Ordinary days —

everybody has them

An Ordinary Pinecone © Kathryn LeRoy

Hello friend,

It’s that time of year. Anticipation. Waiting.

We wait to light candles on the menorah or advent wreath. Every day, a child opens another door on the advent calendar. Children line up to share their wishes with the red-suited man, hoping to find those treasures under a lighted tree. They wait.

I kept a small calendar in the months before my wedding, marking off each day as I waited to walk down the aisle. Three times I marked off the months before a new precious life entered our world. I marked off the days to graduation, a trip, a birthday, always waiting.

The big moments, the celebrations, the milestones mark the path of our lives, but what about all those days and moments marked with an “x” on a calendar? What happens on those days, those mundane and ordinary days?

Between cooking, washing, weeding, shopping, and all the other -ings that fill up twenty-four hours . . . lives the magic. Kaitlin Curtice summed it up.

You can’t find magic
In the mundane
If you don’t believe
The mundane exists
And if you’ve forgotten
That the magic
Will find you
No matter what

Life isn’t a series of big events. Life happens in the spaces between.

The ordinary. Or is it so ordinary when the sun and atmosphere streak the sky with brilliant shades of coral and pink? What about the soft breathing against your cheek of a newborn? How ordinary and magical is watching a seedling emerge from the ground or a fawn sleeping under a tree?

Magical Sunset © Kathryn LeRoy

Sometimes the the most important moment of the day has no words. The space in time fills up, overflowing, as we sit side-by-side, watching ducks and fish circles creating art on the surface of the lake.

All those exciting festivities are surely worth the waiting and enjoying.

But remember, the ordinary days fill up a lifetime with more magic than any heart can hold or imagine.

Raindrops © Kathryn LeRoy

The ordinary seems full of activity, but it could be doing nothing.

Poet Nikki Giovanni died at 81 this week leaving behind her wisdom and observations of life shaped into poems. I found her sharing “Why Not the Right Thing the First Time.”

A song for those “Ordinary Days.”

Dragonfly © Kathryn LeRoy

“There is no such thing as a charmed life, not for any of us, no matter where we live or how mindfully we attend to the tasks at hand. But there are charmed moments, all the time, in every life and in every day, if we are only awake enough to experience them when they come and wise enough to appreciate them.

It has taken awhile, but I certainly do know it now ­­– the most wonderful gift I had, the gift I finally learned to cherish above all else, was the gift of all those perfectly ordinary days."
—Katrina Kenison

Hello Cat! © Kathryn LeRoy

If you would like to read more from me, visit my website. I’ll be there waiting for you.

With gratitude,

Kathryn

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