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I don’t know why but this has stuck with me for over a decade now— I was in a Chipotle in West Virginia, waiting outside of the bathroom for quite a long time, and finally a 7ish year old girl blasts out the door and she looked me right in the eye and said, “By the way! The soap is blue!”

When I entered the bathroom the sink was full of blue soapy foam. I sat on the toilet and just laughed & laughed.

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I work in an elementary school and, it has to be said, that my colleagues and I often talk about making a booklet of all the random and funny things we hear every single day. It is amazing!!

She obviously had an amazing time with the blue soap. Makes me wonder if she even knew that soap COULD be blue - had she never seen that before? So cute and sweet!!! Kids get so much joy from seemingly simple things. There has been quite a large empty box in our hallway in one of our pods at school this last week and more than one child has climbed in to hide. It's so fun!! Thanks for sharing! XO

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That is simply hilariously filling. Children have an honesty and cut-to-the-thick way of talking that just leaves you both infuriated (as a parent) and in stitches. I love this!

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PS I don’t hear/read the name Silas too often these days. It is my son’s name as well. :-)

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Aw thank you for your comment! I chose the name Silas a few years ago for myself because of its meaning ‘of the forest’. I was born Laura and it just never suited me, but Silas sure does :)

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Thank you for sharing that bit of your history. We chose Silas for its etymological meaning as well, which fits my son and our outdoorsie family. So Glad that you found a name that fits who you are.

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There are several Silas' that attend my school. It is a great name!! I also love Finnegan! XO

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Love this 😊

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There is something utterly delightful about a short poem or snippets of poems. My grandfather recited Fog by Carl Sandburg so many times, I know it myself and I can still hear him recite it when I read those words. And "I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree..." and "Hope is the thing with feathers..." are two of my favorite snippets! A favorite modern day poet, Billy Collins has so many short "snippet-able" poems but his collection, Musical Tables, is brilliant. One perfectly fits my almost 64-year-old life most days:

3:00 AM

by Billy Collins

Only my hand

is asleep,

but it's a start.

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Love Musical Tables. So much in tiny bits.

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I just bought this book. It’s wonderful. I always feel when reading a Billy Collins book that I’m sitting in the room with him.

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That is so true! He is a very approachable poet!

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I will remember this when I can't get to sleep. It will make me smile

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My son sharing a memory from the past after I picked him up from kindergarten. I said, "You have such a good memory." He said, "They're all just cuddled up in my head and then they say, it's your turn to talk."

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my son said of his second grade teacher Mrs King's brain is like an attic there's so many boxes up there and she just keeps opening them and you'll never know what's going to be in there.

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YYYyyyyyyeeesssssssss!! This describes kids to a T! Love, love, love! XO

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Oh my heart

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When I worked at a community college in Wyoming, I overheard a student say to another student, "there should be a scholarship for people who grew up in a trailer with tires on the roof to hold the roof down."

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I, too, collect these fragments. Some of my favourites are the things my children say. At first they are just so overwhelmingly funny and delightful, but on a deeper level, they express the freshness of vision and creativity with associations and language that I yearn for.

“There’s a little pig coming out of that cow!” (on noticing its udder)

“I think this is a tiny watermelon with a tiny coconut inside” (an avocado)

“I’m not your wife any more and I’m going to pop the whole house” (he was very angry, as I’m sure you can tell)

“It’s so beautiful, like the golden sun in the morning time” (a yellow plastic box)

“I have so many feelings. All my feelings have knocked me over! Every day is a little heartbreak for me.”

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These reminded me of a snippet recited by a friend (hysterically laughing) relaying what her toddler son had said on eating his first peach. He was shocked to find the pit inside, then looked at her with a knowing smile and said "peach bones!".

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Love this

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That last one! Oooof. Yes.

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Yes that last one indeed

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Oh, Beth!! These are amazing! Some things pop into my head as I read them. The "not your wife" comment, I am wondering if this was a spin on the big, bad wolf blowing a house down? I totally resonate with the yellow plastic box comment - this child is a poet - get him or her writing! And, also, was it that same child, who observed the yellow plastic box, that made the comment about all the feelings? That is an amazing observation for ANY kid!! SOO good!! Thank you for sharing these, they made my day! XO

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Oh I love these. The words of children are wonderful, like little bits of magic dust. I wonder if perhaps it is our children that are teaching us about the world sometimes, not the other way around.

