My grandparents celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary this weekend. It was a beautiful evening at a beautiful winery with live music and good food and family.
Ironically, my favorite part of the whole evening was a woman I never even met.
When the live music kicked in, a pile of brightly decorated hula hoops appeared near the stage, as did a middle-aged woman in a colorful skirt. She gracefully began hula hooping to the music.
To be honest? At first I thought it was a little weird. It’s not very often you see a grown woman hula hooping in the middle of a dance floor in a winery. (Although I haven’t spent much time in wineries in the last 9 months so what do I know.)
But it didn’t take long before my six year old picked up on the invitation and joined her, hula hooping to the music. Pretty soon there was a mini hula hooping party on the dance floor. The crowd cheered and my six year old beamed. It was pretty fun to watch.
My daughter hula hooped for the rest of the evening. We had to tear her away to have dinner and cake, which she scarfed down in order to return to her spinning. At one point she had four (or maybe even five) hula hoops going. She was in heaven, oblivious to everything else (except maybe the crowd who applauded her and the band 😉 ).
As it turns out, the woman in the skirt decorates hula hoops and brings them with her. And then gives them away.
Maybe it’s my hormones or maybe it’s watching the sheer joy on my child’s face, but either way, I think that’s the most beautiful thing in the world.
It’s such a simple thing. And yet, it moved our evening from being beautiful to being magical.
We don’t have to make grand gestures or sweeping influences to change the world. We just have to find what we love and share it.Â
When it was time to go, we had one exhausted little hula hooper. I reclined her chair in the van just a little so she could rest on the way home (which was the second most magical part of her evening 🙂 ), and watched in the rearview mirror as she moved her new hula hoop up so she could rest a hand on it as we drove.
“Will there be more days like this?” she asked.
Yes, baby. I hope you have a lifetime full of days like this.
That’s beautiful. I guess I’m feeling very hormonal too be a use it made me tear up at the end. Such simple moments with kids can be the most beautiful things.
That’s beautiful. I guess I’m feeling very hormonal too because it made me tear up at the end. Such simple moments with kids can be the most beautiful things.
I completely agree!