My Moment

I turned off my phone and did not turn it back on until the following evening. It was a whole day without split attention. A temporary narrowing of external influence and inundation. 

A pause. 

When I shut off my phone, I immediately feel at ease. After several hours, I feel free. 

It quiets the internal itch for distraction, the tease and tug to look beyond the reality of the moment. I want to be in my moment. To be in my home. It might be a little boring or unpleasant sometimes. Here there are children occasionally arguing, weeping, or whining. Here there may be low cold clouds and wet winter wind. There may be floors to vacuum, dishes to wet and wash, and laundry to flap, fold, pile, and put away. 

I love it - this hiding. For no one (aside from my children) can find me.

Here in my moment, I settle into silence, stillness, and presence. I attune to the energy, emotion, and play around me. I too am like a child in my simple single attention. 

When My Longing Left Me

I was in a time of longing, of wanting what I didn't and couldn't have. I am prone to this sometimes. I think many of us are. I would look for a home on the edge of a meadow. I would look for land beside a mountain. I would look for a farmhouse with a garden. I would look and look. Then one day, I understood. We cannot go anywhere. We can barely afford this house, this life, let alone a fancier fantasy one. And with this obvious realization, my longing left me. Truly. It could have felt like a trap or a prison, but instead, it feels like rooting and reaching. 

My acceptance blesses me with inspiration. Suddenly, I am energized to organize and simplify, clean, garden, and run with the children. To take them to the stream, and to the boulder where the tree grows from its mossy belly. Through acceptance and gratitude, there is an opening, an invitation for spiritual investment and abundance. Here! Look at all this around us. We have everything we need. Let us live within our means. It is a small house, yes. And yet, I wouldn't want one bigger. Therefore, let us repaint the walls. Let us take old clutter to the dumpster. Let the children and I plant vegetables and berries on a small plot in the community garden. 

No place is perfect. No place is happiness. It is the embrace of the present moment. It has and is everything. Yes, it is this simple.

I have one hour.

I run for my coat, hat, and boots. 

Once again, I go to the woods. 

Look at the ordinary glory of the moment: the frozen mud, paw, hoof, and boot marks, and the gold and olive mounds of moss over stone. The woods in winter are bare and yet cluttered with monuments of life, from the murmurations of migration, to the scurrying squirrels, to the fringe of fern and pine. Dry lines of grass bend into mangled waves. The air is cold and clean. Streams drip, rush, curl, and gather into puddles, pools, and ponds. Everywhere, the leaves of history lie in delicate layers and ruffled piles, torn pages from the books of oak, ash, aspen, and birch. 

I walk with a paper notebook in my pocket and a pencil in my hat. Turn the world into words! And allow words to turn me back toward the world! 

Oops, I only have an hour! 

Now, I must run!

Up, around, over and through, to the road, to the road, I go!

I pause, panting, listening, 

Oh you silly humans, the cool woods call, always in such a hurry!