This morning I was busily running from one creative task or chore for the majority of the morning.
It came time to check my laundry, which like many older California houses, is in my detached garage. I opened my back door and heard applause and bells and wondered “What have I done? Does merely opening the door bring a celebration of my presence?”
Yes, I know. This is a rather ridiculous train of thought. There were no people in my yard. There was no audience ready to shower me with praise for doing my laundry.
It was the autumn leaves falling from the linden tree. They fluttered in the air and did a sort of body slam against one another and this created a sound like applause. I listened more deeply. The dryer was humming, the clothes were on spin cycle and a mockingbird called out as if to say, “Don’t worry, the same thing happens to me all the time.”
I laughed aloud and shut my door, facing several of my stacked up indoor duties.
I thought to myself, “This is how to come to know what a passionate life feels like. When I am able to be doing chores and come along to hear applause and stop, just long enough, to listen, to smile, to converse with the mockingbird. This is one of the ways a passionate life consistently shows up: embracing the unexpected, noticing the tiny details our senses pick up can provide us with endless entertainment if we are simply awake and alert enough to notice it.
Simply because you are busy doesn’t mean you have to run around with your mind racing and your pulse quickening and your voice mumbling off your to-do list litany of what you have not yet done.
Make the mundane your playground.
Perhaps you will the next one receiving thunderous applause and hearing raucous bells just because you opened a door and entered a room.
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Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Her word-love themed art will be for sale at First Friday each month in Downtown Bakersfield. Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.
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