Tuesday morning I had a moment in the midst of storytime. We were doing a lap bounce (“The Grand Old Duke of York”) and somehow I went on autopilot while leading the group and took in the scene as if I were an outsider. A semicircle of adults around the room, singing while bouncing and lifting their children in unison, following my lead and my rhythm as I demonstrated the lap bounce with Pepper the border collie puppet in my own lap. How frickin’ surreal. I mean, seriously. Five years ago I would have laughed if you had told me I’d be leading a large group in song while bouncing a dog puppet in my lap. And here were all these sincere faces following along with me. Not a single person on the verge of laughing. Seriously. Part of me wants to videotape myself leading one of these storytimes, just to see what it’s all about, really; but I know that any confidence I currently have would be totally shattered by watching a video of myself. So I’ll leave my observations of myself to the odd surreal out-of-body moments like yesterday’s.
And then, fast forward to this evening, at my first meditation class: we had just finished a walking meditation around the room, and had eased back to our chairs. “Stand in front of your chair,” said our instructor, “but don’t sit down yet.” Which is what I say as a lead-in to “Handy Spandy” in the infant storytime. It was all I could do to hold back from launching into the rhyme: “Handy Spandy, sugary candy, we all jump IN. Handy Spandy, sugary candy, we all jump OUT. Handy Spandy sugary candy, we all jump UP. Handy Spandy, sugary candy, we all sit down.” Thankfully, I was able to restrain myself, but how odd that my first reaction in that situation was to want to take charge and lead a sit-down action rhyme.
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[For those of you who might be wondering, I LOVE my meditation class. LOVE IT. A great bunch of people (we shared a huge laugh together, which is the best kind of bonding experience), and, most importantly, meditation actually seems to work for me. Yay.]