Tag: awareness

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

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What is happiness, anyway? Does anybody know? It’s taken me 80 years to figure out that it’s not a tranquil, sunlit realm at the top of the ladder you’ve spent your whole life hauling yourself up, rung by rung. It’s more like the thing that Christians call grace: you can’t earn it, you can’t strive for it, it’s not a reward for virtue. It exists all right, it will be given to you, but it’s fluid, it’s evasive, it’s out of reach. It’s something you glimpse in the corner of your eye until one day you’re up to your neck in it. And before you’ve had time to take a big gasp and name it, it’s gone.

So I’m not going to spend what’s left of my life hanging round waiting for it. I’m going to settle for small, random stabs of extreme interestingness – moments of intense awareness of the things I’m about to lose, and of gladness that they exist. Things that remind me of other things. Tiny scenes. Words that people choose, their accidentally biblical turns of phrase. Hand-lettered signs, quotes from books, offhand remarks that make me think of dead people, or of living ones I can no longer stand the sight of. I plan to keep writing them down, praising them, arranging them like stepping stones into the dark. Maybe they’ll lead me somewhere good before I shrivel up and blow away.

— Helen Garner, from “Helen Garner on happiness: ‘It’s taken me 80 years to figure out it’s not a tranquil, sunlit realm’” in the Guardian, February 4, 2023

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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Recently, I read a book about hard decisions at the late stages of life that moved me: Don DeLillo’s Zero K. In one passage that has stayed with me, a character reflects on the small, beautiful elements that make up a life. She describes a shower to her stepson: “I think about drops of water,” she says. “I think about drops of water. How I used to stand in the shower and watch a drop of water edge down the inside of the sheer curtain. How I concentrated on the drop, the droplet, the orblet, and waited for it to assume new shapes as it passed along the ridges and folds, with water pounding against the side of my head.

— Lora Kelley, P.S., The Atlantic Daily Newsletter (July 20, 2023)

Notes:

  • Special Note. Friends, my apologies for the blog malfunctions in the past week, 99% were self inflicted wounds that I’m still working to resolve. I have lost my posts for the past week and a half along with all of your wonderful comments. My apologies. Thank you for your patience. (And given my state of mind in this repair progress, all maddening because it could have all been avoided, I thought this post was particularly timely for me. A big shout out to the WordPress staff for their patience, guidance and support.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

Walking. And walking. And walking.

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So, here we are. 1095 consecutive (almost) days on this morning walk at Cove Island Park. Like in a row.

And but for Paul pointing it out yesterday, I would have missed this Large milestone. On May 5th, it was 3 years on this daily walk, I mean 3 years, I don’t even need to count the damn days. It’s been 3 years.

And it’s just like DK, not to ponder how he’s changed, what’s changed, and not to reflect upon all the good that’s come out of this….but to focus on the edges of some nonsense. Paul had to remind me. Can you believe that? I’m forgetting a lot of important sh*t, and don’t even know it.

Every 100 feet or so, my hand reaches for the camera, and then gently sets it back to rest on my shoulder. I’m seeing Nothing worthy. All I see, is Same. Been here. Saw that. Done that. Tired of that. Posted that. 1095 days, on the same track, what do you expect?

I walk.

Stewing. Tired. Dragggggging. Wally’s snoozing. Susan will be asleep for another 2 hours. And here I am traipsing around a worn out track.

Mary Louise Kelly’s Act III: “Act III is the one where it dawns on us that there may not be an infinite number of acts, that we’d best get on with making the most of this one. Which prompts a delightful, nerve-racking question or two: What now? What next?”

I walk. Continue reading “Walking. And walking. And walking.” →

I say a silent thanks. For the beauty of that.

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I sometimes think I could write my own book on what dogs, specifically, do for us — and I don’t mean the herding, the hunting, the guarding. I mean what they do for us emotionally and spiritually. My relationship with Regan would give me much of the material I need, and that material would include how dogs turn our attention toward, and heighten our appreciation of, nature.

The centrality of an animal or animals in our lives reminds us of all the other animals out there, of how the world teems with remarkable and curious creatures, some of which our dogs and cats bark or hiss at, some of which they chase, a few of which they kill, at least if they’re sufficiently bloodthirsty and skilled.

But dogs also connect us with nature because they invite and encourage us to venture with them into it. We spend more time outdoors and more time appreciating the outdoors, whether we’re in cities, suburbs, exurbs or rural areas.

With Regan, I take forest walks of a length and adventurousness that I wouldn’t otherwise, and when her nose twitches and her ears swivel at the smell or sound of something, I find my own curiosity piquing, my own senses sharpening. I hear the woodpecker that had escaped my notice just seconds before. I see the white tail of a deer almost obscured in tall grass. To follow Regan’s gaze is to be introduced to the turtle moseying over the lip of the creek, to the fat wild turkey waddling up a distant slope. They were always there, but I wasn’t around to note them, or I wasn’t surveying the landscape with the requisite reverence.

But take the woods and the hikes out of the equation and Regan still reorients me toward the natural world. A walk with her around the block means breezes and bird song. In opening the door to let her out of and into the house, I notice a shimmering orange sun as it tugs itself above the horizon, a smudgy red one as it takes its final bow. I pause. I say a silent thanks. For the beauty of that. For the dog in the dimming light.

—  Frank Bruni, “On A Personal Note” in The New York Times, April 6, 2023

Tuesday Morning Wake-Up Call

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You know what, explain this to me. We live with miracles at our fingertips. We fly to the stars. We split atoms. We’ve got robots taking out the trash. Why, are we all still waiting, to live our dreams? Well, there’s a technical term for that in my business, that’s called a shit deal. Our best days are piling up in the rear view, and that hope, it keeps us going, it’s wearing down to the bone. Some of us are losing people we love. And just like that, any day now, that turns into too late. Gone forever. Because every day we’re not living for now, right now, we’re waiting around dying, one empty promise at a time. I’m not waiting around anymore God damn it. Neither should you. The time is NOW. And regret is a killer worse than death.

— Jack Billings (Billy Crudup), Hello Tomorrow! (S1:E1 – Your Brighter Tomorrow, Today. AppleTV+ Original)