What’s not to love about The Smiling Place? Such splendid space! So full of grace.
My children have both entered this Smiling Place, something I cherish and embrace.

My John, 35, ran the Olympic Torch through Carmel in style. With the Pacific on one side, friends and family on the other, he smiled his smile for 2½ miles.

My Sarah, 33, delivered her third child, a radiant, tranquil baby girl. Archer and Waddy, ages 4 and 2, can’t keep their hands off their precious new pearl.

It’s hard to remember in the bloom of such smiles that yesterday’s lows were just as low. It’s not easy to breathe in and out through the change, the transitions, the sudden ups and the downs. But, what a life-lesson, something we all learn in due time. No escape, no by-pass, just more second chances abound.

Someone introduced me to a Dr. Seuss’ book, Oh, the Places You’ll Go. It’s a high school graduation address. It speaks of the high places and low places, the smiles and the frowns, with a focus on life as “The Great Balancing Act.” Sometimes life’s great and lofty and fast, then, sometimes it’s awful and lowly and flat, he shares.

I’m always delighted when someone stops to share life’s wisdoms with our young ones. Dr. Seuss’ mantra that life will dazzle and amaze, that things will work out – “except when they don’t, because, sometimes, they won’t” – is so important to instill in our young.

Seuss describes The Waiting Place, where we all end up, at one time or another:

People just waiting for a train to go, or the snow to snow,
or waiting around for a Yes or a No,
or for a string of pearls or a pair of pants
or a Better Break, or Another Chance.

That Waiting Place is so important. It’s in the in-between spaces that real learning takes place, real movement happens, real growth unwinds. Life presents us with so many choices, it’s hard to know which way to go. “Simple, it’s not, I’m afraid you will find,” shares Seuss, “for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.”

Now, I’ll take the smiles! I’m first in line to beg for a satisfied life for my kids. I’ll dance with their highs and lie down with their lows. Both experiences bring us closer together, and did.

But, beginning with my grandsons, ages 4 and 2, I want the young ones to absolutely know: Life doesn’t come with guaranteed instructions: Do this and you get what you want. Oh no, oh, no.

Disillusionment is avoidable, if instructions are more clear. . Life is to experience, not to control. Both success and failure are chances to learn. It’s the quality of our connections, not the quantity of our things . . . .You know the drill. You take a turn.

Discover new ways of sharing these things. Sit with our young; see the world through their eyes. Listen to their questions of which way to go and how-do-you-know. Maybe their smiles won’t be so short-lived and their expectations, deeper than show.

For now, I’ll bask in The Smiling Place. Such a fine place to go! The train will pull out for the places ahead. It’s just how it goes. It just does, you know.