A Scrapbook of Surprises
I stopped into a stationery store that I hadn't visited for several
years last week and noticed that it had doubled in size and the new
section was devoted entirely to scrapbooking supplies. Timberly was
right when she said on the New Morning show about
Milestones that scrapbooking is huge these days.
There were aisles of special papers, racks and racks of stickers, a
wide assortment of colored pens and markers, and a variety of tapes and
glues. It was a bit overwhelming for someone like me who is not into
crafts. But, I told myself, I used to do a lot of page layouts and
pasteups of our newsletters, in the days before you could do all that
on your computer, and I did that well ... maybe I should take up
scrapbooking. It didn't look so hard, when
Sandi Genovese demonstrated how to make a 12-page birthday scrapbook.
Not this month, though. Maybe this summer when we clean our storeroom.
I know of several boxes in there that are marked "memorabilia." That
means they are full of things that could go into a scrapbook or a time
capsule (explained on the show as a box with three-dimensional things
you couldn't put in a book). Some of this memorabilia I haven't looked
at in decades. (Maybe I should just throw it out instead of taking all
the time to put it in a scrapbook.)
I like to keep stuff that reminds me of happy times. Just
looking at a party favor or a stone I found on a favorite beach, I seem
to re-experience a time and place. But after looking at
The Scrapbooking Journey: A Hands-On Guide to Spiritual Discovery
by Cory Richardson-Lauve, I realized that a project could be more than
just remembering or recreating a past experience. It could be a
mindfulness practice.
I could make a scrapbook of things that "caught my
eye"—unusual shapes, a striking color combination, a face, from
pictures I have taken or images I've found on the Internet. (Google
Images is great for this—just be careful not to violate a
photographer's copyright.)
Or I could create a scrapbook of my hopes and dreams. Or my fears and fantasies. The possibilities are endless.
>From the story about
Sylvia Boorstein's
70th birthday party, I got another idea. She talked about her early
life and how when she was a young woman, she would never have imagined
that she would at 70 be teaching meditation in the way of the Buddha.
Every moment is precious, she reminded us, and everything in life is a
surprise.
Speaking like a Buddhist, she called me to the present moment,
"Oh, look's what's happening!" That would make a great title for a
scrapbook. Take one day, any day, and look what's happening: all
surprises.