It’s been a busy few days. Appointments, friends, interviews… there has also been time for stillness, although I’ve taken fewer of those opportunities than I could have, I know. Today is a day to recover, to regain balance, to let new knowledge and changed thinking settle in to be considered in context.
“Baby Love” on a rainy morning.
A misty rain falls this morning, as it did yesterday, as it likely will tomorrow. “Is summer over?” I wonder to myself. We can expect another handful of summer days before autumn firmly takes hold. Spring and autumn are the longest seasons in this area; by the time it seems reasonable to complain about summer heat to friends living in genuinely hot climates, summer here is over. The rain has come. A gasp of winter weather follows, then the drenching we can expect for spring begins, and seemingly endlessly showers us with all the different kinds of rain I’ve known, in some quantity or another, before the wheel turns again, back to our brief summer.
Life works very similarly, I find, changing like the seasons if only I give it time. More often than I’d like to count, some situation or another causing me stress just… goes away, after a time. Things change. Change is as much a passive seeming thing happening around us continuously as it is a tool with which we can craft our experience through our choices and actions (and reactions). That’s pretty useful sometimes; no matter how stuck in some one moment I may feel, regardless how terminally miserable I think I am, things do change. On the reverse of that coin, however, is the reciprocal truth that our moments of greatest and most intoxicating joy will also, inevitably, pass in favor of some other moment to come.
Yesterday was wonderful. I hung out with my new friend, although for now I’ve no convenient nickname or characterization to use to bring her to mind, here. Soon enough, I’m sure. We had made plans to go to the farmer’s market together (she hadn’t been). We both had things we’d intended to do after that… but chose to spend the day together, because we were simply having too much fun to let go so soon. She hugs easily. I want to learn to be so approachable, while still maintaining such clear boundaries with gracious firmness. Powerful. We share ourselves easily, together, and I find incredible joy in being so relaxed, and so un-self-consciously myself with another human being, at a time in my life when I am quietly plagued by self-consciousness about small quirks, and unexpected deviations from obvious norms. She’s not frustrated by my definite over-use of fancy language; she laughs with delight, and good-natured humor, happily “correcting” my verbiage along the way, with more laughter. (We rode the light rail through an economically under-privileged community, which I noted as unfortunate, and she laughingly corrected me, “ghetto” with a grin and a hug. Like my traveling partner, she favors simple clear language.) We have interesting conversations about the use of language to convey subtleties of meaning, and conversations about brain injuries, child-rearing, and surviving. We spent 8 hours together, talking. Yep. I can talk for 8 hours – ask anyone. LOL (I’m sitting here suddenly hoping very much that I listened for at least half of that time…)
My traveling partner is in my thoughts, too. I wonder how his weekend is going? He’s been away during the days, and we’ve been out of touch. I’m eager to get together and share how our days have been until we feel we’ve been together. I’m eager to “talk for 8 hours” – there’s a quality to such an experience that I thrive on, and I definitely miss our days of long conversations together, when love was new and neither of us had all the answers about the other – or any notion that we might have that kind of complete and thorough understanding, in the first place. I will do well to be mindful how we differ, and how we’ve grown, and make a point to listen for long luxurious hours of story-telling and anecdotes of exotic adventure – without interrupting, if I can manage it. (That would probably be a lovely treat for him. lol)
Perspective matters. I often find it here. 😉
There are things to consider and reconsider from the week’s conversations. New perspectives on life, on love, on being human, on being vulnerable, on work, on family, on the future… it’s been a very busy week, and my mental buffer is filled – over-filled – with things to think over. Today, I’ll stop being so busy, and just be, instead. Today is a good day for it. Today is a good day for meditation, and for mindful service. Today is a good day for consideration – if we’re all considerate at the same time, we could change the world. 🙂
