Goodness Weekly 7.08.2024
“Aging is not ‘lost youth’ but a new stage of opportunity and strength.”
– Betty Friedan
What’s Good
It’s MESSY ART week at Sprouts School Summer Camp. These kids are getting to enjoy a whole new level of dirty, messy play. Think of a pool full of shaving cream. Think exploding paint. Think of all the neural pathways that are built when a child engages in full bodied sensory play. What fun!
The Gift of Aging
Message from Mae Czarnecki, Communications Coordinator, Sunset Ridge Collective
This weekend I stumbled onto another birthday. Squarely in my mid-thirties now, youth and age are blurred.
Fifteen years ago today, I celebrated my brand new baby girl’s birthday. I turned twenty a few days before her overdue arrival, and had refused to eat my birthday cake until she was in my arms. Her labor was textbook, harder than anything I’d ever done, and completely perfect. Born at home, our bedroom was clean, but the air was still thick. As evening came and my appetite returned, I demanded the piece of birthday cake I’d been holding out for.
Removing the number “two” from the “twenty” that had previously sat there, I sang “Happy Birthday” to my teeny naked zero-year-old. She laid on her Boppy as we nested in my bed, squinting at my singing. As her dad removed the candle and passed me a slice, I tilted the paper plate perfectly towards us in a way that sent the freshly refrigerated piece of cake splatting on my warm infant.
She shrieked, having endured the most shocking moment of her hours-long life.
As she wailed, I then began to cry, declaring myself a full-fledged failure of a mother. Needless to say, I’ve pressured myself every year to make sure Lily has a wonderful cake on her birthday, despite her having no memory of this incident.
It is my second summer at Sunset Ridge Collective. I’ve seen the property across our street transform from asphalt to a park. I’ve helped clean out rooms all over the campus that have remained stagnant for years. I am welcoming the next generation of blooms from the buds turned to seeds from the plants of past seasons all over campus. I am reminding myself, and being reminded, that there are things that I can reliably expect and those that are beyond my control. As they come, expected or not, I always have the choice to experience them in a new way as I age.
This practice seems to be a tried and true way that some of the oldest people I know remain youthful. The remainder of this summer, what are some ways you can utilize your age to experience the newness of youth? What routines, anniversaries, commitments do you partake in every year that you can alter slightly to bring more peace, love, and joy? What beauty and celebration are waiting for you in these warm days ahead?
This Week
This Week
Tuesday, July 9th 9:30 AM Storytime on the Lawn
Saturday, July 13th Second Saturday
9:00 Yoga Flow with NYX Wellness
10:15 Storytime + crafts for families
10:30 Foundational Core and Post Partum Workshop
Coming Up…
Lunchtime Yoga Flow with NYX Wellness, Mon-Fri at 12pm, upstairs in Room 200 Sign up for your class here.
For weekly hours of One Another Coffee, Scott’s Pizza, and NYX Yoga, please feel free to check our calendar and follow us on Instagram for any updates.
Interested in more of what’s happening at Sunset Ridge Church? Please consider subscribing to Views from the Ridge.
Inhale:
May I lean into the wisdom of my age
Exhale:
to experience the newness of youth.
