Take Time To Live

"The days are long, but the years are short." Gretchen Rubin

Some days seem to be so full that to take time to breathe is to waste the time that could be used doing what comes next. There is always more to do, always more to see, feel, hear, taste, think, know, but I digress. It's been a few months since I've written for this blog. I have been active engaging my life in the sensory experiences that surprise me and take me out of the past and into the present moment where I create my life. In a summer of new experiences, voices, people, I stepped into a greater embodiment of my life. This embodiment in itself had to be experienced in the filling of days, and subsequently, years. With so much to do, and so little time, apparently there is little time to stop and be. Or is there?

As a New Yorker, okay Long Islander, I know the meaning of rush hour. I lived on Long Island for the first twelve years of my life before living in Western New York for the last twelve. People living in Western New York, where I presently reside, seems to be in a race for time as busy becomes trendy and patience becomes a homophone for peopled treated by doctors and nurses. Time seems to have become a commodity that we compete for and prioritize as a scarce resource. What was once a shoulder for a bicyclist to use on the roads have become improvised turning lanes. We schedule appointments to converse with friends on the phone instead of calling them up to see if they're available. I sometimes wonder if our time saving cell phones make us too busy to live our lives.

When I hurry, I lose track of where I'm coming from and have a hard time finding where I'm supposed to be. The desire to fill my life is still strong, but as I fill my life, I begin to see what I might be missing by always looking ahead. I notice this most often when I'm running late to a scheduled event in my life. Everyone else seems to forget that I'm running late, that I need to get where I'm going, and I need to be there now. When I take a breath, I begin to remember that my punctuality, or lack thereof, is not their responsibility. Furthermore, when I slow my thoughts down, I realize that being concerned about my lateness won't actually get me to my destination any faster. Instead, I have time to calmly assess what affect being late will have on what I will be able to do upon arrival at Point B.

Similarly, anxiety keeps me wondering about the unknown, rather than remaining alert and aware in the present. The anxiety and fear of the unknown makes it hard to be happy and let myself fully be. I want the days to be long, to be memorable, and to be fully realized so that when my year is viewed in reverse, I can see what I can reminisce on with gratitude and joy. I don't want my hurriedness to be recalled with regret. I want a memory to be one of pride and maybe even whimsy. So how do I challenge myself to live a life I will be fully satisfied by?

I have heard about doing that which I am afraid of, to recognize the deeper knowing that life's goodness rests in every act of kindness and breath of smile. In the very real snowball of anxiety, I can listen to what I fear, and listen to what I know, and step into that which is about to happen with less apprehension and more excitement. For the best is what is to be created right now for a future of remembering and continued living. It is then by realizing growth as a claim to the life I am living that I fulfill the life I dream. For life is about diving in and discovering the unknown as it runs through my fingers and soaks my shirt in the juice of living.

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To be present is to notice what is right before me. To make some life out of a moment and realize all that is unfolding before me and in me, before you and in you. Smile.

Unspoken Realities

What is unspoken is not necessarily something unheard. What we feel and discover during an interaction or moment with ourselves or with others can still reach through to the heart as it beats out a cadence of what we experience. It then later remains imbedded in memory and feeling when we live and remember. These unspoken realities bring us to deeper places of our selves, of our relationships, connections, and places. What we live and feel in a moment can stay with us a lifetime.

This isn't something that is always good or bad. It is what we make of it now and forever. As meaning and feeling emerge or intersect in time these experiences shape us. These times that are unspoken because they are too deep for words are spoken through expressions and the feelings that fill our eyes. This is how we are changed by our feelings as they fill in the blanks where there is an absence of words.

 First impressions, fleeting glimpses of nature's beauty, nostalgia, evocative creativity, all create these times where we feel with our senses before we feel our souls turning to receive them. What I feel when I smell a fresh pine tree as I walk beneath the boughs covered in sunlight. How the cool air of a summer breeze ventilating a car on a drive along city streets.  Hearing the  echoes across a great hall now empty where memory fills in the people that once danced there.

There are conversations we wish we could return to, people and events that have made us so alive in who we are that we couldn't enjoy life any more fully, and places that trouble us and discourage spirits, anger us at what has been or what could have been. Transformation occurs in these times. Change does happen whether or not we accept it or even notice it.

It has been said that nothing lasts. Nothing lasts except the memories and life that has already been. What is before us now in fondness when we catch a friend's gaze, smile at someone tapping a moment's potential, or briskly walking through daylight that illuminates our way forward. These are the realities where the senses we feel now will guide us back to these moments when we stop to feel them.

