Simple Loves (with exclusive excerpt!)
G.R. Lyons
I want you to pause right here and think up five simple things that you love. Simple things. Things that don't require effort or cost money. Things that simply are. Can you come up with five of them in just a few seconds?
There was a time when I certainly couldn't do so. Besides being so mired in a series of traumatic events for several years, I was so caught up in this 'race' that is life that I never stopped or even slowed down long enough to appreciate just how much good this world has to offer. It took hitting my own rock bottom to have my eyes opened.
In Illumined Shadows, Colby's life—prior to being rescued—is pretty much the definition of rock bottom. Held captive. Abused. Beaten. Tortured. He can't read or write, and doesn't know that anything exists beyond the four walls of the basements in which he's been held. When Vic finds him, Colby is overwhelmed by the sheer size of the world and all the things in it.
And though he's twenty-one years old, he has the innocence and ignorance of a child, allowing him to discover and appreciate the simple things that normal adults have learned to take for granted. Vic, in particular, has seen so many barbaric things in his career as a missing persons expert that he no longer notices nor takes pleasure in the simple things. His life is all about his work, about the next case, about making up for his past mistakes. He never stops to think that there might be another way to live.
Until Colby comes into his life.
Just like Vic says of Colby, a person who had endured that level of abuse could have so easily turned angry and bitter, hating everything about the world which had abandoned and neglected him. Instead, Colby has an incredible capacity for love, joy, and beauty, marveling at all the wonderful, simple things he discovers once he's free of his captivity: the different colors and textures in Vic's garden, the softness of a puppy's fur, the warmth of a hot bath. In observing Colby exploring simple joys, it makes Vic slow down and start to do the same.
Stop. Slow down. Look around you. I challenge you to find just one simple thing each day, one simple thing that you love about the world or your life. There is so much beauty and wonder to be found in the world, and it's all right there if you just let yourself see it.
I'll leave you with some of my simple loves:
- the smell of onions sauteed in butter
- hot showers
- snapdragons
- the smell of a new book
- being barefoot
- the sight of someone wearing a quirky outfit
- opening all the windows on a warm Spring day
- trees in bloom
- sunshine cutting through the rain
- the swirl of incense smoke
- the softness of a dog's ears
- finding a plot bunny or a plot twist
- rainbows
- the color of a Swiss blue topaz
