Quotes I'm Mulling

I’m a big fan of inspirational quotes.

The snippets always seem so wise, plucked from their context and spotlighted—no matter who says them.

I’ll take my wisdom and inspiration from anywhere I can find it.

If I were to read a quote by Bozo the clown I’d probably be awestruck.

Okay, so I just looked, and there really aren’t any quotes by Bozo.

But if there were….

I love that educators often use quotes around their classrooms and in their offices to uplift their students and make them think.

I have a gorgeous book of quotations compiled and illustrated by the talented Susan Branch.

It’s called Distilled Genius. (It’s a wonderful gift book for the upcoming holidays.)

I was looking through it recently for some inspiration/aspiration/wisdom.

Two quotes caught my eye, tugged at my heart.

“But all the magic I’ve ever known, I had to make myself” (quote from Shel Silverstein author of The Giving Tree, Where the Sidewalk Ends, A Light in the Attic).

My first thought was, of course, we all have to make our own magic in the world.

But then I thought about my mother and all the effort she put into the holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukah) and our birthdays and our daily life to make them special.

Special=Magic.

Twinkle lights.

Ribbons leading to gifts.

Handmade stockings (which I still have).

Stories she read to us.

Homemade birthday cakes.

She drew on our brown-bag lunches.

Trips to Disneyland where she would tell my sister and me, “You go and have fun, and I’ll wait here with your jackets.”

She’d also let us stay until the park closed even though she would have to drive nearly two hours to get us back home.

My mother made the magic in my childhood.

So Mr. Silverstein, I have to disagree with you.

Yes, it’s up to us at some point to make our own magic and, granted, some people have to start that process earlier than others.