The Myth of Ordinary

"There are no ordinary moments in life," I said. As soon as the words left my mouth, they stunned me.

Let's back up thirty seconds.

It was a Monday night dinner at the home of close friends. I took another forkful of scalloped potatoes. "This is fabulous," I said.

"Ha," said my host. "It's just an ordinary dinner."
 
That's when I said it.

And realized it was true: each moment of our lives is unmatched, unique, beautiful.

"Ordinary," then, is often a word we use to show we don't recognize the present moment.

In my life, I seek to honor the ordinary. I've written a lot about ordinary things. I am a disciple of ordinary things, teaching myself to acknowledge the wonder of what surrounds me in this life. And when I say, "ordinary," I really mean, "absolutely-incredible-but-secretly-hidden-in-the-everyday."

Photographer and teacher Kim Manley Ort says, "Really, things only become ordinary or mundane when they become familiar and we stop paying attention." Beautifully said.

This ties into "From Boredom to Bonfire," Chapter 36 of Burn Wild. I offer 36 so-called ordinary things such as brown bananas and napkins, and invite you to see them and write about them with new eyes.

Or, as Kim Manley Ort says, "How can you reframe what you see?"