What I learned by 70 years of age.

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What it took me until I was 70 years old to learn:
#1 If you put it back where you keep it you will save 2 years of searching over a lifetime.
#2 If you stay in the now and not be in the future planning, or in the past rummaging through garbage you won’t slice into you hand or trip downstairs.
#3 When you have an appointment don’t just write Julia on the calendar. When the day comes you will have no fucking idea who Julia is.
#4 If you save all of your errands for one day, it will save you money. Suddenly shopping and running around will just exhaust you and you will go home with only what is necessary for immediate survival.
#5 The best gift for another person is something he or she has been denying themselves.
#6 Flowers in your house are a survival necessity. They release feel good hormones and fantasy stories.
#7. You will never have the carefully made list you wrote down to go shopping actually on your person, so give up on that one. Just grab strange things you have been desiring and go home.
# 8 Having a clean car is only important if you are picking up a celebrity at the airport.
#9 Getting into or out of any new environment needs as much focus as getting out of a space shuttle. Drop down into the body, pay attention, scan for danger and obstacles. It is the transitions where the broken bones, lost cell phones and left behind coats happen.
#10 The best thing to say in every single circumstance is nothing. God gave you a face, eyes and nice teeth. Smile sweetly.
#11 Always prepare for the apocalypse. There is never too much stored toilet paper, dried beans, cash in an envelope, water in the attic, printer cartridges and paper for the next 3 months, incense for clearing energy when the world ends, (or to prevent the end).
#12. If you can afford plastic surgery get a skin pocket done so you always know where your cell phone is.
# 13 If you don’t answer your cell phone or pick up your messages you will avoid those pesky appointments you did not want to make anyway. (Who the hell is Julia and why does North Dakota call me 5 times a day?)
# 14 Don’t care. Undertake the practice of NOT giving a flip. Until something comes at my house like a bulldozer, I pay no attention to it.
#15. Exceptions are: do sign petitions that push for social justice, do speak out for the weak, young, poor and unprotected constantly. It does make a difference if you are annoying the crap out of politicians.
#16. Speak the truth to beauty. Saying, “I love your scarf to a random woman in a grocery store,” allows her to stop and tell you she bought it on her trip to Italy. Her face lights up. She has happy chemicals releasing in her body. I call it giving a “bump up.”
It is social cocaine.
#17 The only thing that matters in health care is sleep. If you did not sleep deeply with Rem every night you are running on empty. You are like someone getting off of a 20 hour plane trip. Everything you think is just stupid. Get sleep and the whole world is better.
#18 Don’t put the fuzzy red towel in with the rest of the laundry. And if it shed the first time, don’t do it ten more times just to make sure.
#19 If it didn’t fit when you bought it, it will torture you and suck the joy our of your life. Be comfortable.
#20 If it didn’t make YOU look gorgeous, don’t buy it. Nothing is worse than having your clothing upstage you.
#21 Meet the challenge when it first appears. Run toward it like a Viking storming a village. Waiting only allows it to get bigger, more horrifying and weakens us.
#22 You cannot know who you are. That is absolute bullshit. Who you are is like a strobe light image. Now you are this, now that, now something else. Allow yourself to follow your joy and grow the hell up, why don’t you.I am 80 in August and while I sat in the kindergarden desk with my knees not fitting under it for so long, I finally am learning some things.
Love yourself constantly. Coming to earth was the craziest decision we ever made. We are Navy Seals, Red Berets, our own brain surgeons and tough as nails. We are as tough as nails, baby. Don’t you ever forget that.

Dishevelment

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The whirlwind of appointments one after another meant I had to exit my house, eject out of the atmosphere of calm and order and routine. Day after day the objects I touched quickly then abandoned contributed to more chaos: brush on the counter, dishes in the sink, clothing thrown on the black metal stand disturbed my peace.  Each time I returned home and walked through a room the disorder had mysteriously grown. It became like a haunting, like an invasion of mayhem. It was unsettling.

As I quickly threw back the covers and dismounted the bed, there was no time for anything more than assembling my presence for the next appointment. All of the segments of the maintenance of a life fell due at the same time. The drains needed cleared, the tree trimers were ordered up to come and prune, the deck was cleared for the painter, my teeth needed cleaning, the cat’s thyroid medicine was waiting for pick up, my hearing and eye exams were both scheduled.The more I pursued continuity the more I had to sacrifice the habit of order.

