I can't sleep…
Somewhere each day we have to fall in love with someone, something, some moment. Somehow each day we must allow the softening of the heart . Otherwise our hearts will move inevitably toward hardness. We will move toward cynicism, bitterness, fear and despair. That’s where most of the world is trapped and doesn’t even know it.
~ Richard Rohr, Radical Grace: Daily Meditations
Quote – Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels)
[…] Perhaps you feel it, too, as this long, hard year draws to a close — a newfound tenderness for even the smallest, most familiar sounds and sights and textures of a day, along with a heightened awareness of just how fragile and precious each moment really is. Whether or not we have lost loved ones, jobs, routines, or even faith, none of us are who we were a year ago. We’ve been remade, invisibly yet irrevocably, both by our collective grief and by our dawning recognition of the truth of who we are – connected, interdependent, vulnerable, mortal. And, just perhaps, if we’re lucky, we’ve also been altered by wonder.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’ve learned about myself during these many months of being home and being quiet. And surely the most profound lesson has been that, in spite of everything, there is beauty and meaning to be found in life as it is, right here, right now. It’s become my daily challenge, and my daily choice, to find it. As British botanist Kathleen Basford observed, “It is when we are confronted with poignant reminders of mortality that we become most aware of the strangeness and wonder of our brief life on Earth.”
If this time is our only time, and it is, then surely we do owe it to ourselves, and to each other, to pay attention, to look deeply, to listen closely, and to respond to all of it, somehow, with love and gratitude. […]
In her memoir “Wild,” Cheryl Strayed recalls her beloved mother’s parting advice to her, before her too-early death from cancer. “There is always a sunrise and always a sunset,” she told her daughter. “And it’s up to you to choose to be there for it. Put yourself in the way of beauty.”
“Put yourself in the way of beauty.” It’s such a simple instruction. And yet, what a powerful and useful reminder this is as we cross the threshold into an even more challenging time. A reminder that we do have a choice to make each day, no matter how dark and difficult the path may be. We can choose where we put our attention, what we share, what we bow to, what we love – not in spite of what else is going on around us, but because of it. […]
— Katrina Kenison, from “choosing beauty” @ katrinakenison.com, December 31, 2020
Notes:
Remember when you would have been over-the-moon thrilled to have just a fraction of your life as it is now?
Look around you: it is enough.
KEEP MOVING
— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change (Atria/One Signal Publishers, October 6, 2020)
Photo: Daybreak. December 15, 2020. 6:39 to 7:09 am. 29° F. Feels like 23° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford CT
Head Cold. Nasal drip. Nagging cough. Light nausea. Friday the 13th. Feels about right.
6:10 am. Cove Island Park. 192 days. Consecutive, and getting long in the tooth.
45° F. Wind gusts up to 25 mph. Drizzle. Wet. Cold.
Cloud cover: 100%. Like a million %.
M-G: You’re dragging.
DK: It’s that obvious?
M-G: Snarky too.
M-G: COVID?
DK: Can’t be.
M-G: How’s that?
DK: Hood Brand Ice Cream Sandwiches.
M-G: Ice Cream Sandwiches? Continue reading “Walking. With M-G.”
Meanwhile, on afternoons and on Sundays, Surrey lay open to me. County Down in the holidays and Surrey in the term — it was an excellent contrast. Perhaps, since their beauties were such that even a fool could not force them into competition, this cured me once and for all of the pernicious tendency to compare and to prefer — an operation that does little good even when we are dealing with works of art and endless harm when we are dealing with nature. Total surrender is the first step toward the fruition of either. Shut your mouth; open your eyes and ears. Take in what is there and give no thought to what might have been there or what is somewhere else. That can come later, if it must come at all.
— C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (Published in 1955. Describes his life from early childhood in the late 1800s to 1931.)
Daybreak. September 6, 2020. 6:02 am. 63° F. Humidity: 84%. Wind: 4 mph. Gusts: 8 mph. Cloud Cover: 5%. The Cove, Stamford, CT