This story makes me smile: Children’s book author Maurice Sendak received a card from one of his young fans. It was special to him and so Sendak took time creating a little drawing to send back to the boy with a note that said how much he loved the boy’s card. Soon after, Sendak got a note from the boy’s mom, saying “Jim loved your card so much he ate it”. It should be no surprise that as an author who celebrates the wildness in children, and all of us, Sendak has said this was the best compliment he ever received.
It’s not a coincidence that many of our descriptions of passion include allusions or metaphors of eating. The instinct to take something inside of us, to make it a part of us, to feed ourselves from it, all reflect feelings of deep excitement and passion. To take an experience in and leave nothing behind, to fully ingest it – how many of us forget how to do this as we get older? Especially now that we are constantly encouraged to document and share each experience, however mundane, and more and more people believe “if I didn’t post it, it didn’t really happen”. How might Jim’s experience of devouring joy been changed if his mother had required time to pose for a picture followed by a post where she could monitor likes? Even the very adult instinct to respectfully save the picture (because it could possibly have paid for Jim’s first car) would change the flow of pure expression of irrational joy. How does our instinct to hold on to something, to keep it safe and sound, change moments of passion?
What do you love so much you want to gobble it up? What bring you such joy that you don’t feel any need to share it with others? When do you break open moments of such excitement that the future doesn’t even occur to you and there is no need to hold anything back for later? What kind of love has come your way which made you feel like you took it into yourself and it became a part of you? What holds you back from devouring passion?
Experiment : With a partner play with touching them in a way that allows you to feel like you are taking them in through your hands and skin. Imagine that you can feed on them and they will never be depleted. Breathe them in. Taste them; no biting, unless they ask! Imagine for right now it is ok to be a wild thing devouring what it wants.