The more my calendar became scribbled with enclosing words, the more the house was closing in on itself.

I like calm, order, tidiness and have a life of a caretaker in any space I choose to live. My eyes are trained to sweep a room looking for what “needs done.”

I operate on three levels. There are the someday things that cannot possibly be attended to now. I have to wait, to push it off into the future as a plan forms. There are the more urgent actions on my list. This plan is motivated by the scratching sound of irritation.

“I can’t take this anymore.”

And then one day I attack a corner, or a room or open the drawers and go into a trance like state. My chest of drawers with shirts and sweater is waiting for me to surge at them with a reptilian glow in my eye. All of the orange items will be rolled and snugged in together one day soon. All of the lighter sweaters sill be arranged by style in the second drawer. It is a  future I am creating in my mind. As the seasons change, I will have to open a lower drawer for the heavy winter protection.

I have begun that part of the plan by sweeping all in the bottom drawer into a bag that sits waiting to be flung out of my car into a thrift store box.

And ,then, the third level is the automatic, ritualistic movement of my hands as I do the daily things. The dishes go in the cupboard, the laundry in the basket, the pills are lined up for my daily blessing of self care.

trapped in thoughts

But when the repair, the maintenance by experts in the outside world becomes necessary, I leave the house feeling I have abandoned my relationship with my daily life. I will drive away and see in my mind’s eye my hair brush thrown down, my dishes piled in the sink, the notes I took from a book piled up unfiled. It feels chaotic, risky, wild, out of control.

But then I remember that I am simply shifting gears between one system of ordering my life to another.

“Not now,”. I say this to myself. “ Not today. It will happen.”

I can relax because I know I always keep my promises to myself.

Serious People

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My druthers

I hear this word around me. Perhaps it was floating in the air of the ancestry story. Perhaps it was transmitted in my DNA.

 

It seems folksy and from the type of hard scrabble, unbreakable stubborn people who would choose to grow crops on rocky hill sides. The smashing or lifting or rolling of obstacles out of the way was the way. Not once, did these obdurate people say, “Oh let us move to level, greener, more civilized fields to plant a life.” There was joy in effort.

 

And so, I hear the word “druthers” inside my head as I think about my choices. I would rather paint my deck than paint my nails. I would rather mow my grass than build up points with video games or cards. In my past, I would rather go to the stacks in the library and learn about the Victorians than sit for hours in a coffee shop at University. I prefer pruning my plants in my garden to following the neighbourhood drama and fear of the homeless walking our back-alley way. Some here have put up cameras as sentries to protect their territory. I choose to walk barefoot on my piece of land and watch for new buds, or the green tiny globe of a hot pepper’s promise on the corner of my deck transitioning to a delightful scarlet red.

 

I see my hands, my bent over back, my strong legs as a source of joy. It means I can strive upon the earth. Hundreds of ancestors watch me and cheer me on.

 

Time is not meant to be squandered, burned down to ashes without forming a prayer to be sent up. “What is the outcome?” my non forbearing forebearers would ask. Why would you wrap a ribbon in your hair when you could be wrapping the base of a tree to protect it from clawing animals? Be sensible always.

 

Silly choices, trivial choices, no account choices were condemned. I can feel the presence of my ancestors standing in rows behind my shoulders observing me. They ask me to consider. They ask me to take time to dissect with discrimination what I hold as a vision in my heart.

Caroline Schmidt

“Are you sure?” I hear the voice of Laetitia my far distant grandmother who raised 17 children that she alone brought into the world.

 

“Is this wise?” I hear my Quaker grandfather speaking quietly and evenly.

Francis Cook, Pilgrim

“Does this create a more substantial life?” say my Lutheran forebearers.

Sarah Black, Grandmother

“Is this merely a fancy, a decorative gesture or is it solid and serious?” say my Puritan dynasty filling the boats to struggle in a new country.

 

I am pleased as I stand viewing what my effort has created. A cleaned out space, a weeded garden, a tidied shed gives me more joy than any layered chocolate cake, celebratory party can ever deliver. Now, I know myself and I do not struggle with my choices as I did in the past.

 

I know my druthers. I know who I am. I am home.

