As towering things go …

With the coffee brewing and a day old baguette heating up in the oven, all seems to be set for the early morning … and oh yeah, it’s a snow day for the prodigal just home from a week in Paris.  Ah, the life!

The trip was momentous for her–likely life altering–having had the opportunity to see things from a different point of view and without her parents to render opinions and shape the experience as she traveled with a friend and his family.

It puts in mind that the big things in life often come in small moments that cumulatively equate themselves to momentous change. For her, at fourteen, it seems it was in experiencing the textures, sights and smells of the City of Lights along with the joy she had in discovering pain au chocolat. And yes, to state again, without her parents to filter things through–just herself going about defining each experience on her own terms.

Travel always has a way of transporting a person–but no less important are the transformative moments we push ourselves to even in the “ordinary” routine. Sometimes it is in taking the time to tarry, or in how one puts an extra something special into those parts of one’s day that are otherwise forgettable.

Creating alone time is another way. The gym comes to mind wherein whatever time one allots, one can experience something of the sacred about it. A daily run can certainly fit that bill–as can the rhythms of each round spent shadow boxing or perfecting a left hook.

Whether to time, to the number of rounds or to the body’s inner clock that seems to have a sense of beginnings and endings that are quite apart from how the mind (shall I offer up the “parent”) defines what can and cannot be done–that period can become an entire world quite apart from the rest of one’s day.

So if a trip to France isn’t in the offing, an hour or so among the plants, kneeding bread or banging away on the double-ended bag may be just the trick for adding a dose of transformation to an otherwise, cold and snowy morning.