The Repetition of Life.

Posted by Tiff in Our freeplaylife, Travel in the U.S. | 5 comments

I love so much about living in So. Cal. I love the weather and the diversity, for starters. There’s always something going on. There’s always people around! Bad for traffic, great for entertainment!

My favorite way to be entertained by strange people, or, rather, people who are strangers (although a good majority of them are, it turns out, strange…) is to go to the beach when the sun is going down. People flip for beach sunsets. As they should! Watching the sun sink into the sea is a transcendent experience. It’s why people flock there, brought together by the power of nature’s beauty. In Huntington Beach there are people from every continent, speaking all different languages, wearing all types of clothes. There are tourists and locals. Men, women and children. Lovers, families, people who are alone, and groups of friends.

For one hour of the day, they all walk to the edge of the ocean and look west. For one hour, the congregating people talk to each other, whether they know each other or not. “Isn’t it a beautiful sunset today?” someone will say. And the person beside them might speak French and not understand, so the first person will make a gesture and smile, and the foreigner will understand the sentiment and smile back. Lovers clutch themselves more tightly together, families group up closer, friends pretend to shove each other into the surf. People laugh, sigh, and take a moment to think. About what…I don’t know. Life. Beauty. Their place in the world. Regrets. Hopes. Love. Laughter. Maybe all or maybe none.

I like when people ask me to take their picture. I can’t help but turn it into a photo shoot. Maybe they’re from out of town and will never be back…in that case, I want them to have the most kick ass momento of the visit. I rarely can take just one shot, I usually mess around with their settings, have them stand different places. If the sun is at their back, then they’ll get silhouetted but the sunset will be bright. If the sun is in front, then their faces will show up but not the sunset or beach. Sometimes I can use a flash with the sun at their back, to show off their faces. I try it all, hoping the picture will be a good one and something they put up on a wall or in a wallet or on a desk or table. It’s just one way to connect, I guess. Strangers, yes, except for an hour. For that hour of sunset, we’re all more than strangers, because we have a common interest. We’re there to say goodbye to the sun.

One evening, Golfer said, “You know, mom, I’ll see lots of sunsets in my life, but none of them ever again.” When I asked him to clarify, he said, “The sun only sets once a day, then is gone, and will never happen again!”

Sometimes the repetition of life dulls us to the magic of each moment. “Look ma! It’s a sunset!” gets old after a while, how many days do we actually stop to watch the sun descend? (If not at the beach, that is!) Not often, because we’ve seen it before. Day after day. But each one is it’s own miracle. Each one exists for a moment, and then is gone. It may happen again the next day, but never in the same way with the same colors or the same intensity. Look around in your life, what are the things that repeat every day? Schedules, kids, friends, jobs, carpool routes, etc. Some of those things become rote things we do by memory or on autopilot.

Make the kids breakfast…every day…check it off a list and move on.

Except don’t.

Tune in. It’s different today than it was yesterday, and than it will be tomorrow. Small changes. That’s how kids grow….invisibly. Slowly. Every day different. Every day new. New thoughts, feelings, attitudes, behavior. Don’t let the repetition numb you to the magic happening all around. Like bubbles blown into the wind…all shimmery and beautiful one moment, and then gone the next. Look for magic. It’s there!

Share
Tweet