Stickers

Back in the early eighties, kids would gather in school stairwells over lunch and recess and trade stickers.   Kids still do the sticker thing now, but then, it was new, the stickers amazing. It was an obsession, “a thing.”

There were popular Smurf “Puffies” and glittering “Shinies” and “Glitteries” in every colour of the rainbow. In fact, anything with a rainbow was prized. It didn’t mean then what it has come to mean now. Back then, it was just a riot of glorious colour. Fantasy, I think, was just starting its modern rise.

Unicorns, Pegasi, stars, moons, all these graced the stick-down photo album pages of serious collectors. Trading was a big factor in this game. Two Scratch-and-sniffs for a Shiny. A Shiny beat out a Glittery, but it better still have the backing.   A shiny could also garner a Puffie. “Flats” or those Sunday School lick-and-sticks nobody wanted. Garfield anything was prime.

In this transition phase of my life, I have chosen to put rushing around off to the sidelines for a bit. Yes, I may need external income soon (as opposed to creatively generated income). Yes, my resume needs updating. Yes, there are the transition agency courses, the medical insurance shifting, the home, the bills and blah.

It can wait.

At least a week. Maybe two.

Maybe more. Who knows?

I’m in transition.

I don’t’ know what I will become next.

But this time, I am taking my time. I have been listening to what brings me joy, and believe it or not, I found my old sticker albums, and some unplaced sheets of stickers.

Curled into my favourite wingback chair while sipping tea and catching up with spousal unit, I took sharp scissors an cut the outlines of a dozen or so unicorn Shinies and placed them round a sticky page in an eye-pleasing pattern.

I had forgotten what a meditative activity this could be. Cutting, placing, shifting around until I liked what I saw. No money involved. No productivity happening. Just fun.

I wonder what else I have forgotten I liked to do?

I keep seeing rainbows everywhere. Today it was a set of sun dogs in a second order of refraction, just in one break in the clouds.

I find when I let myself just be, the world goes from rat race to full of promise. Full of rainbows. Full of Shinies.