The Small Moments

Happy Labor Day. I hope you are all enjoying your weekend. Last week in my classes I shared my favorite quote from Anna Quindlen’s book entitled A Short Guide to a Happy Life. 

Life is made up of moments, small pieces of glittering mica in a long stretch of gray cement. It would be wonderful if they came to us unsummoned, but particularly in lives as busy as the ones most of us lead now, that won’t happen. We have to teach ourselves how to make room for them, to love them, and to live, really live. 

That’s what I asked of my students on the mat, to look for the mica. We often glaze over those small shiny delicious moments in pursuit of the “big moments”, the “peak poses”. Instead the deep stretches and opportunity to let go is the shiny good stuff and we can miss it if we don’t pay attention. It is truly the practice to look for and see all the shiny moments along the way both in our bodies and in our lives. 

I am a little bit late working on my newsletter this morning. Typically I try to get it finished on Sunday night so it can be in your inbox at 8 am every Monday. I was college visiting with my son this weekend and was exhausted last night so I decided to give myself some grace and know that the world won’t end if it goes out a little late this morning. 🙂

I woke up to a text from my dad telling me that my uncle had passed away early this morning. This man was the closest thing to a grandfather that I have had and very much lived up to that title. He had been sick for many years and lived into his nineties and had a wonderful life full of small shiny moments with his family as well as large accomplishments. 

I find myself feeling so grateful for the time I had with him and for all the little shiny things about him; I will never forget his voice or his smile or his kindness. Those shiny pieces of “mica” not only help to make our journey much more powerful and fulfilling along the way, in times of sadness they provide comfort; the way he squeezed my hand and his funny jokes; it makes me smile through the tears. That’s the sparkling mica and I am going to keep looking for it. I wish for you a week of looking for it to; of noticing those little sparkles; of holding on to small moments as well as the big ones.