Sunday, December 12, 2010


Reverb10: December 4: Wonder
Following a link from Gretchen Rubin at the Happiness Project, I found the Reverb10 site, which encourages us to spend each day of December looking back at 2010 and thinking about what we want in our lives in 2011, through daily prompts. Since I started nine days late, I'm not going to write about all of them, but I think I'll write now about one that sings to me.
December 4: Wonder. How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year?

Wonder? That's an easy one.  Everything is so wonderful it's hard to pinpoint one wondrous thing. But I do know that wonder is something that circulates in my blood, that eases in and out of my lungs with every breath, and that causes my muscles and neurons to fire. Wonder? Let's see. Everything that my senses detect is full of wonder. The light, the color, the sounds. Today, for instance, the storm of the last few days had passed, and the weather was actually warm, the air wet but not spilling over. Fat clouds passed over and spit a few drops here and there, and the sun came in and out of play, toying with us - sunglasses? Yes. No. Maybe. The pepper trees on my walk to lunch were orange and yellow and bright red. I couldn't get over how fiery they were. They were like torches standing against the soft grey skies. Yellow leaves against the wet sidewalk made me stop and stare. The colors! Where was Andy Goldsworthy when you needed him?

In 2010 I used nothing but my presence to cultivate a sense of wonder. Sometimes, it was all I could do not to take photos of every moment. Here are some:

Bliss - sculpture at Burning Man

The Black Rock desert

More Black Rock Desert. Every moment magic.

The beach at Cancun

Cancun, the night of an awesome lightning storm
Sugar Pine Reservoir, Tahoe National Forest

The Ninth Ward, New Orleans

Audubon Park, New Orleans

Dillon Beach, CA over Thanksgiving

Dillon Beach

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