I woke to a gray morning, cool, overcast, threatening rain without yet raining. I didn’t take time to fully wake before throwing the windows open to the cool breezes, and filling the place with birdsong and fresh air. I had dressed, still not yet quite awake, and fumbled with my phone before losing interest in the clumsy comedy. It was while I was making coffee that I actually started to wake up, becoming more aware, first, of how awake I was not, initially. I took my coffee to my meditation cushion and sat a while, watching the morning become a day from that vantage point, without actually meditating, at all.
I’m not sure I’m quite awake even now. There’s time for all that. No rush. I’m off work today.
The meadow and the park beyond are a lush assortment of shades of green: bright, dark, yellow-y, more blue, browning at the edges, neon on the tips. It’s beautiful. So much of what lives is a shade of green. I sip my coffee and observe. Still working on being actually awake. Starting with being aware. A bright-eyed red wing blackbird stops by to check on my progress with some skepticism. He has a bite of breakfast, and calls to his buddies in the neighborhood, perhaps about the quality of the meal, before departing.
I sip my coffee and breathe, simply existing in this moment of contentment and calm without letting it slip away unnoticed. I can’t overstate how much it has mattered to do this – just this simple thing. Savoring the simple joys, the sweet moments, the easy times, and really giving in to allowing these sweet pleasures to be important, to be as much of everything in their time as I ever allow something moment of grief or ire to be… then… Then moving on in life to this new place, where it is the sweetness that is by far the more valuable experience, cherished wholly as it exists, looked back upon more often than I look back on tragedy, and shared as words, as memories, and indeed being appreciated in an active way. Verbs. It’s a journey; there always seems further along to go than the place I am standing right now, however far I have come.
Speaking of journeys; my Traveling Partner will likely return sometime today. I smile thinking about it, even though I know there is a chance we won’t actually see each other. The turn-around time between this thing and that thing is quite short this week, and I think he’ll be headed out again with only the briefest opportunity to see each other, if any exists at all. lol I grin knowingly thinking about last year’s promises to spend so much more time together through the autumn and winter months. It didn’t happen that way. We snatched what time we could from busy lives. I have rare bitter moments about it, but the freedom we give each other to go, do, and be, on our own agendas rather than living lives constructed by some recognized cultural framework, penned in by other people’s expectations of love, is part of what makes loving each other so precious in the first place.
I break out in unexpected laughter, startling the birds away from the feeder. Damn I write long, weird sentences! LOL I very much write the way I talk, actually, and the commas tend to fall where my speaking the words would place them…but… If you don’t know the rhythm of my speech, how would you “hear it”? Do I leave readers struggling to make sense of things because I happily (sloppily) mix metaphors – and tenses? What about this major overuse of ellipses? This can not possibly be librarian or linguist approved. 😀 Shit. Still happily grinning at myself, my fingers continue to tickle my keyboard, and words continue to flow. We’ll get through this, together, yeah? 😉
Today is a good day to begin a journey – or begin it again.
A picture of a rose in my garden, on a sunny day. Beauty needs no excuse. 🙂
Evening Light 