Joy. That's it.

IF you can manage to move from cynicism and critical darkness into wonder and abundance—if you can make choices that help you live lightly—your life, your partner's life, your dog's life, your neighbors' lives AND OF COURSE your children's lives will be better. If you can find joy in being a parent, then you can enjoy doing it and it will bring you joy.

People who resist or reject joy will be rejecting the best tool they could have used to unschool well, to have longterm relationships with others, and to age gracefully.

Joy.
That's it.

SandraDodd.com/joy2
photo by Cass Kotrba

Be sweet and soft

Once a mom came and said she was having a hard time being present with her children. She wrote:

I hate it, and feel like I'm missing out on so many sweet, little moments, but it is so hard for me to be fully present, almost like I can't control it.

I responded:

Well don't hate it. Hate's no good. And you can't "control it." It might be easier to see it as a series of choices, with lots of chances to zone out, and lots of opportunities to focus back in.

People zone in and out all the time. It's not a sin. Live lightly. That's good for your children, if you can come back as easily as you slipped momentarily away, and if you're not hardened with self-recrimination and hate.

SandraDodd.com/negativity

Be sweet and soft, for your children.

Now, 11 years later, I have a page called "positivity," though both pages are about making choices that take one incrementally toward the more positive.
SandraDodd.com/positivity
photo by Lydia Koltai

Living lightly and musically

from a chat on Musical Intelligence:

Howard Gardner sorted out the areas in which one individual might be GREAT, quick, but other people are slower, less interested. And he objects to "intelligence" being measured with just math and verbal ability.

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Encourage your kids to play with music in all kinds of ways. They're learning and growing. Help them turn the scary music off, if they're scared. Encourage them to appreciate other people's artistry.

Live lightly and musically. And if you have a kid who doesn't seem very musical, don't worry a bit.

Musical Intelligence (chat transcript)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Rules, and problems

Families with rules have a lot to fight about. Couples with a lot of rules have a lot to fight about.

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When I wrote that, I had been married for 24 years. As I post it here, I've been married for 39 years. Live lightly.

from a discussion 15 years ago
photo by Holly Dodd, in 2008, the year I wrote what's above

Light shows

Sometimes light does fancy tricks, outside, or inside, with refractions, reflections, shadows and shimmery sunbeams.

There are other lights that can catch your eye, though. Candles, lamps and lanterns, maybe. Your home might have electric fixtures you especially like.

Sometimes we think of the light in someone's eyes, or their lightness of being. Some people live lightly, with springy steps and easy smiles.

When you have light inside you, others can see it.

SandraDodd.com/light
photo by Cathy Koetsier

Live Lightly

Lighten up.

Live Lightly.

Real Learning
photo by Sandra Dodd

See also:
Light on light; Sources of light; and Sun, or Moon, or Fire

Sweet, light balance

Cameras can stop time. Memories can try. But really, the moment is gone and new moments are coming. Keep your balance, live lightly, be sweet.

SandraDodd.com/moments
photo by Parvine Shahid
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Following different kinds of trails

I took this photo in a history museum called Archeon, in The Netherlands. They have sections portraying different historical periods, with full-size buildings, and with guides in costume, making things, playing instruments, cooking, training birds, and many other things. There are gardens growing. There are chickens.

When I decided to use the photo, I googled "Roman hopscotch" to see whether there was documentation for that, and found this quote: (source)

Hopscotch began in ancient Britain during the early Roman Empire. The original hopscotch courts were over 100 feet long and used for military training exercises. ... Roman children drew their own smaller courts in imitation of the soldiers, added a scoring system and "Hopscotch" spread throughout Europe.

This is a kind of history about which more is known as time passes, rather than less. More may yet be discovered. Whether the diagram in the photo is historical or not, maybe people at the museum know. Either way is fine.

Learn history lightly, because new things will be learned, a new focus will come, and if you live long enough, it will change again. Collect ideas and information so that connections will continue to form, your whole life long.

Many images of hopscotch layouts, and many lead to more info
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Lighten your child's life

The more lightly you live, the lighter your children's lives will be.

Live lightly, in various ways
photo by Nina Haley

This, too...

"Live lightly, when possible. Bring cheer, when you can. Remember, this, too, will pass."

—Karen James (here)

Patience (with more by Karen James)
photo by Cass Kotrba

The day it was picked

Sometimes people get the chance to eat food that was just picked that day. Those doing the picking might get to taste things right in the garden!

Life allows us to eat food all year that wouldn't have been available without trucks, trains, and ships. There's an upside and a downside.

I live in such a dry place that without import and transport, I would never even have seen most of the foods I can buy. I'm grateful for both—fresh local, for those things New Mexico can produce, and for those foods that needed different climates and seasons.

Live lightly and sweetly around food.

Joy / Live Lightly
photo by Belinda Dutch, in Brighton, England

Images

Remember that things seem different different times to different people. My perspective when I'm stressed or sad will be colored by that. Things shift and change.

Live lightly.

Light and Lightness
photo by Belinda Dutch

At peace, at home

Today is different.

Well every day is different, but this week the world is trying to figure out how to pause and wait. This affects us all. Some people got quiet. Some ran around.


Two important jobs have fallen on parents. Distract children who might be afraid, or sick or restless. Needy children.


Find and share beauty and joy in familiar things—in things you can touch, hear, see, smell, taste, drink from, eat from, sit on, sleep on, tell stories about.

The links below go to previous posts that might help you be at peace, at home.

Live lightly with patience
Arts and sciences
History at your house

photos by Sandra Dodd

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(Note added in January 2022: The post above was written as the Covid-19 pandemic was being announced, in many places, and lockdowns were beginning.)

Live lightly with patience

1. Most dangers are temporary. 2. Even clear and lit-up things might cast a shadow. 3. Everything around you is exotic to someone else somewhere else. 4. Many beautiful things lack permanence.

SandraDodd.com/light
photo by Sabine Mellinger

Sun, or moon, or fire

Sometimes light is from an Aha!! lightbulb moment.
Sometimes light is more information, or seeing from a new angle, "in a new light."
Sometimes light is from the sun, or the moon, or a fire.
Sometimes light comes from just lightening up. (Not "lightning up," or "lighting up," so spelling will make a big difference, in those lights.)

Live lightly.



SandraDodd.com/angles
photo by Kes Morgan-Davies

Choose to live lightly

I think to move toward humor, live lightly and not so ponderously.

Problems can be seen as temporary setbacks instead of life-ruining horrors, if you remember to choose to live lightly.

Humor (chat transcript)
photo by Julie D
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Live lightly

Sometimes light comes from just lightening up. Live lightly.

SandraDodd.com/reallearning
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a young Holly, in a fleeting moment

Light and shadows

"Light" can refer to levity, in English, and also to illumination. So it can be sweetness, humor, and clarity all. One of the best places to live lightly is in the kitchen, with and around food.

Avoid shading or shadowing what works best when bathed in light and lightness.

SandraDodd.com/eating/peace
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Live lightly and musically

Encourage your kids to play with music in all kinds of ways. They're learning and growing. Help them turn the scary music off, if they're scared. Encourage them to appreciate other people's artistry.

Live lightly and musically. And if you have a kid who doesn't seem very musical, don't worry a bit.


quote from a chat transcript linked here: SandraDodd.com/music
photo by Ravi Bharadwaj, at a Rock Band game session years ago
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Stop time

Cameras can stop time. Memories can try. But really, the moment is gone and new moments are coming. Keep your balance, live lightly, be sweet.

SandraDodd.com/moments
photo by Parvine Shahid
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