Today's Little Wonders

Ha. I just scrolled back about four years on this blog to an entry titled "Drawn by Pleasure." I find that lo and behold, I am on the very same quest. Still. Or again. Or perhaps both. From the standpoint that I should be a pro at something I've been working on for four years, this was not an encouraging thought. But on the other hand--I'm thinking that it is still my quest because this is one of my passions in life--to discover the big and small joys of the present, to be fully alive in this moment in which I live, and to see the wonder in the everyday.

So I ask myself what I have learned about this in four years, and I am glad to say that here are several things I know a bit deeper now than I did then:

1. Busyness moves me out of the zone of seeing the little things: breathing the air, gazing on the sky. Well, I still breathe the air, but I don't even
notice that. When I load my schedule, dovetailing appointments, deadlines, and chauffeuring teens, I sprint through the moments. I live for the future, a nebulous intangible promise of rest delayed by this frenetic effort of mine to keep all the irons in my fire equally hot.

2. I'm in charge of not just what I put on my schedule, but how much I allow that self-imposed merry-go-round of life to pressure me with oughts, shoulds, and guilt for less-than-brilliant follow-through. No one else can slow my  merry-go-round down. Just me.

3. No matter how often I find myself in one of these times when I'm moving too fast, feeling out of touch with myself and wondering how I got there, I can start over. I can slow down. Rework my schedule to include more moments to smell the roses, sip the coffee, laugh with loved ones. If I scale back on the activities that are crowding out these small and oh-so-vital-to-me wonders, I will be much more able to live in the present.

4. And finally, I'm learning that it's okay. For me and any of you that might be reading this and seeing yourself reflected, we need to remember that we're eternal beings. If we rush through some of our moments, in the long run it will still be a mere blip on our timeline. We'll lose a lot more of our peace and enjoyment if we spend our time regretting what has already passed. It's the now that needs our focus. This morning. This minute in which I'm watching the sun come up, hearing a whippoorwill calling in the creek bottom, and yes, sipping a good cup of Colombian Supremo. What does this moment hold for you? What are you seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting?

These moments are gifts. But we'll whiz right by them in our busyness if we're not mindful. I'm in the process (once again) of re-working my calendar to include a lot more of these moments; and if your merry-go-round of a schedule is moving way too fast, I invite you to join me!

These Little Wonders