinary or the extraordinary?

Turns out we love the chance to share our ordinariness!

My friend asked people to share on Facebook, "something regular" you did today. You could probably lump the over 50 responses into -- doing things with pets, being with spouses, parents and kids, doing nothing, procrastinating or resting, and getting little jobs done, including eating.

And, when you read each one you thought, “Yeah, I get that! Me too!”  This IS what life is made of,  this ordinariness.

And, you also noticed that, there is something else about ordinary. One person acknowledged that, “holding hands with hubby walking down the street,” is both ordinary and extraordinary at the same time.

 As was my post of sharing a salad at a restaurant with my husband--something I have done for over 34 years.  Suddenly it seemed extraordinary that we have shared our differences--he eats meat, I’m a vegetarian--in this way. Steak and fries on salad split equally from top to bottom.

We love the daily ordinariness of our lives. Sitting on the front porch and watching our neighbors’ preschool children toddle off to school like little ducklings behind their parents.

Watching a single leaf fall from a grand Maple tree out front. When do things turn into extraordinary?  Perhaps it is in the noticing of it. 

As Emily asked the Stage Manager, in Thornton Wilders’ play, Our Town,” Do any human beings realize life while they live it? Every minute?  His answer, “Saints and poets maybe--they do some.”

And yet, the extraordinary calls, doesn’t it?  Our love and appreciation of our ordinary lives certainly must be the stabilizing, resting force for something else. For something we didn’t know we could do, see, or experience!

So my follow-up Facebook question might go something like this, “What is something extraordinary that you desire to experience? Love? Unbridled passion? Travelling to exotic destinations? Becoming friends and colleagues with people that you admire? Doing something important for yourself, your family, the world?

Ordinary is the stuff of life. Ordinary is filled with all the integrity that we can muster--to do the right things, as in, doing what is good for us and others-- to enjoy, to inhabit, to show up, to participate.

Extraordinary is noticing the golden light that shines on EVERY moment.
 
Extraordinary is also picking up on a certain exhilarating vibration and saying yes to it!  Falling back into ordinary at that time is hiding instead of living.

So let’s give ordinary her honor and extraordinary her due.


A special thanks to my friend Cindy who started it all and inspired others with her FB post. :)


An exhilarating and extraordinary experience awaits in Aquas de Lindoia, Brazil
Yo-eco ART Retreat  during Penn State’s Spring Break
March 8 through the 13.