At any rate, I turned into my favorite shoreline loop and it hit me -- the water in the bay as still as though it were a glacial lake, and a single least tern, as graceful as a ballerina and as fierce as a hockey player, wheeling over the water. At the top of a loop, wings folded, it plummeted into the water and disappeared.
Two strides later, up it flew to repeat the performance.
And suddenly, I realized, this happens whether I'm here or not. In fact, most of life happens whether I'm there or not.
So, how do I get to really be there in the bits I get to witness? How to appreciate my legs and feet, carrying me through an early summer morning? How to drink in the tousled heads of my kids, wandering in for a morning hug? How to appreciate the parts of my house that never do seem to get cleaned? How to appreciate the endless worried emails from my students?
I have to figure out how to be here. Now, and now, and now forevermore. Or at least as forevermore as I get.
5 comments:
One day at a time...
:-)
It was a BEAUTIFUL morning for a run. Egad. Made all the bad bits about the Bay Area seem worthwhile.
Just keep going. Enjoy yourself. Take a deep breath and stop worrying about other things while you're focused on your current activity. I'm getting a bit better at this, but if you overthink it, you end up with the result you want to avoid--instead of worrying about, say, grading papers, while you should be enjoying morning hugs, you'll be worry about enjoying morning hugs. Same problem, different direction! I find a deep breath helps.
Ahhh, if only there were something like that in running, much less plodding, distance from my home, I'd be far more likely to get out there.
I have heat, and flat, and heat or... RAIN, and flat. I got corn trying to grow... but not much else to see.
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But I too ought to try to be THERE more, where ever I am. Thanks for the reminder. Perhaps I can come out of my head and LIVE for a bit.
Thank you for provoking thought today!
Perfect! One day I touched a tree and the thought/revelation ran through me that other humans touch trees and feel the bark and smell a tree just as I do (strangely, as if it were a message from God, I understood that a woman in Rwanda and King Louis IV both felt the same thing when they touched a tree). Still water, bird swooping...
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