Life is so startling 2

Thoughts from a Retirement Coach

By Mariella Vigneux, MBA, ACC
Certified Professional Coach

 “To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.”
~ American poet Emily Dickinson
 
This week, I experienced a number of events that could be described as unusual, startling, or even astonishing. I discovered half a rabbit on the welcome mat outside my front door.  I picked a zucchini that was almost as long as my arm.  I received a phone call informing me that my 29-year-old neighbour had died.  I replaced the drum belt on my dryer.  I was awakened from a hammock nap by a series of gunshot-like noises nearby.  Dressed like a fox, I pranced onstage to music from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite.  Over the phone, I discussed personal life issues with a complete stranger in Hong Kong.

If you were to stop and inspect your past week, I suspect you’d likely recall equally unexpected or wondrous events.  Startling things.  Astonishing happenings.  Our lives are punctuated by such occurrences.

Life is startling… if looked at from a certain perspective.

Matter-of-fact filters

Adults tend to view life through experience-honed matter-of-fact filters.  These filters help us make sense of our world.  For example, I didn’t see my week’s events as very unusual, certainly not startling.  It was a week like any other week and I found ways of making sense of all the events.

• It’s not the first time I’ve found animal remains laid on the front doormat. Our two cats are wicked hunters.
• We all know that zucchinis grow outrageously when we’re not looking.
• Much as I was proud of having fixed the dryer, I told myself that dryers are simple machines and anyone can follow the instructions of a YouTube do-it-yourself video.
• My neighbour was on a waiting list for a kidney transplant. A kidney match wasn’t found in time.  She died.  I had never met her.
• The hour that I chose to nap in the hammock evidently was the hour of the year when red squirrels harvest butternuts.
• My husband is directing Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham at the community theatre; I auditioned for The Fox role. Rehearsals happen each week.
• As part of ongoing professional development for my coach certification, I participate in teleconferences with coaches from around the world. Someone called in from Hong Kong.

Doesn’t that practical reasoning strip the events of all their wonder and glory?   By bringing logic and understanding to my events, I squelch the wonder I could feel.  I find ways of interpreting what happened so my world will immediately feel normal again.

A child’s world

A child doesn’t have our matter-of-fact filters.  Life is truly wondrous.  Startling.  When a child sees a bird flutter from a tree, her eyes open wide, her mouth forms an ‘O’ of astonishment, and she laughs with glee.  When fireworks go off, a toddler’s heart slams in his small ribcage, and a wail of terror erupts.  If a ball rolls in front of a youngster, she charges after it with abandon.

If a child had experienced the events of my week with me, we would have had a rabbit anatomy class on the front doormat.  We’d be making zucchini boats for the bathtub.  The dryer would have become a primo hidey-hole for a game of hide-and-seek.  Conversation would have been peppered with questions about kidney failure, death, and burial.  We would likely have climbed the butternut tree, gathered nuts, and planted them somewhere.  For sure we would have painted our faces to look like foxes.  And we would have found a map of the world and been amazed at how far we are from Hong Kong.

Choosing wide-eyed wonder

I’d like to experience more of the child’s world.  I’m not recommending rose-tinted glasses, but wouldn’t it be nice to be amazed, to marvel, to go through our days with wide-eyed wonder… before we explain it all away?

I’m not sure how long I can sustain it, but I’m going to choose a childlike approach for a while and see how it goes.  I’m going to set aside my practical, reasoning mind and, instead, notice events with wide-eyed wonder.  I’m going to try to recapture the life-is-startling, my-God-that-zucchini-is-long, wow-there-is-half-a-rabbit-on-my-welcome-mat feeling.