Today, I began thinking of ways to escape my life for a few days. Not forever, just a few days. Get in my car, take a tent or even sleep in the back of my car, drive into the woods and camp out. Live simply. Drink coffee in the morning. Eat a meal or two. Think. Look at the trees or a river or a creek or the ocean or whatever is in front of me. Think about the year ahead. Think about what to write next. Think about what is important. About what excites me. About what I want and what I should, and what I shouldn’t and what I love and what I hate and where and who and why. Without noise. With only me as advisor.
It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with my husband or my friends. I do. But once a year, maybe this time, can I ask to have time for myself? Meditation? Revival? I really need to recharge my batteries.
I’m not tired.
I’m not sad. I’m just … sluggish.
I want to sit and stare out the window at the clouds, at the wind in the trees, at the birds flying by, at the particular slant of sunlight in November. I want to watch the leaves fall, listen to dogs bark, wrap up in a blanket and just be a watcher … watching. I don’t really even want to put these images into concepts: the way the walnut leaf waves in the wind, flaps really, and from here, is barely discernable from the bird sitting next to it, the same shape, until the wind blows and the bird flies and the leaf remains. Gold, green, brown, it’s all too beautiful, life is.
Is this what I’m feeling? The passing of life, so quickly? And me, so busy, unable to stop and see even the tiniest detail in my own back yard?
Yes, this. Maybe more, but this today. That I can’t make life stop, can’t call it back, can’t haul it back, can’t holler back. I can only slow myself, and sometimes, only for minutes. And in these minutes, I find a small escape.
It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with my husband or my friends. I do. But once a year, maybe this time, can I ask to have time for myself? Meditation? Revival? I really need to recharge my batteries.
I’m not tired.
I’m not sad. I’m just … sluggish.
I want to sit and stare out the window at the clouds, at the wind in the trees, at the birds flying by, at the particular slant of sunlight in November. I want to watch the leaves fall, listen to dogs bark, wrap up in a blanket and just be a watcher … watching. I don’t really even want to put these images into concepts: the way the walnut leaf waves in the wind, flaps really, and from here, is barely discernable from the bird sitting next to it, the same shape, until the wind blows and the bird flies and the leaf remains. Gold, green, brown, it’s all too beautiful, life is.
Is this what I’m feeling? The passing of life, so quickly? And me, so busy, unable to stop and see even the tiniest detail in my own back yard?
Yes, this. Maybe more, but this today. That I can’t make life stop, can’t call it back, can’t haul it back, can’t holler back. I can only slow myself, and sometimes, only for minutes. And in these minutes, I find a small escape.