Chasing Butterflies with Sarah

Listen up folks - I've got an important announcement to make. I've been saying it to my children for years, and have even lectured students in my classes about it. It's time I sit you all down and have the talk with you as well. Get comfy, 'cuz there's some preachin' comin' your way.

If your life isn't poignant, you aren't paying attention.

That's it. Do you need me to repeat it? If.your.life.isn't.poignant.you.aren't.paying.attention. It's as simple as that. Go ahead - let it sink in for a minute.

I think it's important to start off with a good, solid understanding of what poignancy really is, and what it isn't. Most of the time this word evokes feelings of deep sadness or mourning for people. And, it can be that. But, it's so much more, too. Merriam-Webster dictionary describes the word poignant as piercing, deeply affecting, cutting, designed to make a lasting impression. There can be pain in the poignant, to be sure, but there can also be unfathomable joy, peace, revelation, desire, empathy, epiphany... the list goes on and on. The best moments of poignancy, if you ask me, are the ones that contain both ends of the spectrum - the comfortable and the uncomfortable - at the same time. Those highly acute moments - which stretch our emotional muscles to their fullest, until they are positively taut and buzzing - are the places where we truly experience what it feels like to live; where the most complex things in life are boiled down into one self-contained, momentary emotional high note.

Let me give you an example. The other day I took my girls to the zoo. We ambled through the ape house, traipsed by the tigers, and loitered in front the baby lions. We shared happiness, jokes, questions, gestures, and memories. These things were good, but they were not poignant. That didn't come until we sat ourselves down in the theater, giggled at each other in our goofy 3-D glasses, and watched as the a movie scrolled across the giant IMAX screen in front of us. Typically, I do not find that screen moments = poignant moments, which made it all the more painfully and startlingly wonderful when I looked over and saw my youngest child chasing the butterflies that appeared to leap off of the screen toward her.

She is allllllllllllllmost six years old. That means something. Anyone who has ever had kids, and watched them grow beyond that age, or anyone who honestly remembers what it was like to be a child of five years old, knows that five is significant. It is special in a way that no other age is. (Yes, yes... I know that can be said equally of every other age as well. But, that doesn't make it any less true.) Since she is our last, this is the last time I will be a mother to a five year old. In the fleeting days of this year of her life, in the shadowy darkness of that theater, I witnessed the special gift of five-years-old in the most poignant of ways possible. All of the innocence and incorruptible curiosity that is five was positively leaping from her dancing eyes and outstretched hands. Elation! Abandon! Freedom! Excitement! It was all there, on display, for what I knew would probably be one of the very last times ever for her as my child, and me as her mother. As I watched her, I couldn't help but feel an immensely proud pain in my heart. It was as though that bubble of joy that she exuded was being drawn up with the rushing winds of time. I could not experience her five-ness without the immediate and stinging realization of her imminent six-ness following behind to swallow it up. The moment was as delicate as the butterflies she was chasing, and every bit as fleeting, as well.

That was poignancy. It was dropped into my lap like a bittersweet gift. Thankfully, I've learned enough to savor such moments. When Sarah's joy had subsided, and she took her seat again, I looked around and noticed a handful of other beautiful, young children reaching toward the dancing images. A few parents took note, wearing knowing smiles like my own. Many shushed their excited kiddos, coaxing them to sit down once again and be quiet. Most, however - most! -  missed the experience entirely. That is why I am lecturing you. I don't want you to miss out.

It seems to me that so many people today, tired of their lives of quiet desperation, seek the calm, the smooth, the easy, the expected. Contentment is enough. Complacency. Sameness. Equanimity. I understand the urge to have these things. We should know them well, and live much of our lives in their comfortable embrace. However, a heartbeat requires peaks and valleys. Without them, we are flatlined. We are dead. It is the same for our emotional hearts. Relying on the safety of the known narrows our capacity to feel the highs and lows; to learn from what they have to teach us, to be filled with the knowledge and reality of their existence - even when painful.

I guess that's it. Lecture over. I truly hope you either really enjoyed it, or really didn't. Whichever it is, I win, since either reaction causes a bit of a blip to the heart rate on the ol' emotional EKG. Like any good teacher, I can't leave without giving you some homework. Below are several opportunities for you to work your poignancy muscle. I hope they help you hit some peaks and valleys, in order to get warmed up for the rest of your day, the rest of your week, and the rest of your life. Trust me on this - poignancy is out there - all around you - all the time. I truly believe that there is beauty, love, pain, grace, mercy, challenge, joy, etc, etc, etc. in every circumstance and every life. In short, the poignant is all around you. At least, the capacity for it is. Whether or not you allow yourself to find and experience it is often more about whether you are willing to look, than where, or even how hard.

Oh, and one more thing - there will be a test on this. It's called life, and I sincerely hope you do well on it. 

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