These recent days have been full. Beyond full.
In a very busy
week with details, eligibility verifications, notarized documents, accounting
and facts, reports, legislation, rule-following and other compliance tedium, I
found the moments that saved me, that filled my soul:
meditative
conversations with friends old and new;
offering comfort
for somebody who is dying, confused and angry;
observing four
eggs that rest under a chatty feathered mom;
her happy groans
as I massaged my dog’s belly;
calming yoga
poses with people who are suffering;
bicycle rambles
along tree-lined country roads;
kissing a five
week old loudly-mewing kitten;
viewing seventy
year old paintings of the giant redwoods;
sleeping a deep
and dreamless night;
receiving the
gift of a sandpapery, aged cat tongue on my cheek, or her paw stroking the
side of my face at two AM …
Half an hour
ago, I encountered yet another saving moment:
I stepped out
for five minutes to run the quickest errand. I watched as traffic streamed past
into the only lane of traffic available for my simple right hand turn. A crazed
woman behind me, with no right-of-way, decided to illegally pass me (using the
sidewalk for her car wheels) to zoom into a left turn lane – only to slam on
her brakes at the red light that prevented her further passage. I ruminated on
this, knowing I’ve been that silly, unsafe driver in my own ridiculously
rushing moments. BUT, just as I sat at my own red light in the next block down
the road, I turned my head to the right and saw - on a tree at the cemetery - a
fat woodpecker searching the trunk at the edge of the lawn. What a delight! The
woman, the insanity of reckless driving, my completed errand, the work tasks
ahead of me for the day: these all
vanished as I stilled into the moment of the bird on the tree. It doesn’t take
much to bring me back into the moment. And for this, I am so grateful.
These saving
moments are beyond words, and fill me in a different way than tasks fill the
calendar. They flesh me out. The calendar scatters me across the experience of
the day, shards that step up and serve the need of the minute. But the other
stuff, the soulfillers, these are a
respite: a rest on the cool smoothed
rock in the center of the river on the edge of the blazing hot trail. And they
bring me back together into Wholeness.
All blog photographs taken by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted.
