They say some books stay with you forever. In my case, almost every book I have read has stayed with me a while. I could make a list, but that would be insufferable. Not long ago, I read the book ‘The power of Moments’ which talks about how “we all have defining moments in our life – meaningful experiences that stand out in our memory”. Most of the times, these moments are accidental. But the authors question us “why leave our most meaningful, memorable moments to chance when we can create them”. I looked back at my life, and after recollecting almost all of the important moments chronologically, I decided they were not enough. From that moment on I have been silently obsessed with creating moments for my children. I wanted to create these little and big moments of fun and crazy experiences which they will look back with fondness.
Ever since then I have been chasing excitement. Sometimes it was as simple as eating out, which is quite rare for us. The kids were bursting with excitement to sit in their own chairs opposite me at the table in the restaurants, and would giggle away at silly things and at the menu cards as they chose what they would eat. It would take hours to decide on what to order and when the food did arrive, they would be fighting over each other on who gets the bigger portion. It didn’t matter that they never actually ate any of it, and it all ended up in my stomach.
Other times it had been going over for a chat with a friend after dinner, but instead staying over till the early hours of the next day. The kids would have played every available game in that house, and seen multiply movies and in the end, they all would have fallen asleep among each other, arm and legs in a tangled mess among the sheets. Finally we had to identify and separate each of our children and carry them home to complete their sleep in their respective beds. In the morning, the children are so surprised about how they reach back!
Another time we packed a picnic lunch, took a few toys, gathered a few friends and went in search of the elusive riverside picnic spot, something I remembered from years ago. We didn’t know the road to take neither did we know the name of the place. We just knew the direction, and so we drove hoping to find that memory lodged in my brain. Instead we found an amazing river bank, where the mountain stream turned a corner. And we had one of the best ever day out! There was sand, there were rocks, there was the soft bubbling of the rivers, there were kids squealing and jumping around, there was so much fun.
There have been other events of making giant bubbles, candles, festivals celebrated with grandeur, camping with the tent inside the house during the rains, spending hours on the hammock in the garden, and many other such attempts to create memories.
There hasn’t been much going out since the covid restrictions and also because of the summer. But the seasons have been changing, and I could feel the onset of autumn with the slight chill in the air. So today I got this crazy idea to have a picnic. It is crazy because we cannot go out far due to travel restrictions. But I really wanted to create some excitement. It has been too long, and I have to keep the spirit of making moments alive. So what if all I could do right now, was to eat somewhere outside, and far from home. That is how I defined a picnic to my kids. And they were hooked. Within half an hour, we had packed a lunch, and armed with our lovely bright picnic mat, we set out in the car looking for a place to have lunch outside. I overestimated the chill in the air; it was positively hot out there. After looked at every place in the area where we are allowed to venture out, we couldn’t find a single, private, clean and shaded place where we could have our picnic. My little one was getting fidgety. She was wondering about was this picnic for which we seem to be searching forever. She tried to console me, “it’s ok mama, let’s go home”. But my elder one was determined not to eat inside the house, neither in the garden. “You said, a picnic is eating out and away from home”, she reminded me. So we continued on our search. I was a little disappointed in not finding a good place, when I remembered something. There is always a way. So I drove back to the children’s park near our house. And lo, behold, I found the perfect picnic spot - shaded by the trees, with a gentle breeze blowing, and with a carpet of thick green grass. We needed no further encouragement. We set up our picnic mat and placed our hamper down, and instantly we felt as if we were far away from everything around. I know all we did was to find a place to eat outside. But all the excitement was there in the planning, and searching for the place. Target achieved for today. For the rest, there is tomorrow.
Note: the pronoun keeps changing from 'I' to 'we' whenever my husband has been there with us for these adventures, which has been rare in the last several months. I really wish that all our further adventures will have a 'we' instead of 'I'.
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