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simple pleasures
Nov. 28th, 2020 02:23 pmDollar Tree up here is technically not a dollar store, because the price of every item is $1.25, but you get the gist. I was in there the other day, and, for whatever reason, my eye was caught by an item in the aisle for party favours, children's games, puzzles, etc.
It was a painting set. It offered two drawings on plain 8½ by 11 paper, simple black lines on white. One was a farmyard with a barn, the other was a chicken with some eggs. The kit also had a set of six tiny plastic pots of paints and a cheap little brush which most likely wouldn't do a very refined job of anything.
I saw that and instantly teared up. Fortunately, no one was close by and no one saw me. Even so.
In that moment, all I could think of was, if I were a youngster, how much delight and wonder I would experience if I received something like this. The unalloyed magic and purity of a child's appreciation of such simple, humble things. And it tore at me inside, the realization that this was a part of me I had lost, that most of us lose.
Perhaps not completely. I like to think that, when we pause to take in the beauty of a sunset, we are returning for a moment to that state of tenderness and purity, reclaiming something essential in our spirit.
I try not to idealize the concept of childhood. Especially not my own. I would never want to relive it. I remember my childhood as containing a lot of fear, a lot of pain. Disappointment, frustration, anger, sadness. But there truly were also those moments of wonder and joy, many of them on account of something simple or trivial.
I was also made aware of such times when my own children were very small, and we could pick up some battered trinket for them at a garage sale for a quarter or a dime, and the enjoyment they derived was out of all proportion to what we spent.
Since that dollar store moment, I have found myself frequently on the edge of tears again, just from remembering it. Being put back in touch with the concept of simple pleasures, and how much they can offer us if we let them. Thinking that this is one aspect of childhood that we don't actually have to leave behind, but how odd we appear to others if we don't leave it behind, if we “make a big deal out of nothing”.
I wish life didn't harden us.
It was a painting set. It offered two drawings on plain 8½ by 11 paper, simple black lines on white. One was a farmyard with a barn, the other was a chicken with some eggs. The kit also had a set of six tiny plastic pots of paints and a cheap little brush which most likely wouldn't do a very refined job of anything.
I saw that and instantly teared up. Fortunately, no one was close by and no one saw me. Even so.
In that moment, all I could think of was, if I were a youngster, how much delight and wonder I would experience if I received something like this. The unalloyed magic and purity of a child's appreciation of such simple, humble things. And it tore at me inside, the realization that this was a part of me I had lost, that most of us lose.
Perhaps not completely. I like to think that, when we pause to take in the beauty of a sunset, we are returning for a moment to that state of tenderness and purity, reclaiming something essential in our spirit.
I try not to idealize the concept of childhood. Especially not my own. I would never want to relive it. I remember my childhood as containing a lot of fear, a lot of pain. Disappointment, frustration, anger, sadness. But there truly were also those moments of wonder and joy, many of them on account of something simple or trivial.
I was also made aware of such times when my own children were very small, and we could pick up some battered trinket for them at a garage sale for a quarter or a dime, and the enjoyment they derived was out of all proportion to what we spent.
Since that dollar store moment, I have found myself frequently on the edge of tears again, just from remembering it. Being put back in touch with the concept of simple pleasures, and how much they can offer us if we let them. Thinking that this is one aspect of childhood that we don't actually have to leave behind, but how odd we appear to others if we don't leave it behind, if we “make a big deal out of nothing”.
I wish life didn't harden us.
