Regret

I read tales of missing children

I read tales of children missing

I read tales of relationships breaking

I read tales of breaking relationships

I read tales of parents lost

I read tales of lost parents

I read tales of forgotten dreams

I read tales of forgettable "dreams"

All the world is a muddle. Its like we are walking but with our eyes closed, only aware of our own selves. Let's wake up. Let's hold our children, our loved ones so close tonight that if tomorrow we are apart, there maybe pain but no regret.

Family

Saw a great cooking show on Netflix today. So what was so special about it? It was a cooking show where ordinary families cook and compete to win a prize. The dynamics of the families was just fabulous! There was a particularly interesting character of an 86 year old Swedish matriarch of a family who had been married four times and now had a boy friend who was 12 years her junior! Her grand son and daughter just doted on her and accepted that her eccentricities were what made her, her. The other character was a young woman who had come to the show with her mother and husband. She seemed like any ordinary young British lady, but as the competition heated up, not only did her culinary skills blossom but  the camera also brought out her vulnerability and her emotional investment in the show. She and her husband had become interested in cooking through their travels and that had brought them even closer. But clearly for her the competition was a big deal.

The show did a great job of showing how cooking together, or doing anything together as a family is so important. You learn to support, to appreciate, and above all to forgive if a mistake is made- because at the end of it all the family circle and the home should be a place where there is no need to always be perfect. You should be able to be just you and enjoy the love.

Potential

What do we see when we see our children? We see potential, and that is a beautiful thing. Potential is a song that can be sung, a dance that can be danced, a flight that can be soared and a whole epic that can be written.  The life of a child holds the ability to realize so many dreams and the whole world is just waiting for them to come and explore it.

Yesterday I sat there watching Kabir playing the guitar and in my mind I already had him standing on a brightly lit stage, surrounded by thousands of excited fans, who hung on to every note he played. Now, I know that is just a flight of fantasy and he may never become "The Edge" or a Bruce Springsteen or even anything close, but it is my hope that he will pursue something in his life to an extent that he truly masters it and gets recognition as someone who made a difference to the craft. His young mind holds so much potential that it leaves me breathless.

But that also made me wonder- why is it that we only think of children when we think of potential? Why is it that as soon as adulthood settles in, all talk turns to "there was time when I really wanted to...."? Isn't is paradoxical that  we give up so easily on our dreams at a time in our lives when we have far more control of our destinies than we did as children? So what if we do not become maestros or world famous writers, but surely we can enjoy the process. We must first dare to explore our own potential before we ask our children to take the plunge. 

Halloween

It is a BIG deal in our house! And I mean it. Kabir loves every part of it- the decorations, the costume and of course the trick or treating. But this year it also turned out to be something else- a quick pulse check for what is happening around us. While out with Kabir and his friends I noticed that fewer girls were dressed as fairies or princesses than I have seen in the past. Wow- how awesome is that! Not that there is anything wrong with a girl wanting to be a princess who rules her roost or a fairy who has super human powers- but this subtle change just indicated that girls were realizing they could be so much more than that and it would still be okay. Maybe the world is finally waking up to the fact that keeping girls, and by extension women, in pre-cast limited roles just does our race a dis-service. Set them free and you will see that they can be a fairy, a princess, and super girl all rolled into one, and that one can be so much more than the sum of individual parts. Happy Halloween!