A Handful of Candies

Today's guest holds a special place in my heart. I wrote to her recently that every time I read her blog, I know my heart has found another home place, another friend. I always think, "I wonder if she'll reserve one of her boys for Sloane?" Some people just have a gift for living. They use their time and their talents to enrich the lives of others. Our guest today is just such a woman. Please welcome Stefani of Blue Yonder fame. ~ Relyn

I've had this feeling before.

It is the same feeling I had a couple of winters back when I put on my coat for the first time that season and found a crisp $10 bill in my pocket. For about 3.5 seconds I was ecstatic. Yay! Found money! And then... "but what should I do with it?"

Save it?

Put it toward the unending pile of bills?

Share it? (The man that stands on the corner with his "Dreaming of Change" sign comes to mind.)

Splurge on a "just for me" treat? (coffee - yes I'll have the whipped cream on top please- and a glossy magazine? Flowers for the window sill?)

Splurge on a "just for all of us" treat (popcorn, M&Ms and a rented movie)?

I kept that $10 in my pocket for ages. Each time that I needed to warm my hands, I felt that bill and the surprise of it tasted like sugar - sweet, on my tongue but with it came the bitter, indecisive aftertaste all over again, every time.

So when you asked me, Relyn, to come and sit by your fire and share a passion. I felt at once honored and excited and then... Oh. Oh no.

Oh this means I have to make a choice! I have to choose just one passion to share here.

I've made lists. I've chosen and then re-chosen. I've piddled and pondered and ran around in my wishy washy little circle.

One passion.

Just one?

And then I took my boy to a baseball game. I bought him a bag of candies and watched, awestruck, as he handed them out to every kid in shouting distance. He never hesitated.

He never stopped to think about sharing because it wasn't just about the candy. He genuinely wanted everyone around him to share in his excitement... for the game, for being out late, for the big lights and the crisp uniforms and the crack of the bat. He wanted everyone to share in his joy, in his passion for that moment in time. He could do that, because for him, life and passion aren't like dollar bills at all. They aren't things that you spend and then they're gone... they are seeds that grow and bloom where you cast them.

As I watched him, I understood why it has been so hard for me to choose just one passion to share with you here...

See, I am very very blessed. I live in a world filled with stories, thick and fluid - stories to swim in, stories that make you forget to come up for air.

I get to reacquaint myself with the freshness of life all over again, everyday, through the eyes of my little boys.

I have two hands capable of making and baking and drawing and holding onto the people that I love.

I have two eyes with which to watch a spider spin her web, a child sleep, a feather fall to the ground.

I have dreams, and it shocks me every single morning to wake up and find that I'm living them out.

I have a lot of passions, but I think I'm seeing that what I'm MOST passionate about is noticing the everyday kinds of blessings that surround me, and then sharing them, like a handful of candies, with everyone I meet. Because we're all in this thing together, and really, each of those passions grow, a hundred times a hundred fold, when shared.

I want to stop doing the dishes long enough to notice spring's first green slant of light through my kitchen window. And when I see that, I want to ask myself, "How can I add light to someone else's day?"

I want to revel in the sweaty grubby little boy hand that has slipped into mine and wonder, "What small gesture will mean the world today to someone that I love?"

I want to remember the smell of simmering plum jelly in my grandmother's kitchen, her apron tied tight, and Johnny Cash on the radio. Then, I want to tie my own apron, fill my own kitchen with a ruby red scent and sing, "I hear the train a comin'" at the top of my lungs with my young men. I want to know that they will make plum jelly with my grand kids, too, because jelly is just jelly. But, when shared through generations, it is love, jarred and saved up, to warm you on another day.

On a chilly night, I want to pull my granny's quilt round me, the one she made when I was new. I want to sidle up to a warm fire to do a little stitching of my own, because my new nephew should have a quilt too. Quilts are love notes written with needle and thread.

If I hear a poem that moves me, I want to read it out loud to everyone, or no one at all, just because poems should be spoken into the world. It makes it a nicer place to live.

When I find that my dreams have grown wings, I want to use them to help another mama reach her own heights, too.

When I receive grace, I want to be quick to forgive.

I want to look at life like a little boy at a baseball game - eager to share my handful of passions with everyone around me.

So there it is, my passion is sharing my passion with the world, because it is a beautiful, scary, amazing, blinding, terribly, awfully, gloriously, fantastic world - made so much better when experienced with an open heart and an open hand. ~Stefani


All words and images by Stefani of Blue Yonder.