Remember…

Last weekend was magical. I got to spend the day with my son, Wyatt, and his four-legged baby, Gurg at the beach and in the glassy Pacific.

To give you an idea how BIG an experience this was for me, I can still feel my ribs spreading to make more room for how full my heart feels.  You could say, I stepped outside my comfort zone, but I’ve decided it’s more than that.  I REMEMBERED something about myself, and I got to share the experience with my beautiful boy (man, really, but even at almost 27, he’s still my boy.)

I remembered I love to swim in the ocean.  I remembered I can run fast.  I remembered I get to decide what I want to say ‘yes’ to and just because I haven’t done something for a looooooooong ass time, for whatever reason, doesn’t mean I can’t change my mind and heart and remember that I used to do a LOT of things I somehow have forgotten along the way.

Like, I used to get up at 5am and shovel/snowplow my steep ass driveway and get Wy and I to school on time.  I remembered that and now LOVE to use the lawn mower (listening to Leah’s The Art School podcast or to our magical mystical Master Mind calls makes it an even more fulfilling experience).

I used to swim in the Pacific without a second thought to how f’n cold it was, how much kelp there was, or even if it was sunny and bright out.  I used to live to be in the water.

I REMEMBERED today what the icy, salty, ever undulating magic of the sea FEELS like and SMELLS like and TASTES like.  When I was itty-bitty, I used to swim in the ocean and then roll in the hot sand to get warm and suck the salt water from my hair.  Didn’t roll in the sun-kissed sand, but I did suck the salt water from my hair, and giggled.  I didn’t remember the gritty sand – ugh!

I REMEMBERED I like to and CAN run fast – Gurg nearly had me tumbling head over tail, but it was so much frickin’ fun to feel my arms pumping and the hard packed sand beneath my bare feet and to be soooo freee!  Wyatt said, “Mama, you’re a swimmer and a runner, that’s what you are.”

AND, I REMEMBERED, the outfit matters!  Who knew my excuse (it’s too cold!) could be set aside so easily?  The water wasn’t cold at all with me stuffed in my son’s wetsuit, keeping me buoyant and warm.  I remembered I could float, that we (at some point in our evolution) were of the sea, belonged to the sea, that we are still 60% water.

I got to swim back stroke with my son holding my feet as he kicked and together, we swam to shore.  I then got to sit with Gurg while my boy went back in with his weight belt snug around his narrow hips, and his 3 foot flippers, and mask and snorkel as he took himself out to the kelp beds and sat on the bottom of the ocean 30 feet down and communicated with the sea and its creatures… dolphins swam by… an adolescent elephant seal yelled at us as it undulated its sleek and awkward-when-out-of-the-water body onto dry land.

Needless to say, the day was magical (or the evolution of the word magical according to Wyatt: natural.)

It’s been nearly week, and I’m STILL floating in this REMEMBERED-ness of things that bring me oh, so much joy, in this new truth, that I can say YES, to life (even though I’ve been saying yes for a long time now.)  This feels different, BIGGER, more magical… more natural.

The Before and After have been marked in my soul, a bright red line delineating the difference.  With this REMEMBERED-ness filling me up, I wonder what else I’ll be saying YES too…. LOTS of goodness… and a growing capacity to shift from accepting good and that that’s good enough, to expanding to ‘how good I’m willing to allow it to get.’

What’s something you’ve REMEMBERED about yourself lately?  I’d love to hear from you.

All my love and appreciation.

Blessings and Happy Day!

InJoy,

Shannon

PS If you find yourself wanting a bit of a pick me up, anything you listen to from Leah Campbell Badertscher at The Art School podcast will be just the magic elixir you need.