'Tis a Gift to Be Simple

Every week my family attends a class about an hour and a half away. The past few weeks I have been taking a laptop to work on assignments during the drive. I didn't have anything due this time, just a book to finish for class next week. I read that on the way to class while it was still daylight, but it was dark when we left so I was not able to read the last six pages. I'll finish it when I'm done here :-). I was going to pull out the laptop so I could do some pleasure writing (like, my blog!), but my mom suggested that since we were in a more rural area I look at the stars until we got back to the city area and couldn't see them anymore. I agreed with her and did some stargazing from our van.

It is amazing how beautiful little white dots on a dark background are. I have always loved the stars, but don't normally get to see them for all the light pollution where I live. At girls' camp I have never missed a stargazing night, even though you only have to go during your fourth year. The first time I went the person teaching did such an awesome job, and knew so much, that I was hooked. While in the car I didn't recognize any constellations besides Orion, (I really only know summer constellations from camp) it was still amazing to see how many stars I could see just outside my window. My younger sister was looking too and said that she saw a bunny in the stars, after she said that I happened to see a cluster that resembled a carrot.

Looking at the stars reminded me of one of my family's favorite scenes from a movie:

" Pumbaa: Timon?
Timon:     Yeah?
Pumbaa: Ever wonder what those sparkly dots are up there?
Timon:     Pumbaa. I don't wonder; I know.
Pumbaa: Oh. What are they?
Timon:     They're fireflies. Fireflies that uh... got stuck up on that big... bluish-black... thing.
Pumbaa: Oh. Gee. I always thought that they were balls of gas burning billions of miles away.
Timon:     Pumbaa, wit' you, everything's gas."1 

It's amazing to think about how little things, like stargazing, will bring up memories. Just sitting there, enjoying the stars and the dark, hilly scenery left me with lots of time to think. My mom had just put in our Sting album (the British singer), and the song "When We Dance" started playing. Because we hadn't played that CD since our vacation to California a few months ago, my mind went back to the last specific time I remember hearing it, which was when we were either at, or headed to the beach for the first time for my siblings and I. I think that I am going to correlate that song with the beach for a long time. The funny thing is, if you had asked me what we were listening to when we went there, I probably couldn't have told you, but music tends to stir up memories and emotions that may have been sitting stagnant for a while.

After I finished reminiscing in my flashback, I got thinking about the stars again. I got thinking about how awesome it will be when I can make stars, constellations, and worlds. In my religion (the LDS or 'Mormon' religion) we believe that (in a nutshell) if we live the way we should, repent, get married in the temple and keep our marital covenants, and endure to the end, we will be able to become like God, live with Him again, and become gods and goddesses with the ability to create worlds. I think that is really cool, and I want to live my life in a way that I will be able to do that. One of my favorite scriptures is Psalms 82:6 which relates to that thought. I don't consider myself an extremely creative person, but I still like to create things.

I decided that I liked the feeling of riding in the car on a rural highway in the dark, it reminded me of childhood trips to my grandparent's house, which took three hours and was often in the dark. I began to ponder how amazing it is that we used to take trips like that a lot, and didn't have much to do, but were fine with the long drive (as long as we had a pit stop or two). Now I, and some of my family, had a hard time with this weekly drive we take. My brother kept bothering my mom to give him the iPad because he didn't have anything to do. I wanted to do stuff on the computer. I decided then that I would not pull out the laptop, and would contently look out the window.

Sometimes it is a good thing to be able to be amused or awed by the simple things in life, like the stars, a favorite quote from a movie, or recalling memories from small things. I think today we get so caught up in all this technology that we don't stop to think about the little things in life. We don't stop to smell the roses, we don't take the time to just find a book and read, we don't write a letter to a friend, we don't stop and dance when our favorite song is playing on the radio, we don't stop to take the time to write down our thoughts (I find myself kicking myself over this one a lot). There are so many small and simple ways that we could be taking a break and enjoying life, but we never stop in this ever moving world to take advantage of all the couple minute, or even second things that have the ability to refresh us.

I hope we all can find the time to take advantage of the simple things that make life pleasant. What are some of the simple things that make your life more enjoyable? Leave me a comment!