 

The Seer

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We are like a strobe light. At times, we shine brightly. We are clear in our thinking. We do not stumble on our own feet, catch our toes on the edge of the coffee table leg, slide in error misjudging that last step. At times, we are masterful and calm.

We are periodically like ancient masters of the sea who could navigate by the stars a world unmapped, hazardous and wildly unpredictable. But only in moments, or months at a time.

The lesson always returns. The universe keeps track of what we are here to learn. We will be walking ankle deep in frustration afraid to slip on the slick surface of the unaddressed issue, the downhill slide of ego or error.

The human mind thinks of “success” of “achieving a goal” and it is what handicaps us in our growth the most. We are constantly growing, shape shifting, becoming. Upon occasion, we may take a deep breath and say to ourselves, “I have got it now.”

let go

It is a source of great humour for people with deep spiritual practice.

There is no grabbing the brass ring in your hand as you whirl around the merry-go-round. There is no “bing of the bell” as you swing the heavy mallet to drive yourself up to the top of it all.

We are simply pilgrims climbing the next hill side to stand and see that yet another, higher path awaits our legs to climb. Our legs get stronger, more sturdy with each new highland.

The difficulty of judging where we are in life is that we are nowhere. We are always nowhere. We live in a pulse of on/off. It is never still, this life, this decade, this day. It is a swirl of energy that we are constantly trying to ride.

To believe that we can achieve perfection, a 100% grade as a student, a pass out of the class room in order to frolic in a near by park is an error in understanding.

Yes, there will be picnics, sunshine, times of calm water on the sea. But these moments are not a sign that we are a good person, a perfect culmination of ourselves. School is not over. To mistake a period of good luck or of peaceful days as a reward for our special achievements is naive.

love is the way

In addition, we have the ego sitting in a golden throne over-seeing our lives and trying to keep us from challenges. Its voice is constant and annoying.

“Don’t try. Don’t risk it. Don’t grow. You are not sufficient. You are damaged and weak.”

It will always murmur fear to us.

We are on journey without a map. We are spelunking without a head lamp. We are swimming up to our necks in the water of lessons and frequently don’t know which way is the shore.

It is up to us to notice how the challenges are making us stronger. It is up to us to stop and thank the lessons for helping us become more of who we were born to be. We are the seer. We are the wise student. Always, always thank the lesson.

 

How cutting toe nails was a major goal for me

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Or, perhaps, I could write about that gloriious day months after my hip replacement surgery when I was able to get on my underpants without a Cirque de Soleil contortion routine across chairs, the bed, sometimes holding on to the top of a short wall. I developed a system and it was awkward. It was prone to failure and once in a while a fall.

So often I notice that we mortals toddle along like cartoon characters dump de dump de dump. We do the same things daily. There is a rhythm of success we don’t even notice. Our minds are restless and on the look out for the disappointments, the dropped glass pitcher moments, the flat tire on the high way, the slip with the knife while cooking.

But almost generally, we can say things work. We get from our homes to our appointments. The clothes we put into the washer come out clean. The slow cooked chicken is succulent and safely done to the bone.

If an angel rang a bell for every successfully completed task during our everyday, we would be deafened.

Every single day we experience a thousand victories which we don’t even notice.

It is only when the front door warps and the key won’t turn the lock that we realize that disaster can stop us in our tracks. How do I get in, if the key doesn’t work?  And then it is time to repair, replace, restructure, reassess. Then it comes home, the realisation of the complexity of everyday rituals.

What I noticed most about not being able to sit or walk for 15 months was that my toe nails began to look like the claws of a giant ant eater. They hooked on the sheets, caught on curtains, were painful in shoes and made getting anything other than a skirt or dress on impossible.

I had to take myself for a slow walk on the sidewalk. I had to gently begin physiotherapy. When I walked, I lurched to the left because the muscles in my right hip had weakened from two years or more of not working properly.

The surgeon slid over to me in a chair, made eye contact and popped his eyes out at me to try to explain that my expectations were child like. He was direct. But I could see myself on a unicorn riding over a rainbow to cotton candy land through his gaze.

fantasy shoes

I lurched so unpredictably that I repeatedly ran off of the narrow cement walking highway. One day I said to my neighbour, “I need a tee shirt that says,’ I am not drunk or stoned. I am just relearning to walk.’ ”

And then the glorious day 6 months after surgery, I did it. I brought my feet up toward me and I clipped my predator’s nails. An entirely new future opened for me. I could wear socks, and slide my feet into all of my shoes. I could wear long pants and successfuly push my now civilized toe nails down the tube to pop out below.

