Our Town

I really do need to read, "Our Town," by Thornton Wilder again and I won't be able to quote it exactly, but in her monologue Emily says something to the effect, "People just don't look at each other any more."  I say this to Steve and Soph when I want to hit the pause button on life.

My camera is my pause button and today it paused on the 3 canines that live in our home, because they represent the epitome of looking at their surroundings.  Winston, the one facing away from me, is often reacting to the things around him:  the wind, a leaf, the birds and it sometimes, most of the time, drives me bonkers.  Percy, our little buddha, can hold a position forever, totally focused and Lucy is the one who brought it all to our home with the way she sidled up to me at the shelter, when I thought she was securely contained in her kennel.

Here's to a new year that involves hitting the pause button and living as Emily only realized we should be living after she died.  The words:
Emily: Oh, Mama, look at me one minute as though you really saw me. Mama, fourteen years have gone by. I'm dead. You're a grandmother, Mama! Wally's dead, too. His appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway. We felt just terrible about it - don't you remember? But, just for a moment now we're all together. Mama, just for a moment we're happy. Let's really look at one another!...I can't. I can't go on.It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. Take me back -- up the hill -- to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-bye , Good-bye world. Good-bye, Grover's Corners....Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking....and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths....and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth,you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every,every minute?
Stage Manager: No. (pause) The saints and poets, maybe they do some.
Emily: I'm ready to go back.

Me and Dee

We've now taken to calling Deepak Chopra just Dee, because I feel we are that intimate.  I'm still reading his book, though it was getting way too involved for my tastes (no pun intended) so I skipped a portion on what certain things do to your body.  I jumped ahead to today's exercise, which is a meditation and I have already forgotten what it is exactly, but I know it's about being aware.

I craved these this morning:

and a walk, because it's beautiful out, but I have to get to work, so the walk will have to happen later.

Also on my list today is finding and purchasing a menorah...more on that to come!

You Are What You Read

I am currently reading, Mad About the Boy, by Helen Fielding.  It's the third book in the Bridget Jones series and it's a total escape.

I often read more than one book at a time, usually one fiction and one non-fiction.  My current non-fiction read is Deepak Chopra's, What Are You Hungry For?  It has made me want to eat more of these:

It's all about awareness and "lightness of soul," which are really good things.  Here are four ways I lighten my soul (currently, though not always consistently):

1)  Read inspiring books (I'm also reading God Never Blinks, by Regina Brett)

2)  Exercise (the elliptical is my biggest mode of exercise right now)

3)  Meditate (using a cd and meditating for 10 minutes)

4)  Write thank you notes (part of this is for my job and part of this is because I know the benefits to me and hopefully to the recipient)

I feel the need for a fifth way, so today I will see if something strikes!

Bloom Where You Are Planted

"Bloom where you are planted," someone quoted to me a few years ago as I struggled to find my footing in our new town.

I had already bloomed in our previous town and I was too tired to try to bloom again. I had a concrete image of what blooming looked like and I just didn't have the energy to get to that point again.  The problem wasn't my circumstance, the problem was my limited definition of blooming.

I was labeling my new experiences as bad, because they felt less satisfying than my previous experiences.  A moment of clarification came when I realized my new experiences weren't good or bad, just different.  There is a story from the Buddhist tradition about a farmer losing his horse, which sets off a chain of events that the farmer does not label good or bad.  By the end of the story the farmer's son is not called to serve in the military, which seems good and it all stemmed from the lost horse, which initially seemed bad. Of course if the story continues to play out, it could be that not being called to serve in the military brings negative consequences.  By not judging each incident the farmer acknowledges that what he knows is only the immediate situation, not the full effects of each incident.  Just like in life, we have no idea what is around the corner and that not knowing pretty much scares the crud out of all of us.

An openness to what is, rather than desiring what we think is good and escaping what we think is bad, seems to be a step on the path to awareness.  Perhaps to fully bloom is to be fully aware.