Family.

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Kid-sattva.

I suppose I’ve more than made up for my lag in shooting with the umpteen hundred photos (ok, 90, but not all of them were uploaded to Flickr) that I took today.  My parents were in town and my mama and I went to the MFA, which is always a wonderful place to have a camera.  I really feel that my camera helps me to view the art, that by framing it and capturing it with the lens, I’m paying more attention to it than I do just walking by.

Anyhow, while we were having tea afterwards, my mama and I were discussing spirituality and religion and Buddhism – like we do. (Honestly, I have these sort of intense talks with my mama on a near weekly basis.) And my mama shared with me a story from my childhood that is pretty remarkable, both in my insight and my mother’s realization that I was far more spiritually attuned than most children. (She said at this particular moment, I was her little Bodhisattva. And yes, I was raised in a Buddhist home, even though my mother is now Catholic.)

The story goes that one day my mother was particularly fed up with some existential crisis, and she turned to me – aged 3, at most – and asked me “So, Sonja, what is the purpose of life?”

And I looked at her with this very mature look, the sort of look that isn’t condescending but just indicates “I can’t believe that you don’t know this, it is so obvious.” And I very simply stated, verbatim:

“The purpose of life is to live it.”

Good job, self! I have always believed this to be true and it’s interesting to know that this sense of life as being a series of present moments to be inhabited is something that I’ve felt for, well, my whole life.

I’ve heard a lot of stories about really heavy stuff I’ve said as a kid (“I’m going to believe in Santa until I’m 9.” – said at age  4, and pretty deep for a kid, the implication that belief is a choice.), but this is by far my favorite.

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MFA w/Mama: September 27.

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