Wednesday, November 21, 2012

film & how to be





 [film]

Car rides aren’t my fondest memories…I used to dread the thought of road trips. On the six-hour trip to Hilton Head or 12 hour trip to Ohio, I would sit in the backseat where you couldn’t see anything but the seat in front of you. I’d attempt to read but get carsick instead, fall asleep in the most terrible, upright positions and wake up with a pinched nerve in my neck. The music would play at a volume I could barely hear all the way in the backseat and the AC was usually cranked on high, all while breathing that awful car smell.
But that was then.
I’m not 15 anymore—the days of my mixing up the gas and the break pedals are passed and the times where I was so nervous that it took three tries to get my license are gone (although whether or not the anxiety still lingers for almost everything OTHER than driving is up for debate). The thought of the windows down, sunroof engaged, wind blowing through my hair and my ever-changing favorite music blasting on my sub-par sound system (maybe even paired with a 99 cent McDonalds sweet tea in the cup holder? You can uproot me, but I’ll be a southern girl ‘til death do us part)….that thought is perfection. I want to drive as fast as the trusty Accord will take me, feel the danger and go nowhere in particular. I want to look at the scenery from the driver’s seat and and live freely and insouciantly. And I think that starts with a karma cleanse…doing things for YOU. Getting things by honest, hard work instead of by taking the easy way out. Check your motives and reevaluate yourself. Go on a drive.
I’ve stumbled upon many-a-good reminder and plenty of words to live by in my life, but recently I found this and it really resinated with me:

“How to be a better (happier & healthier) human being:
Never touch anything with half of your heart, be present, endlessly loving and compassionate towards others, confront any challenging situation with a deep breath, wander, remember your own happiness and comfort comes above all things, before reacting—understand, eat breakfast every morning, find the faces in the flowers, remember what is important to you, treat your body kindly, be honest, get to know yourself, take things at your own pace, don’t feel embarrassed to feel, laugh, cry, sing or love, remember what’s right for someone else may not be what is right for you (and that’s okay), never be ashamed or afraid to ask for help, do what you love, remember that you always have a choice, find joy in what life really is—living.”

And that inspired me to scribble out a mini-list of the seemingly small and insignificant things I love. Of course I love my family to the moon and back. I adore my friends and I’m in love with the city I call home. These things are my life, but what about the small details?
I love strawberries and how versatile they are. You can make cupcakes, muffins, a short cake, eat them chocolate-covered or by themselves. They’re so sweet alone but can be embellished a thousand ways or even sour on a bad day. Kind of like a human. Rather relatable, really. I love the fear of taking that very first sip of a hot beverage. I love opening my mailbox and seeing post, packages with ribbon and sending things off in the mail. I love that airplanes are a giant row of chairs flying through the air, and that cars are essentially a few chairs sitting together rolling down the interstate. I love strange posters, psychedelic artwork, black-and-white film and the endless possibilities of a lone sheet of paper paired with a freshly sharpened pencil. I love magazines and all of the peoples’ jaw lines in glossy photos. I love the words printed on those pages and the fact that humans are such advanced animals that we can look at the characters on that surface and recognize them as something more than what they are. I love when it's cold outside and you can still feel the sun shine warmly on your face. I love the sweetness of babies that don’t know anything but the goofy faces everyone gives them just to see them smile, and I love the innocence that every one has or once had in this world. I love the blood-red tree outside my window and the fact that the scarf hanging on my door was once nothing but yarn, nothing but a cotton plant, nothing but a seed covered in dirt. I love unexpected kisses, poetry, people who hug, maps, traveling, exploration and adventure. I love random acts of kindness and the stranger who spotted me a dollar for coffee when my card declined at the register my freshman year. I love genuine people, sweet tea, kittens and serendipity.
Most of all, I love that I’ve come to realize that the little things in life are actually the big things.
xo

No comments:

Post a Comment