What I have known on some level, is that I have never realized how many “missions” I have completed successfully in my life. The habit of self criticism is strong. But I feel like an Olympian with a gold medal now: I can walk. I can put on my own underpants. I can clip my toe nails . Damn, it feels good.

Why is “normal” actually “harmful”?

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We can be like Cinderella’s step sisters or like a middle weight boxer trying to “fit in” to the category we wish to enter. We think, “I want to be a princess so I will cram my foot into these shoes.” We think, ” I must shed weight no matter what the physical cost to be able to compete.”

Social Signalling is out of our control. Our neurons are set up to synk with the behavior of people we observe around us. It is a left over survival pattern. Back in time, we observed others and if Kruk did not follow the ways of those around him and just decided the red berries looked delicious, he would end up curled on the ground poisoned dead. It was a matter of the discontinuance of Kruk and of his DNA.

In the world entranced by the manichaen doctrine the soul of a wicked one was like someone carrying the plague. Wiki tells us Manichaeism taught that life in this world is unbearably painful and radically evil. In Manichaeism inner illumination reveals that the soul, which shares in the nature of God, has fallen into the evil world of matter and must be saved by the means of spirit or intelligence. Consequently, in a society where survival depended on being connected to a village, shunning and exile were used as a passive death sentence.

No food would be given, no shelter, no warmth either physical or emotional. If a member of a social group broke the law of the normal, they were possessed by the devil and were left to die.

Even more contemporarily, various groups use exclusion as a way of controlling desired behavior.

The result is that we have in our DNA the memory of complying with what is considered normal. It is one of the reasons that social signalling controls our choices.

And so we, when trapped in a crowded theatre and fire breaks out, follow the crowd even if it leads to death. And so when we have evidence that certain behaviors shorten our lives and sabotage our health, it is worth it for us. At least we are not alone.

The only way we can pull ourselves out of this hypnotic state of automatically following the mores and choices of members of our social group is to become “the watcher.” We can teach ourselves to sit back as if we are in a drawing class and really concentrate on what we are seeing. We see the lines, the shapes, the patterns, the presentation of behaviors. We take time to consider each action.

The questions to ask ourselves are: “Does this serve the greater good? Does this action, this decision make me healthier, stronger, a better version of myself?”

It is like the mindfulness walk of a Buddhist sanga. Step, step, stop. And as one foot touches another the mind connects to the ground. The mind focuses in on the now. The mind can ask, “Where are you going?” “Are you in balance?”

who could you be?

We are in a time when “normal” no longer is of service to our own lives; to the culture surrounding us; to the earth.

It is time to see who you were meant to be. It is time to grow into a deeply connected self. But not connected to others mindlessly following. We start to wonder who we could be…. if only…..

Time is a myth

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I find I have slipped from one sense of time to another from month to month and from year to year in the last three years of chaotic awakening.

. As I have healed, as I have become a grown-ass woman and no longer a wounded adolescent, my relationships have changed.

In the climate of nowness, I am telling people, “I don’t do time.” What I mean by that is I have released the necessity of validating myself by the pulse of the beat between a desire or an event or the arrival of an Amazon package and that swack of the wish arrow into the bull’s eye. If I ” achieve” something quickly am I a more valuable person than if it takes me years?

I can feel that old addiction to adrenaline if I focus on time.

Alone with self

“Hurry up, hurry up or you will miss the train, the boat, the plane, the appointment, the opportunity. All will dissolve and fade.”

When these thoughts appear, I feel the flood of adrenalin surge as it rushes through my veins and my Fitbit will even report back to me my heart rate has gone up.

What if all of this projection about validation, about deserving, about achieving is created by my own thought energy?

And so I set out like a sandel-footed acolyte creating the no-path path with each step.

“Who am I now?” I ask myself. Then I drop the question into the void and turn away my narcissistic gaze.

Life is so much more peaceful without gripping like a starving child at the hand of time. Life is so much more peaceful without scanning the face of a person I meet to see if he or she loves me enough. Life is so much more peaceful when I don’t quiver in fear when I get a bill or pay my taxes.

