Day 33: Breathe, Seek, Play...Changes

 Day 33:  Breathe, Seek, Play....Change.  “No connection, you would agree. But things can come together in strange ways. The wood was at the center, the hub of the wheel. All wheels must have a hub. A ferris wheel has one, as the sun is the hub of the wheeling calendar. Fixed points they are, and best left undisturbed, for without them, nothing holds together. But sometimes people find this out too late.” 
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting  

We started our new book tonight, Tuck Everlasting.  The boys were drawn into the story as soon as I read the prologue.  It is a simple tale with deep meanings, and at the center is a wheel, the hub that continues the cycle.  A chance to live forever, a bubbling spring that held more than just water, what if nothing ever changed? In the end you are left with a fundamental choice.  

I thought a lot about this story today.  Watching them throw the baseball to each other and breaking in their baseball gloves.  Listening to the instructions of how to catch a pop fly or a grounder...and then watched as they mimicked what they were taught when they thought no one was watching.  I giggled as they complimented each other, rolled my eyes when they fussed that the ball was not being thrown to where they could catch it, and worried when they threw the ball a little too hard (in fear someone was going to get hurt).  Then they built a playmobil set and had a  Calvary battle with Billy the Kid and his gang of outlaws.  Their imaginations ran wild as they played, creating a story and acting it out.  After dinner we went for a sunset bike ride and I watched them peddle down the street as we walked the dog behind them. The hubs of their wheels were turning....Elliott waving to all the houses and every car that passed...I thought back to the first time they rode their bikes, first with training wheels, then without, and the first time they wrecked.   We teach our children and they go off and try it one their own, sometimes they change what we taught them and adapt it to fit their style.  Sometimes they don't listen, and change results from trial and error.  But no matter what as I watched them ride off on their bikes into the sunset, things were changing, even though some things have stayed the same. 

 I am so blessed to watch the many changes that they boys are going through and experiencing.  I often joke that I wish that I could find a pause button and keep them little forever, they are growing up so fast.   But like in this story, we'd learn that change is necessary.  All stories, like life have a beginning, middle and an end.  Sometimes changes are good, and sometimes as much as you wish each spoke would stay the same,  it moves forward and hub at the center sees it all and holds it all together.  The story is much like life....full of discovery and how it all unfolds.  The choices we make and the changes that result.  There are people you may know that you feel so connected with and that you feel hold it altogether, or help you hold it together...Your hub may be your faith and your spokes made up of family, friends, work, hobbies, places....they are all part of a whole.  When one spoke breaks, the other spokes undergo a change as a result...because the hub of life will keep going.  So instead of me wanting to find the "pause" button when life is content, the moment is perfect, and I just want to hold onto it for as long as I can....I am changing my perspective to find the "play" button instead.   Getting into the game and rolling with the changes....On my life's remote, I will play the moments, pause the memories, stop the pain and rewind the happiness and look forward to the changes it brings.