exquisite

The week is not quite a blur, but close.  It’s full with yoga classes and the start of a freelance writing project.  I do not clean the bathrooms except to wipe the sinks.  I manage to get the laundry done, including sheets and towels.  I do a quick sweep of the downstairs floors but leave the dusty table tops and shelves.  Dinners are cooked, hugs are (always) given.  It is enough.

The heat is intense for a few days and then it rains.  Dark clouds in one part of the sky, a wee bit of thunder, that delightful mix, for a moment or two, of downpour and sunshine, simultaneously.  Weather, weather, weather.  I think about weather often.  Sometimes my husband will teasingly ask me if I really want to talk about the weather, or if I’m just making small talk.  Yes, I really want to talk about the weather.

My cyclamen are blooming.  Still, again, and thankfully.  The succulents are doing well too, the snake plant, the pothos, my sweet, little, just-brought-home peace lily.  These dear plants are counting on me, so I will try, oh I will try.

I find my way to the pages of my journal.  On the days I’m not there, I feel a little empty spot inside me.  Or if not a spot, then a wave, a whoosh, a marking of some sort.  That is to say, I feel off.  So I find my way back, and feel more even.

Throughout the week, I am greeted by smiles and asked thoughtful questions and offered tender stories.  As I drive my daughter home from her summer job, we talk about such interactions, such connections (she has had one of her own at work), the way they are gifts.  I tell her that, as she gets older, she will be graced with more and more of these.  I tell her it’s one of the wonderful things about being human.  She is quiet but I feel her listening, she is beginning to understand what I mean, and I think what a gift to witness this piece of her becoming.

I am prone to tears lately, these drops of salted water pooling in my eyes, these watery pieces of me seeking release.  I do not feel sad or troubled (except when watching the news), these watery bits glue me to a moment: the lone dandelion in the sea of green, the peaceful yoga student, the ethereal line of poetry, the word exquisite, the knowing that I am very much exactly where I am meant to be and how it feels like some things have fallen into place effortlessly, except I know that there has been love and iteration all along, and how everything feels very spacious and very yes-ish, and so I let the tears come and I bow my head, to everything and all.

You’ve been put on the world to love the act of being alive.
~ Ray Bradbury ~

P.S. Registration is open for June’s The Quiet Page. We’re looking into Rest.
I hope you’ll join us for some writing, some community, some rest/meditation.
Click here for details and to sign up.

P.P.S. It’s the first Friday of the month, so Barbara and I are sharing a mobile photo + quote!