Awakened by the sun flooding my bed.
A day like a crystal cup overflowing with an uninterrupted blue and gold light.
Notes:
We pulled away from the gate at DFW 30 minutes late, late Friday afternoon. Not bad. Could be worse.
Exit row, reclining seat. God Bless Shara (My Assistant). We’ve been together 6 years now. This seat, this trip, the car pick-up, managing trip expenses – here and there and there, always just right.
Jet engines on this late model Boeing throb, I’m sitting over the wings. We taxi out, make a slow turn, and then…
The engines shut down, and the Pilot comes on the intercom. No. No. No. Yes.
“Folks, I’m sorry. But there is flow control at LaGuardia. We’ve been advised that the wait could be up to 90 minutes. We need to wait on the runway in the event we get cleared sooner.”
Not a free seat open on this plane. A chorus of groans, a shifting in seats. We settle in. My arrival time, now potentially 10pm on Friday night. Shoulders slump, heaviness sets in.
I grab my smartphone and tap in “P-h-o-e-n-i-x:” (in classical mythology) a unique bird that lived for five or six centuries in the Arabian desert, after this time burning itself on a funeral pyre and rising from the ashes with renewed youth to live through another cycle.
Let’s skip the funeral pyre part. But, the rest? Bring it on. To rise from the ashes. Live through another cycle. This trip that just won’t end. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday in Phoenix at a firm wide conference. Thursday and Friday with our team in Dallas.
What did you remember? [Read more…]
the mist
moved slowly across
the field held down
by stones, stitch of trees
what colour was the mist
x-ray grey
how still was it
the iv drip before it falls…
I stopped the car to watch it cross the field
black earth breathing its winter breath…
the field disappeared in the mist
still the bison stood
life can become so still
the iv drip
before it falls
earth of the body
where a life grows
the stillness between silence
and muteness…
– Anne Michaels, from “Bison” in All We Saw: Poems
Notes: Poem from Whiskey River. Photo: Winter Morning Mist by Sébastien Mamy
It’s not you.
It’s anyone.
Sometimes I don’t want anyone around.
Some afternoons I lie on my bed and the light comes through the shutters on the floor and I think I never want to leave my own room.
-Joan Didion, Run River: A Novel
Notes:
Tuesday morning.
Early morning traffic is frictionless, commuters float down I-95 S.
It’s 42° F. It’s January. Soft, light rain. Electronics somehow (?) sense that the windshield is damp, wipers flap intermittently. Miracle. All of it.
It’s quiet in the cabin.
No radio.
No talk shows.
No podcasts.
No playlists.
The soft hum of the engine. The shifting of the sole of my right shoe on the accelerator.
And, those pernicious bumpin’ Thoughts. [Read more…]
When you get into your car, shut the door and be there for just half a minute. Breathe, feel the energy inside your body, look around at the sky, the trees. The mind might tell you, ‘I don’t have time.’ But that’s the mind talking to you. Even the busiest person has time for 30 seconds of space.
– Eckhart Tolle, from Oprah Talks to Eckhart Tolle (Oprah.com)
Notes: Quote – Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels. Photo: maggie kirkpatrick
True story: One summer, years ago, I went tubing…The sun was blazing, and the water was cool. It was a perfect day to close your eyes and let the current carry you. I was enjoying myself, until we rounded the final bend and saw the parking lot. I leaned back to get my arms in the water and I started to kick and paddle. In a froth of churning water, I passed my mom, my sister, my boyfriend and my brothers, and as I reached the dock, I shouted out, “I won!”
That’s me. All my life, I’ve made lists and set deadlines, never content, or even able, to just glide.
That kind of drive has served me well when aimed at challenges within my control, like writing a novel…I never stopped hoping that if I worked hard enough, wanted it badly enough, I’d finally get the acclaim that I craved…
That did not happen. And my brain, which had propelled me toward so many successes, could not push me past disappointment. Instead of focusing on everything that had gone right, including how lucky I was to make a living as a writer, it got stuck on what had gone wrong. Let’s think about it! my brain suggested, like a Roomba endlessly butting itself into a corner. Let’s think about it a lot. Especially at 3 in the morning. Let’s go over every single choice. Let’s dwell.
I tried yoga. I attempted meditation. Nothing helped. Instead, each spiritual setting and inner-growth-focused class presented new opportunities to compete: I held that pose for longer than anyone in the class. I’m way more Zen than she is. Finally, I remembered reading about how learning something new — creating new neural pathways — was a way to send your thoughts in different directions.
And so, after a 35-year hiatus, I started taking piano lessons again.
I had been an indifferent piano student as a kid…By high school, I had bumped up against the limits of my natural abilities. So I quit. I turned my attention toward activities at which I could excel…
Photo: videvo
To the Editor:
Re “The Solace of Birds in Winter” (Op-Ed, Dec. 15): I am smitten with my backyard birds. What is it about the industrious little souls leaping delicately about my tray feeder that so lifts the spirit? Their spunk? Their equanimity no matter the weather? The variety in their eating habits?
Mourning doves plunk themselves down in the center of the tray to chow down. The red-bellied woodpecker grips the edge and won’t yield his position. The chickadees and nuthatches take a seed each, one at a time, to a nearby branch to nibble.
A chickadee weighs less than half an ounce. Its coat of feathers, half an inch thick, keeps its tiny body at about 90 degrees even when the air temperature is zero. It is this, then, that takes my breath away and is the source of my affection — the miraculous, every day in winter, not 15 feet from my window.
Margaret McGirr
Greenwich, Conn.
New York Times, Letters, December 17, 2018
Photo: Project Feeder Watch titled “See Red” by Stephen & Judy Shelasky, Longmeadow, MA. 4 male Cardinals, a Red-bellied Woodpecker and a little sparrow checking out a female Cardinal as she flies into view.
Am I the sun inside me?
~ Kazim Ali, from “Dear Rumi,” The Far Mosque
Notes:
Waking up in the morning
I vow with all beings
to be ready for sparks…
I vow with all beings
to let the pain and surprise
slow me down to this step,
this step.
~Robert Aitken, from “Zen Vows for Daily Life”
Notes:
