Surprise and Delight

My son was heading to the opera for the first time. His girlfriend was taking him. As they headed out the door, excited, he asked her what he needed to bring. 

She barely paused.

Just bring a sense of endless wonder and joy. That's all you need.

I was listening from my kitchen and those words stopped me. Took me straight back to being 19 — the feeling of wanting life to surprise you. Of walking towards things with your eyes open and your heart completely available.

Somewhere between the career and the mortgage and the children and the hard years, I had quietly closed that down. Not dramatically. Just gradually, the way a window slowly fogs.

The invitation in this print is not naive. It is not telling you life is easy. It is simply asking you to stay available to the good things catching you off guard. To keep expecting the unexpected. To live as though wonder is not something that happens to lucky people, but to people who remember to look.

The details:

• A2 (594 × 420) — hand letterpress printed
• Signed open edition
• UK sourced heavyweight paper
• Printed at a heritage letterpress studio, London
• Arrives rolled in a protective tube