I purchased “Remembrance of Things Past” (an alternate title in some editions is “In Search of Lost Time“) by Marcel Proust. I suspect most people are familiar with Proust’s writing indirectly, and possibly often only through the fairly well-known “Proust Questionnaire“. Maybe in college a few people read “Swan’s Way“, or flipped through a condensed version, guide, or graphic novel of the author’s great work. I say ‘great’ because… wow. Yeah.

I don’t know why I’ve put off reading Proust. “Remembrance of Things Past” has clung to the edges of my personal ‘must read’ list since I was much younger (at a time when books were my escape from the unbearable). I read Milton. I read Plutarch. I read Rand. I read Tolstoy. I read de Beauvoir; I am not fearful of weighty tomes, nor voices other than my own. So…what’s been the hold up? Perhaps I have been waiting for a moment; I’ve only just begun it, and even a mere handful of pages into Swan’s Way (vol 1), I am completely blow away by the beauty of it. There’s the thing of it right there; it is singularly beautiful writing. Powerful. Complete. Authentic. I am not putting it off even another day, having tasted it and found it beyond worthy.

So… 2016. The year I read Proust. 🙂

How many ways exist to view the world?

I slept well and deeply last night, setting aside my reading some time before bed; these beautiful words are worthy of the respect and consideration of not falling asleep over them, and potentially missing even one shred of meaning over drowsiness. I woke this morning, smiling, with a heart filled with lightness, and empty of weight. My coffee is good. My yoga sequence felt helpfully pleasant, and comfortably eased the stiffness in my joints. I am not missing the opiate painkillers, and I suspect that more often than not any queasiness in the early mornings was due to the opiates, based on how I feel in the mornings since giving them up. Strangely, on the thought of painkillers, my consciousness both tries very hard to veer away from the thought of them, and also delivers a powerful moment of peculiar disconnected yearning. Craving in action. I breathe deeply, and let my thoughts move on.

This morning, the new place feels much larger than the modest increase in space measurably involved. Life is beginning to fit into the new space more fully. Morning is beginning to evolve to fit the space, routines adjusting to the changes in object placement, and room arrangement – for one thing, I have an actual dining room now, and I find myself now inclined to eat at the table, away from other things, rather than perched on the couch, which was the way of it for many of my adult years. Similarly, my studio is both real, and quite separate from the remainder of the household – and my desk is here in my studio, but the majority of my morning is not. It’s interesting how this one change actually changes so much; I do not spend time sitting for hours, fussing at the keyboard, scrolling through feeds, articles, tinkering with pictures aimlessly wondering if another email will come. Unproductive time is kept to a minimum here; I am in the studio only when I am in the studio, and at my desk only when I am actually writing. I seem to ‘have more time’ when truly, I’ve only stopped wasting so much of it … (wait for it…) mindlessly. 😉

Having moved from somewhat less than 650 sq ft, to somewhat less than 1000 sq ft, I sort of expected the feel of things would be mostly pretty similar… How incorrect was I?? lol Very. Vacuuming in the apartment I moved from took me about 15-20 minutes to do a nicely thorough job of it.  Yesterday, after 45 minutes of vacuuming, and the sense that it would never end, I still find myself wondering how an increase in square footage of less than 400 sq ft still results in more than twice as much time needed to vacuum?! Realizing, as I sip my coffee, that being quizzical about housekeeping matters signals how very moved in I really am, I relax and smile and enjoy the moment; I’m okay with a few extra minutes of vacuuming, floors, windows, and tidying. This is a really cute place, it suits me well, and I am taking care of the woman in the mirror by investing my resources in very good quality of life day-to-day. Sure, there are choices, but it is in these choices that I find my way to being the woman I most want to be, living a life of contentment and sufficiency. Isn’t that enough? 😉

Today is a good day for taking care of me – even if that means vacuuming. Today is a good day to read Proust – because I earnestly want to experience his words. Today is a good day to live authentically, and to face the woman in the mirror with honest acceptance, and real enthusiasm – simply because it is time well-spent. Isn’t that also enough?