Here’s one of my favourites this year — I don’t want a rainforest, I want a sun forest. (Walking in a beautiful forest with my six year old in the rain).

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These are all so good

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"Nobody told me that eyebrows would be so important."

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Love this!

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I wish I had eyebrows. I need a good tattoo artist.

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:-) So accurate!! I can confirm!! Thanks for sharing. XO

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One of my favourite overheard snippets came as I was walking through Manchester's northern quarter (think hipster) on my way to work several years ago. It includes two people in conversation, though I think it still counts as a snippet as this was all I heard:

"It didn't hit you though, did it?"

"Yeah, but you don't throw eggs NEAR a vegan!"

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LOL!! Oh, my word. I have heard that vegans are a particular bunch, but really? REALLY? LMAO! Hilarious. XO

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Most of the vegans I know are pretty regular folk who don't really talk much about food tbh. But there are definitely some particular ones out there, and I'm delighted to have briefly encountered this fella ;)

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Halfway through a science lesson about friction one of my first graders forgot the word “friction” but brilliantly summed up the experiment: “The ramp with the felt has more stopness.”

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Perfect! More stopness. Please, I am begging someone, anyone, to report that definition to Merriam-Webster! Priceless :-) XO

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I recently started working at a restaurant, and love overhearing snippets of conversation as I bus tables and refill water glasses. A woman told me, out of the blue as I was clearing her plate, “during the pandemic, I was constantly going through the car wash, just so I’d have someone to cry with.” Someone being the car wash, of course, all the water and soap weeping down the windows.

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Heard at my morning zoom meditation ..."The most I can graduate to is human"

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THAT's the most? Oy vay!! Thanks for sharing. XO

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I used to play a game with my mother where we’d create stories from these kinds of fragments. Usually it was during a long walk around the lake: we’d agree to begin, walk together in silence, repeat back any noteworthy phrase we passed by, and strung them together into one big, long narrative. Purely the collection of fragments for a moment of joy 🤍

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That's such a great use of creative expression in everyday life. Wonderful!

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Sounds like poems in the making, Whitney! What a lovely thing to do! Thank you for sharing this. XO

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Short poem: Richard Brautigan's "FOR FEAR YOU WILL BE ALONE"

For fear you will be alone

you do so many things

that aren't you at all.

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Mmmm. Or are they?

I hear the intent, but, at the same time, I am one such gal who purposely does things that scare the ever living hell out of me because I think it's something put before me and my reaction is a way for the little devil on my shoulder (or maybe the angel on the other one, I'm never sure) to say you absolutely shouldn't do this because you're going to be amazing at it and it's going to do something important to you or for you. And so...I thumb my nose at that and do it anyway, and I often find it's exactly what I was supposed to do!! Thanks for sharing! XO

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interview with a 98 yr old lady about her very privileged life: "I have two sons; one, I shall say is quite satisfactory."

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Years ago, my husband and I were in the Minneapolis airport waiting to board our plane. A man was pacing up and down between the gates in a heated cell phone conversation with what we assumed was his significant other. We only caught snippets as he stalked back and forth out of earshot, but we were lucky enough to hear his parting shot, “you have pissed me off to the height of my pisstivity!” We still laugh about it today.

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I'm not making the best decisions but I'm being more adventurous

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This is such a liberating idea. I'm going to start today.

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P.S. Report back what happens in your adventures! Promise? XO

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I just fell in love with you! Thanks for choosing adventure :-) XO

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I love this one!

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I'm ALL for being more adventurous, over making the best decisions. Some of the best things for your own well-being are the result of adventure, yeah? Thanks for sharing, Sarah! XO

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I have said this many times.

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I love this! I do the same thing, write them down and collect them for some future purpose. This is one I heard a teenager express to her friends/group while I was waiting high up in the stands for one of my kids to compete in a track and field event. She was holding a Gatorade bottle, and swishing the contents around as she rotated her wrist:

“My intrusive thoughts really want to throw this bottle over the stands.”

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