I’m running a stall at a local street party event organised by the surrounding GP practices, called Wellfest. They want young people to be represented, so I’m being accompanied by half a dozen pupils from St Peter’s Church of England Aided School in Exeter, Devon.
The girls all want to offer festival glitter face painting – well, it is festival season after all. Glastonbury is here and we are all wondering how come we aren’t there.
It seems that festival glitter is absolutely all the rage; anyone aged 10 and above is an expert. I asked where to buy the products and felt like I was in a focus group forum, with everyone having an expert opinion on shops, products, kits, pricing and application techniques. They have festival face glitter parties and one or two of them regularly host stalls at school events. I had no idea!
But whilst I was sitting there talking to these girls, I couldn’t help but wonder if they needed the face glitter at all?
As they talked, they became more and more animated, describing methods, styles, colour and their ‘best’ design. They were throwing their heads back and laughing together, listening to each other, interested, happy and joining in.
All I could see was their natural glitter. Their sparkle, their zest for life.
It was a lovely experience.
I wondered if they could see that talking about glitter showed up their inner glitter.
Something in the book “Do You Want To Know A Secret?” struck me again:
Try feeling happy when you are thinking about something really sad.
Or try feeling sad when you are thinking about something really happy.
We can’t. It just doesn’t work.
Because all we have is this very moment and we feel what we feel in THIS moment.
The thought of glitter shone with glitter. How lovely is that?