"No, we can do it ourselves. Why would we need a guide? Let's just hike in and get to the beach."
So I said to The Wonderful Husband and Equally Wonderful Daughter in Costa Rica, the night before our jungle hike through Manuel Antonio National Park to a deserted beach.
Fortunately for me - and them - I got overruled.
The next morning Miguel, our guide, led us through the jungle. It certainly helped my overruled self that he was so cute. When I whispered this to Elise, I got an exasperated hissed "MOM!" and an eyeroll ... ICK: how can mothers even THINK about cute guys?
Wow. Was I in for one of the great and wonderful surprises of my life. (No, Miguel didn't take me in his buff arms and passionately kiss me. Even better than that.)
Miguel walked verrrrry slowly. And looked. And listened.
Every pore in his body and soul was open and receptive. He was breathing the jungle, or the jungle was breathing him.
He stopped and said quietly with a smile, Look. And there was an iridescent gold grasshopper on a leaf within touching distance.
He stopped again and said, look. And there was a sloth, smiling steamy blessings down upon us.
Again and again, Miguel stopped and showed us wonders right in plain sight: bats, frogs, monkeys, iguanas, and a kingfisher eating a newly caught fish.
All right there in front of my hurried, unseeing eyes.
Such a different way of moving along a trail, of moving through life. Ahhh, I thought, this is what's meant by the pace of grace, something I've been hungering for.
Ladies, the money for hiring Miguel was some of the best I ever spent (and not just for the pleasure of such a cute guy's company for three hours). What a teacher he was for me.
See, I was all ready to thrash through that jungle to get to the beach. And had we done that, I would have missed the languid grace of Miguel's pace and what he had to show us.
Since being back, I've been thinking a lot about that jungle hike. And the pace of grace.
I realize how infrequently I move like Miguel, at the just right pace for what's to be experienced and done, pores open to the graces right in front of me.
I spend so much of my time either in zooming overdrive, or deer-in-the-headlights freeze. Neither is, shall we say, very helpful, either to me or those around me.
So, with Miguel as my shining example, I've decided to welcome as my New Year's intention (heads up, ladies: intention, not resolution: see my next newsletter for the difference. And vive la difference!):
To move through 2009 at the pace of grace. Actually, to learn to move through my one wild and precious life at the pace of grace.
More in the next newsletter.
Any of your wonderful women care to join me in the adventure?
...And here, as my New Year's gift to you wonderful crazy women, care of an old Apple computer ad:
Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They're not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent. They imagine.
They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world,
are the ones who do.
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