It is a rare thing, I am home alone tonight. Mom invited Isadora and Tristan for an overnight, which is actually her birthday present for me, getting to sleep in tomorrow.
So I have an entire night to myself, how will I spend it? Since I was up most of the night last night I took a nap late this afternoon. Then I got up, read two science magazines cover to cover while I ate all the cherry flavored taffee out of the candy jar. This felt (and was) some major sloth on my part, but hey, I think I deserve a bit of goofing off after my franticly paced few weeks.
I took a nice long hot shower which was so rejuvenating, and opened my mind up for some wonderful insights. Then I lounged in bed, turning thoughts over in my mind and reflecting on the past year. I normally do this on my birthday and have done so since I was very young. I remember sneaking away from my birthday party each year and walking in the rain by myself, immersed in my pensive young thoughts. This year I thought perhaps it would be best to do my looking back the night before, and devote tomorrow to looking ahead.
So now it is a bit after 9:00, I think I shall go out and enjoy the beauty of this wonderful spring night.
Entries
Lately I have a tremendous urge to read. It’s almost as if I eat letters or even breath them. Every spare minute is used for reading, reading, reading, and reading some more.
What does this mean? – That I don’t really take 30 quiet minutes a day. I am on my own, that’s true; I made a comfortable reading corner in our bedroom, where I spend at least 30 minutes a day. Reading.
I think I’m not really going to coach myself into doing otherwise. My life has been very busy last year and I think this is my way to relax. I also have a job that stresses me out every now and then (I’m a teacher), and reading is my escape route. A way to stop my worries and thoughts.
I’m confident that just reading-reading-reading will turn into read some-think some-sit some in the near future.
I took the 30 minutes of me-time every night before I went to sleep. I read and wrote in my journal. This makes me feel good, but in the future I will try to do less than that in the 30 minutes. Try to just relax, contemplate. Meditate?
Last night for the first time ever I spent New Year’s Eve in quiet solitude. I put the kids to bed and tidied up the living room, then lit the four candles on my mantle and spent quite some time meditating. It really was nice to spend some quality time with myself, bathed in the glow of candlelight and listening to the pouring rain outside. I was in my own beautiful little world and I completely relished it.
It was nearly 11:00 by the time I got Tristan to bed last night, a bit late to start painting. So I decided to dig out my journals and retrace my path the past few years.
The two journals I was looking for couldn’t be found, the ones that have most of my dreams recorded in them. The two that I did find were full of ideas I have been toying with for quite some time, a few dreams that I had forgotten about but it was the perfect time to re-read, and some long ago entries about my life and state of mind which really made me realize how far I have come.
After a while I put my journals aside and indulged in a bit of daydreaming.
I am going to curl up and watch my all time favorite movie, Amelie. I have to do this every few months, it perks me up, refreshes my hope and sense of whimsy, and its just a beautiful movie. Ahhhh, and so romantic in a totally non-Hollywood way.
I take such long hot showers that it is embarrasing how much water I use. So instead of just standing there in the heavenly stream of water feeling guilty as I turn pink, I have been using that time to meditate. I find that I lose myself completely, it is a much deeper meditation that on dry land. Today I felt like I had checked out of myself completely and was a bit disoriented when I opened my eyes again. But I was deeply relaxed and calm afterwards.
dreamcatcher is being quiet.
That’s twenty minutes meditation and then ten minutes resting, repeating my thoughts for the day internally, asking myself, “How do I feel?” and then finding out how this emotion feels in my body. This little ritual does so much to keep me grounded.
I haven’t had insomnia in a long time (thankfully, it used to be chronic) but it resurfaced last night. So I’m awake, ok. Far too cold outside of the cozy blankets to get out of bed. So I curled even deeper into the covers and savored the quiet of the night. Then all of these realizations came flooding into my mind, little epiphanies about why I do certain things and why it would be a good thing to change some of them. I felt truly calm after relizing these things and eventually drifted back to sleep.
Mom unexpectedly called this morning and offered to take the kids out for the day. Since I had a house to clean and birthday party to prepare (a suprise one for Mom) it was a nice thing. I had a stupidly long to-do list, and the first thing I did was…absolutely nothing. Quite the best thing to do first if one has a stupidly long to-do list, otherwise I have no idea how it all would have gotten done.
I brewed a hot cup of tea and made like a feline, curling up in a sunny spot on the sofa and just stared out the huge window in the living room. Bliss. It was so very quiet, or at least that’s what I thought at first. The absence of the usual soundtrack of my days, children laughing/playing/arguing/shreiking/thundering through the house seemed like silence in comparison, but as my ears adjusted to the new noise level I realized that my silence was actually quite alive with sounds. I could hear the drip of the kitchen faucet, the hum of the refrigerator and the computer in the other room. Peel away another layer and the faint sounds outside the house could be heard, the wind rustling the remaining brilliantly colored leaves, a squirrel rummaging on the porch for a tasty bite, cars driving by, birds in the tree. Then I became aware of my own sounds, my breathing, swallowing, tiny rustling from slight movements. We are never in silence, we simply uncover a layer of sound that had been drowned out before.
I breakfasted on an orange, making a point to really experience eating it, it became an intense sensual experience. I became totally engrossed in that orange, the sounds of it, the color, the texture, the sweet bite as the juice touched my tongue. I must say, it was the most fascinating orange I have ever eaten. And it made me hungry, not for food but for experiencing life at such a heightened level of awareness.
I must remember, MUST remember! I have built the walls in the wrong places, I tried to shut out distractions, the common, the mundane, how misguided. The only thing that keeps that which makes you forget at bay is to passionately embrace life, every moment. This utterly expansive living is what leaves no room for things that distract from Truth.
