a long walk | Evening Light

What a special day this is turning out to be! It has been easy and relaxed since I woke (later than usual). I feel content, and connected – and very much as though I’ve spent the day in the company of a dear friend, someone close, of long-standing history and shared experience…only… it’s just been me, hanging out on my own. Still, I feel more connected, generally, and more comfortable with myself and with other people.

A bit of gardening and a lovely walk.

There’s been nothing extraordinary about the things I am doing today. I spent quite a long time on yoga this morning, and enjoyed a light bite of brunch a bit later. I enjoyed a long autumn walk in the sunshine, the air was chilly and still, carrying the scent of pine and marsh, and distant hearths. I saw a beaver up close – it was the first time I’ve seen one so close. The dam he is building is quite large. I found myself wondering if he has feelings about it, as a home, or as the outcome of his effort, and wondering, too, what is the nature of the thoughts of animals. I mused for a long while about the nature of consciousness as I walked.

A dam is a complicated feat. I find myself wondering if a beaver’s life’s work has meaning for the beaver.

There were berries, and roses hips of many colors, and drifts of autumn leaves along the way. There were flooded paths, birds of prey, children, dogs, and squirrels at play. I walked farther than I planned; I kept changing my destination to something just a bit further down the path as I walked. I decided to turn back when the sunny sky took a gray turn, hinting at an evening that I knew would come earlier than it did yesterday.

Colorful berries and vines remain after all the leaves have fallen.

I arrived home feeling very connected to the world I live in, and sit here even now feeling differently about life in some subtle way…as though I had an incredibly eye-opening and insightful conversation with someone I trust completely, and learned something deeply meaningful. I don’t think this particular feeling has any more or less value than other feelings. It is very pleasant and moving in a positive way. I am content to enjoy this moment for as long as it lasts. Enjoying it utterly, and savoring the experience of it is a practice worth practicing. 🙂

It could be a metaphor, although I did actually walk rather a lot this weekend, and had an eye-opening moment of perspective while walking from one point on a map to another.

Beauty is in the details, so are awareness, understanding, and love. So is growth.

It’s a quiet Monday morning, and I didn’t notice that I hadn’t been writing until the weekend was already over. I was kept busy by life and love and the doing of actual things. I was in a lot of pain, and also living well, and generally in a good state of awareness and with a pleasant demeanor. It was a pleasant weekend, generally. Life’s lessons this weekend tended to be more of the ‘slog through the exercises carefully and check your work’ variety than the sometime intensity of grand eye-opening moments or epiphanies of some more exotic sort.

Another side of beauty.

While I was out on Saturday, I saw some younger girls tensely discussing their appearance and how to lose ‘enough’ weight; they were all very lean, wearing very fashionable clothes, and a lot of make up for such young girls. My initial reaction started out as one of active resentment and irritation. I struggle with my weight, too. As I passed one of them made an unkind comment; I’m not ‘thin enough’ – or ‘young enough’, whatever that means to them. I contemplated the destructive power of the standard of beauty that is culturally enforced in the media, and wondered if these girls have any idea how ugly mean is, or how little someone else’s idea of beauty matters to ones own contentment?

I made a long trip Saturday to a store on the other side of town that I favor, and being willing to travel for what matters to me the journey was pleasant and necessary. I stopped for lunch on my way back and spotted a sign at the counter that got me thinking…

It’s a sign…

I contemplated ‘food insecurity’ (my Granny would have called it ‘going without’ or ‘privation’) and leaner times in my own life, and later struggles with my weight. I let my mind roam, and considered other times and sorts of deprivation, shortages, and hard times, and later challenges with ‘greed’ in those specific areas. I was still standing at the counter, trying to order lunch. I made a connection in the moment between my recent success in managing my weight, and the ease lately in making decisions that are moderate, and appropriate to my resources. “Greed” is something I find I have difficulty feeling any compassion for… in myself or others, and I realized I still held on to some repugnant (to me) binge/purge programming deep in my operating system. I let my shoulders relax and smiled at the girl at the counter as I stepped up to order… a half portion of a healthy sandwich, and a bottle of water. I felt satisfied to be able to take care of my needs, and content not to go further. That’s been a big deal lately: sufficiency. When I stopped – really stopped – trying to fill some desperate feeling hole in my experience labeled ‘I don’t have enough to feel like I have everything’, I found myself utterly content and satisfied so much more often. What matters most, truly? If you live alone, is 4000 sq ft of penthouse with a view of the world necessary? Whether it is affordable is a different question. How many of us experiencing ‘food insecurity’ or some other form of privation put ourselves there by choosing excess in some other area of life? Too much house? Too much car? Too much credit? Too many pets? Too many dinners out? For most of us our individual resources, however plentiful, are finite. I am learning to make wiser choices with my resources, and my needs. Sufficiency, I am finding, often feels lavish, when I simply enjoy what is enough. Excess, as with a Thanksgiving meal, overshoots that mark so far that sometimes it neither satisfies nor sustains me…and is, itself, unsustainable.

A foggy morning heading somewhere…

Every journey begins. I don’t always have a clear view of where it will take me. It was that kind of weekend. One choice at a time, one step at a time, one opportunity to connect at a time… I’m building who I am tomorrow with each choice today. Today is a good day for choices, and a good day for consideration. I may be having my own experience… but life, love, and the world are not all about me, ever. We’re all in this together.

Perspective matters, too.

Sometime in the past, men did work. It was valued, and lauded, and a monument built to the work and to the men. Interesting details are celebrated and noted in life, and in this case one detail stood out for me, a connection across time…

Yep. They drank a lot of coffee.

So here’s to you, working people, on a Monday morning…

Coffee. Any form, every morning. Here’s to you, Monday!

Today is a good day to be a better human being than I was yesterday. Today is a good day to consider what I have done, and what I want my legacy to look like when I’m gone. Today is a good day to be the woman I most want to be. Today is a good day to love well, and to love honestly. Today is a good day to change the world.

A Shift in Perspective

Covering Some Distance on Foot

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