Somewhere in the transition between playing with her Christmas bounty and hide-and-seek with her little brother, we find ourselves quietly searching videos on Mom’s cell phone…she flips through the volumes of content with intent, and lands on the clip she wants to show me…she hits play and we watch.  “I am afraid to do that”, Kate says of one of her elder gymnastics peers performing swings and flips and an aerial somersault dismount from the parallel bars, “…but I am going to learn to do it.”  I take a deep breath and hold her a little tighter…her tone is resolute and determined, her head nods ever so slightly in the affirmative and I can see that she is rerunning this video over and over again in her mind with herself on those parallel bars…and I have no doubt she will indeed do it.  What really strikes me though is that she self aware of her fear of learning this monumental and herculean skill (and if you think I am overstating this – send me a video of your parallel bar routine – love to see it)…and more importantly her 5 year old commitment to conquer it and master this unambiguous challenge ahead of her…I am very proud of her.  Before moving on she also makes reference about going to the Olympics…which makes me laugh a little incredulously and we hustle away to more playful endeavors…but I am left wondering if this is where these things start – take seed and grow in to such incredible things.

Kate_2012_Dec

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Lawrence Lewis

“You struggle with your demons and you conquer them.” – Kinky Friedman

About Lawrence Lewis

I do a number of things professionally...but most of all and the true purpose of what I do through "my work" is to provide for my family, be a good husband and great father, and try to make a difference as a world citizen...I guess it's not much more complicated than that 🙂