We’ve been in hurricane prep mode here for about 5 days, though it appears that we are mostly in the clear. School was canceled for three days and the surf has been good, or at least promising. All of this goes to say that my kids are home and my husband is not.

The weather has been amazing. We’ve had a cool front which I think has kept the hurricane away. It’s been highs in the lower 80’s, windy, cool and overcast. We’ve been playing outside for hours everyday.

I ran over to the park during nap time a couple of days ago. I found a bench in the shade, under some big oak trees and stared at the harbor. I felt so calm and relaxed and inspired. The wind felt freeing. The cool air felt light. I started thinking about the gift of feeling free and maybe a little bit wild. I LOVE this feeling.

It makes me want to write and sing and throw my arms in the air and love on my babies. (For the record, my singing voice is terrifying. Luke has learned to just turns the music up when I start singing.) It feels powerfully good.

I thought about the times in my life when I have felt the most wild and free. I thought about running around barefoot through the grass at our home in the country as a girl. The space felt big and my mom has a serious green thumb. We always had a beautiful yard. I thought about the night time boat rides we used to take at the lake. My parents would put on the Eagles, Common Thread album and we’d slow cruise. I’d prop my head up on the front of the boat and revel in the feeling of the wind on my face. I’d fall asleep on the cool leather-like seats, covered with a beach towel. Or the couple of times that my parents took us to see live music. I’m not talking about a giant concert experience with 10,000 other people but an intimate setting where you can see the faces of the musicians. Where the crowds are small and you can imagine that the music is being played for you. Wild and Free.

I realized that I was able to feel this way because I was SAFE and LOVED first.

Luke and I went to the Pourhouse to see a James Brown Cover band a few weeks ago. I still love live music but admittedly have a harder time getting lost in it now. As we watched the guitar solo, I thought of Fleet whose been taking lessons for a little over a year. I would say that about 99% of guitar players have a pretty wicked “guitar face.” You know the one, where their eyes are closed and their noses and mouth’s are scrunched up. I turned to Luke and said, “I wonder if Fleet will have guitar face?” and then a couple of seconds later, “I hope so because that would probably mean that he is getting lost in the music.”

We spend a lot of time on deadlines and obligation, on bills and meals, on “have tos” and “should haves.” But wild and free isn’t about any of this. It’s about creativity and inspiration, meditation and relaxation, love and breath.

I sat there on that bench in the park the other day and thought about how to provide my children with experiences where they can feel wild and free. Where they can feel the wind on their faces, the grass on their feet and the music in their soul and know that they can safely lean into that feeling.

I can’t force it but I can expose them to new opportunities, take them to beautiful and inspiring places, appreciate the divine, SLOW DOWN, and take advantage of these moments in my own life.

I have wondered if the creation and evolution of this blog has helped me to get back in touch with these types of experiences; to put a name and value on them.

Unused creativity is not benign. It metastisizes into grief, shame, loss, loneliness . . . We are divine beings and we are by nature, creative. ~Brene Brown

I imagine that artists feel wild and free. That actors and actresses, musicians, writers and anyone who creates something feels wild and free at times. But also anyone who expresses gratitude. Who can find the majesty in a sunset, quiet in a storm, the divine in our fellow human . . .the magic in the mundane.

Yesterday, Luke left early to go surfing (surfing is his wild and free) and I loaded the kids up on the golf cart with cereal and blankets for a breakfast picnic at the park. We drove out to the point where the path doesn’t go so that no one would disturb us. My kids ate cereal and spilled their juice. They wrestled and laughed. They ran like wild people all over the place. They cuddled under the blankets and listened to music on my phone. I wondered if they felt wild or free. I know I did.

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