(day 7): an unexpected benefit of day-trips

Good Friday being a day off for both KrA and D, we headed down to Rochester, NY, to visit The Strong National Museum of Play.

It is a museum unlike any other I've been to. It pays homage to the evolution of play and toys over the centuries, and is full of interactive and play-inspiring exhibits. I don't think we even managed to cover half of it in the time that we were there!

We've only just gotten back home after an entire day out, so I am quite knackered, which means this will be a very short post.

But as I just powered up my laptop for the first time all day and checked email, then looked at my phone and checked Whatsapp, it occurred to me that many of the messages I tend to deem as important, or even urgent, in the course of a regular day, had become completely irrelevant whatsoever.

A message or an email that might have otherwise taken up mental space for the good part of a day now feels utterly and thoroughly dispensable.

Nothing is indispensable, even if we may have convinced ourselves otherwise.

What we need to get through this life is very little indeed. People who love and cherish us. And a willingness on our part to lean into the present moment as it unfolds for us, embracing this trajectory of life as one especially carved for us and us alone.

I wanted to write about this yesterday, and now I know I will leave this for a longer post tomorrow, but I once heard the Indian mystic, Sadhguru, say in one of his videos that everything in life is a bonus.

That we have received this life itself is a sacred blessing like none other. Everything else that comes into it, every one of our experiences, is a big bonus.

He talks of an incident in which a man approached Sadhguru and sought his blessings.

"Sadhguru," the man said, "please bless me so that I'll remain well and safe and protected, that nothing (untoward) will happen in my life."

To which Sadhguru replied, "What kind of a blessing would that be? I bless you so that everything will happen in your life."

Because, Sadhguru went on to explain, this is what we are here on earth for in this mortal form: to experience life. All its highs and lows, its ups and downs, its joys and sorrows.

Ever since I heard these words, they let loose something wild and untethered in my heart.

Something runs free now within me, knowing that every experience in this life is a bonus, whether it's a loss or a gain, a delay or a gift, a death or a birth, every additional moment I am alive is a cherished gift.

And the way I can show my appreciation is by leaning into it and savouring it, whatever it brings.