Everyday Learning

Low impact weekends are wonderful when kicking back and relaxation is the order of the day.  One of those weekends sauntered into my life the weekend most recently past.  I forgot how calming a trip to an art museum could be.  Seeing renderings and interpretations of life sometimes in subtle depictions and other times in stark and garish presentations remind me that life comes in many shades, colors, hues, sights and sounds.

I enjoy learning how to expand the horizon of understanding.  People express, sometimes overexpressing to either satisfy a craving, a need or a [fill in the blank].  This column is not a justification of anyone’s acts or actions. Far be it for me to reach into that netherworld of the unexplainable.  Besides, when you delve into such topics the reaction may be less than savory.  People do things for reasons, the logic of which may escape.

Decide whether it is necessary for you to expend energy to understand.  If so, by all means pursue what aches to be answered.  Be prepared for responses that won’t fit into your neat little orderly world.

“Do you think our world is orderly Nikki?”

Maybe not.  Order, like beauty and other things, rests in optic interpretation.  I don’t expect everything to fit neatly; no compartments prelabeled or prenumbered.  Lest you misinterpret my message, flexibility is important but is not always required.  You view, absorb and process.  You may file the information.  The revelation may broaden the horizon or it may create a delimiter.  In some instances it may cause an adverse reaction akin to ‘I didn’t know that was going on in our community’ or ‘I didn’t expect that type of reaction from the millennial generation’.

I’m pretty open-minded.  Yes that’s stating the obvious but my mind can only absorb so much; there are limits.  When capacity is achieved I don’t attempt to process.  This weekend pushed my solid-state hard drive beyond storage capacity.  A few times I erected the deflector shield and reflected back to the originator a look of disdain or destructive humor.  Maybe you’ve experienced the stares and snide comments.  Yes I know I’m supposed to ignore.  Something inside, my protective streak, makes me want to push back then I remind myself that those residing in narrow-minded land are not the ones who matter.  By engaging I give them relevance.

You who are stronger and don’t pay any mind to these instances are helping me to turn off those sensitivities.  That was one of the takeaways for me as I watched my two friends living with nary a concern for those on the fringes of consciousness.

Every encounter, every experience, every moment with good friends teaches me something valuable.

I wish you a day of wonder and revelation.

Love and hugs, Nikki Di Caro