At first, the feeling is of the life of a ghost creature. Who am I if I am not anxious, worried, fearful, and focused on achieving to prove I deserve to live?

Then nothingness appears. Then the sense of blankness appears. There is no avatar for transitioning.

receive the now

I spent years breathing through the storm of thoughts that showed up to lecture me, to urge me to audition to be me.

It is called faith. I had faith that eventually the release of time, and of identify and of chasing the rabbit like a greyhound on a track would be the correct behavior. What will happen without those defining neuroses?

Slowly things begin to appear in my life. I slept more deeply. I am no longer startled by abrupt sounds. I did not have flashes of trauma going through an intersection when I drive. I began to feel smooth and soft. The hard shell of defensiveness, the brittle layer of intellectual processing, the constant comparison of myself to another to see which one of us was the most something or another… just stopped.

I am most aware of my journey when I wake up. I call it surfacing. I float up from my dreams and my body becomes reborn as a casing, a home, a nurturing organism. I feel my bed under me and am grateful for its comfort and support. I extend the waking up process as long as I can. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

So I have given up time with the understanding that I am the creator of the time I live. And it stretches on and on like a desert of colored sand. I can go in any direction I desire. Now is perfect.

 

 

 

Hallucinating Reality

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I wake up with my new Russian Blue cat pushed against my legs. Day after day of dense ponderous rain has been falling. All of us welcomed it. The numerous fires breaking out every summer have begun early. They began in April and seered right through to May. Just a week ago we were choked by the brown-gray sky and warned against the evil of outside.

The rain appeared like a blessing that comes from a genii. It was instant. It was within the parameters of what the seeker of a miracle had asked for. But, as always with hope and fate and dread there was that twist, the sting of literally getting what was wished for.

My new thrift store shoes priced in the world of heavy-edged commerce at over $100 were red and sparkling on my feet soaked to the gunnels by the pooling rainwater. As I determinedly made my way to “accomplish” the purchase of items on my list, I was stopped twice by other women who were also wearing Italian-brand shoes.  We stood facing one another showing off our shoes and delighting in our “tribe” of niche consumers.

As my hair became rivulets to channel the heavy rain, I thought about how much my life had been about a rhythm of collapse in the face of opposition and then arising to heroically push forward.

as above, so below
as within, so without

The failed hip, the fear of death lurking outside my door, constant pain. The angels of hope kept showing up to grab me under each armpit and stand me on my feet.

Just before the smoke appeared to threaten our lungs, Tod, my companion cat became anxious and twitchy. He could feel it coming. He was restless and unsettled. Jumping from one viewing place to another, he had all senses alert.

And once the rain came, both he and I relaxed into a deep, long sleep.

“When will my life begin for real,” my ego asks me. “When will I achieve my goals and stand strong and triumphant?”

And then I remind myself that after 78 years of life, I should know by now, it is not a single track run for a prize life.

The struggle is always in the physicality of existence. I torture myself with phrases like “When will you be what you want to be?” I lash myself with the whips of familial and societal expectations.

Nobody tells a five-year-old that simply rising to a challenge; simply loving and caring for the body; simply having a consistently compassionate reaction to others is achieving something. Nobody hangs a gold medal on the chest of an individual who resists the mass hallucination spun out spell-casting of reality.

It is like pushing through bars of a prison, this life.

And as I wake up with Tod, the cat laying on my left leg with his legs wrapped around my calf, I hear him purr.

And as I wake up still alive and held by my body with no pain, I know that pushing myself into satisfying some installed craving by my ancestors, my society has once again been avoided. I am focused on living peacefully. That is a life beyond the insanity of hallucinated chaos.

I watch my thoughts and my actions and I see how skilled I am becoming at dismissing the siren’s call asking me to run my life based on fear and phobia.

Yesterday, I thought, “You have been so closed down, you have forgotten to look at a flower.”

Today, I intend to spend time appreciating the miracle of a flower continuing to burst forth in beauty in the midst of cold, killer smoke and heavy beating rain. How heroic is the lilac, the daisy, the iris. We are like that. We are blossoming. We must congratulate ourselves.

 

Spring is an expectation

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Outside my window rain, rain, rain day after day the gray clouds are wrung out by wind and pushed high over the surrounding mountain ridges. A daffodil or two has survived the tourist deer touring through our neighbourhood. They used to feed on Knox Mountain but now with climate disruption, they come in family groups to treat our carefully planted gardens like a salad bar in a buffet. I cannot be angry with the eight in my yard today. Their ribs are prominent and signal malnutrition. Their world no longer supports them.

I have sprayed deterrent. I placed silver pin wheels to spin confusion and trigger the hesitancy of fear in their faces as they bend their heads to nibble down the burgeoning bulbs to the ground with one delicate bite after another.

The days play with us. The flirtation can come on in a moment with the clouds parting to allow sun to leak out and sometimes even allow escaping warmth. Just as quickly the clouds are blown back to cover the sky. The only variation is how high they hang. At times, they are layered across the tops of the surrounding mountains. At others they are low enough to form a backdrop to the black drama of branches in neighbour’s trees.

Next to the door are coats for protection against the shifting climates. The light weight one has been worn a few times but stays on the hook attesting to the optimism with which I face the two steps down into the outside world. My triple-layered, hooded blizzard coat hangs next to the lighter choice. Too many times I have opened the door to weak sunshine and had the whip of stinging wind slap me.

At least…. I keep thinking. Back East the maps have eliptical circles showing where the weather is to be feared either now or in the near future. ‘Guerilla hail’ is falling to create an attack likened to warfare on those who move along the sidewalk or rush to the car for shelter.

At least our houses are not being ripped up by the angry Gods of Valhalla to punish humankind.

And there are the occasional surviving bright yellow golden daffodills standing tall but with the petals closed around the heart. Volunteering in my garden bed out back, I found early snow glories. I pinched the tiny blue flowers off between my fingernails and placed them in a miniature clay pot I held with two tight fingers.

They sit now in front of the Buddha in the window reminding me that sometimes the subtle signs are a cause for optimism. At least…. I keep thinking.

 

Time and Intention are the enemy of Unexpected gifts.

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The day began hesitantly. First, the hot water run in the bathtub for the washing of hair and stretching of limbs was intended. The screen addiction’s blue light trance caught my mind. After going through the email and seeing possibilities; chaotic offers of peace; warnings that this class or video or lesson would become cannibalistic and eat itself out of existence any moment; the lost losers wailing in the valley of abandonment and those indecipherable messages from some long dead language from another planet I am by now too tired to try to decipher. I delete, delete, delete. Next, I must remove the dead bodies from the field and leave my trash as pristine as I found it.
I push back the cleaning, laundry and prep for new incoming guests in order to get into the tub before the thought of a hot bath had totally dissolved.
I wash my hair while listening to Jason Stephenson soothe affirmation towards me like a lover with his warm breath. “I am blossoming,” I repeat out loud as I soap up my head and dunk it beneath the water line. “I am at peace in the world,” I repeat as I smooth the conditioner through my increasingly longer locks. “I am supported by the universe,” I chant towards the bathroom ceiling as I douse my head with repeatedly used water.
After the ritual of cleansing, I go to the bed to breathe along with Wim Hoff. Almost immediately I feel prickles of energy along my flesh and inside my body. I feel like my cells are drinking tiny cappuccino cups of delicious caffeine liquid. I push against my capacity for breath and expand it more and more. I float in a sea of thoughts, plans, visions, voices, and intentions. All of the shards of half-seen things break off from their mooring and I watch them fly past me as I release them with my breath, through the ceiling into the field of what is.
After dressing, I dress the bed and address the new cat.
I walk out onto the lawn barefoot to feel the day all over me from foot to face. I say, “Hello birdies.” I always say, ” Hello birdies, ” when they sing. It seems only right.
The rituals of morning end up being the rituals of day because I have detached myself from time now. I justify it to my ego by reminding that cranky critic that I started my first job at 8. Now, 70 years later I chose to not be chained at the ankles by time. I am barefoot on the lawn. The birds sing. What will happen will happen.
Finally, I understand I do not need to have an opinion about everything that happens. Finally, I understand I do not need to have an opinion about every blade of grass, every leaf, and every passing being on my sidewalk.
This. This is now. My hair is washed, the room is ready for the next guest. I feel at home in myself.
May be an image of chess
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