Day 30, August 21, 2016 @8:54
TODAY, showing up is a little hard to do. If I was to give in to my inclination, I could easily just vegetate on the couch. But today is the moment. It is the only moment. I’m here, singing John Denver’s song:
Today, while the blossoms still cling to the vine
I’ll taste your strawberries, I’ll drink your sweet wine
A million tomorrows shall all pass away
‘Ere I forget all the joy that is mine, today
Songs can say so much and better than I can, easpecially when I am tired. Thought and ideas have fled but at least I am here in this moment. And being HERE, NOW is the important thing. So often I’m absent from the moment, reliving the past and worrying about the future. Today, trying to stay in the present is my doing different. I will forget from time to time. That is the nature of being human. But I can bring myself back again and again.
It is late. I bid you a good night. Till tomorrow.
Clouds and Joni Mitchell’s BOTH SIDES NOW had me thinking about the duality in our lives – how nothing is what it seems/what you want. It’s really not what I want to dwell on. But didn’t Plato say that an unexamined life is not worth living?
Today’s August Break’s prompt, my hands, is a reminder of the pain in the fourth finger on my right hand. It has been a constant, sometimes waking me in the night for the past year. Then in recent months the pain lessened. The finger straightened, not locking as often. This morning, I realized that the pain is totally gone. And I can make a fist and open it freely. Hallelujah!
A pause is good to stop our frantic doings and to assess the situation – how we are doing, do we need to change directions, do we need to make any changes,are we making progress, etc. Sometimes a pause is forced upon us as in an illness. Sometimes it’s a deliberate act. I’ve had both and prefer the latter.
My mission for today is to learn to stop. It is not easy but I can at least let go a little each day. There really is nothing to do and nowhere to go in this moment. There is no one to compare, to judge, to please except myself.
Life was clear this morning. The day was fresh. I was on a new page – reading Ruth Rendall’s The Crocodile Bird. I had already read it once but I have forgotten everything. It read like the first time. I was hooked on the first page! I felt my eyes racing forward, skimming over the words, missing the descriptives for the action. I stopped and read the second paragraph again – how the tail lights went over the bridge and the headlights came around the bend. I found that scene so descriptive. I see it in my head.
onethousandandtwo 