I can't sleep…
Today, God, help me focus on a peaceful pace rather than a harried one.
I will keep moving forward gently, not frantically.
Help me let go of my need to be anxious, upset, and harried.
Help me replace it with a need to be at peace and in harmony.
~ Melody Beattie, from “Going Easy” in The Language of Letting Go
Photo: Alejandro García Restrepo via I Hear It in the Deep Heart’s Core
I empty myself with light
Until I become morning.
— Charles Wright, from “33,” Littlefoot: A Poem
Notes:
There is joy to be found in the most minuscule of choices, in the pockets of slowness concealed inside each ordinary day: ten minutes in the morning in which to write down our dreams, five minutes in the late afternoon in which to stand by a window and watch the changing colors of the sunset, another pause before bed for a brief moment of prayer. Such things do not demand an inordinate commitment. From outside, our lives may look much as they have always done. We alone will recognize the small, rejuvenating pleasures, the invisible sustenance: the difference between skimming a text and taking the time to read it slowly and in depth; between emailing our friend, and making time to sit with her and talk; between rushing through our days, and honoring “the space between,” allowing space to muse and brood and wonder and exult, to bask in our accomplishments.
~ Christian McEwen, World Enough & Time: On Creativity and Slowing Down.
Notes:
I distrust the perpetually busy; always have.
The frenetic ones spinning in tight little circles like poisoned rats.
The slower ones, grinding away their fourscore and ten in righteousness and pain.
They are the soul-eaters.
~ Mark Slouka, excerpt from Quitting the Paint Factory
Art: Hélène Boutanos, illustrator from Paris, France.
6:32 a.m. I exit Grand Central onto 47th. I glance at my watch, plenty of time for the 7 a.m. breakfast.
The crane’s steel arm groans and stretches up four floors. One worker guides the load of sheet rock in through the window. Another waves off the early morning commuters with his red caution flag. He looks me in the eye and directs me to the other side of the street.
I cross.
Have you ever walked this side of 47th? Ever? Eight years. 100’s of cross-town walks. Zero recollection of ever walking on the other side.
I glance over. It’s now free of construction. The wind whistles. Come back. Now. Come Home to me.
I lean right but resist. No. Not today. Live dangerously DK. Go way out on a limb.
I walk.
The legs and feet are heavy. I trudge on alien ground. The Amygdala twitches.
I pass delivery upon delivery truck offloading the day’s supplies.
“Fiji Water. Fiji. Untouched by man. Every drop is green.”
I pass the jewelry district
“Time in Motion – Watch Repair”
Continue reading “Walking Cross-Town. 47th, wrong side.”