A Textured Life

(Sometimes I have musings that aren't directly connected to the work I do with students...but in the grand scheme of things they help. This article falls into that category, and hopefully might spark something within you as well.)

I have a great friend of mine who is all about texture. Whether it's her clothes, her home, or the design of her workspace, she is drawn to the concept of texture. I'm often blind to subtle shades and layers, but I'll see her run her hand across something and murmur, 'œI like the texture.'쳌

So lately I've become a budding student of texture. Rather than immediately dismissing something offhand, I'll step back and examine it for the nuances that otherwise would escape me. And, as I sat quietly the other evening in front of a fire, I realized that in order to fully enjoy life, it should have texture as well.

We're all guilty of falling into routines and patterns that have been sanded down. We take as many shortcuts as we can, and we eliminate anything that sticks out in our lives at a weird angle. Weird angles create delays and detours.

And yet it's often the detours in life that bring us discoveries.

How many times have you reached a point during your drive to work where you can't for the life of you recall anything about the previous ten minutes? I sometimes wonder if I even drifted through a red light or stop sign along the way because I was so zoned out. Take a completely different route, however, and you're highly tuned-in to everything in your surroundings. What about your free time? Have you become a predictable zombie, creating a perfect butt-shaped indentation on your couch? Do you order the same meal every time at your favorite restaurant? Do you read the exact same genre and authors over and over?

Or what about the time spent with your kids? Are you slowly programming their little brains to live a life without extremes?

I believe I've come a long way in the past few years. I've opened myself up to activities and experiences that I never gave a chance back in the day. I have gone on trips on a complete last-minute whim. I listen to a variety of musical styles. I'm checking off a growing number of ethnic restaurants that were on my 'œnever ate there'쳌 list. My life has a more distinct texture.

But, like everyone else, I know I can do better. I don't want to look back on a slick, polished, marble-smooth life. I want my life to have a wonderful extreme of textures, with more rough edges, more distinct shades and layers, and more abrupt turns.

And, like my friend, I want to feel that texture at my core.

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