The Birth of a Season

Time cannot be captured or harnessed, it can only be lived in and made the most of where we are with what we have. Seasons come into being as nature forms their very composition. Spring has come for the northern hemisphere in 2012, and not without the depth and variation that grew from winter's restless spirit.

As nature brings new days from the darkness of night, it also brings spring, from the seeming emptiness that is winter. Even the sun feels friendlier and less hostile as it begins to blanket the northern hemisphere with more of a gentle touch. Plants begin to grow again, and being among the life that is constantly taking shape opens my eyes and ears to what is about to become a memory.

Since time cannot be captured, aside from in photographs and writings. Maybe in the layers of flora that make the setting for our lives, we can experience what has come and what is yet to be found. It is in transition that life is lived, because even the seemingly static things change. Watch the stars in the sky for a few hours and you can see how they have appeared to move as Earth spins on its axis.

Yet in springtime, we can be in movement as we dance to the sound of the rain falling around us with the movement of our bodies with nature connecting us to this changing time. We can smell the aroma of violets grown wild and free and let their growth inspire us to live vibrantly and fully. We only have one life that we choose to form and react to in a multitude of ways. As colors form in nature, emotions flow in life, unexpectedly and beautifully as they transpire. With the expression of our connection, we can live in the changing times and see the opportunity to make something with the chance to reach to the steadier moments and let our choices fill our lives with wonder.

Growth nurtured by interconnectedness.

Wild vegetables grown by shade and sun, affirming the need for the dark and light.

Color bursting from the end of winter.

Last year's growth enriching the soil for a new year.

Reaching out of the ground that was scarred by winter's touch.

Growing Up Together

As a kid, it felt like growing up would always take forever, and then once I became a grown up, life never seemed to stop moving faster. When I look at kids playing, laughing, stumbling, and being themselves, I see how precious they are. They have eyes that are full of wonder and awe, and it is the curiosity birthed with questions and open discovery that gives them their unique perspective on life. It seems that this perspective comes from an opportunity founded upon what we give them.

We can give the young people in our life hope by teaching them their importance by listening them We can teach them how to be alive by paying attention to them and then by living fully with them as they grow with us in life. Thus, kids have the unique opportunity to show us the gift of time. Time can be transcendent or it can be stagnant depending on what we do with it. Sometimes the only thing we can do with the time we are given is to understand that it is temporary, but a gift just the same.

Life's beautiful moments can happen as we live with those around us, especially those who will be on this planet after us. We can help them see what makes life worth living if we let ourselves see that it is worth it for ourselves, too. Are adults much different other than what we have already learned about what happens from day to day? Aren't we still the unique persons we were when we first saw the bright lights and stepped into life? Maybe then we can see life with others as all of life.

In hearing children singing together, I hear how young we all once were, and I hear the connection we have to one another. I hear the individual hearts that can work together to accomplish something great, and the hearts that can shape the world with their unique passions and dreams. Dreams, like children must be nurtured and cultivated with the realization that they can be squandered by fear, despair, and loss, although with assistance, we can see how these bring us closer to understanding what we want to accomplish in dreams -- while in children, they are signs that we can help them live and grow greater than the plights that can seem to threaten their futures. We can all learn from children as they grow and change faster than moments seem to contain. Memories are made, dreams are nurtured, and children are grown, and if we reach out to the child who needs us, we can touch their world, and ultimately our own and live beyond the confines of our own reality.

Three things I think everyone, especially children, need to thrive. Love, colorful surroundings, and nature.

Connecting Through Walking

All over the world people walk to get from place to place. If they can't walk, they can get from place to place with people who are walking along with them. Walking isn't something that can last a moment because it is something that gets us from place to place over a period of time, but it is something that brings us to experience places, people, and history in ways that are often transcendent.

People have walked on the moon, to represent their opposition to injustice, to bring attention to something that afflicts humanity, to grow deeper in a sense of spirituality or faith, to bond with a friend, family member, or partner, and often to be connected to something or someone important to them. Though many of us cannot walk, we can still experience its liberating power through the movement we make through life. The fluid motion of movement draws one into life and can transform someone's experience of their day or life. Walking along with someone in crisis or sharing in their company can be a way to tune into part of someone else's life, in their movements or even in their feelings when expressed in strides or other means. It brings people closer, more in touch with themselves, and often with each other, and becomes a common bond that has been forged because of what has been shared.

To me, walking is an experience that is close to the heart as it connects me to my soul by feeling the parts of life all around me. When walking with another person, I can hear them better, because I am doing something with them and this sometimes helps me connect to my own humanity. When walking alone, in sadness or in grief, I can feel the larger world reconnecting with me, and showing me more of the universe. In the same vein, I can often feel the parts of life expressed by what lies around me, through the hope expressed in a colorful mural that I pass, trees growing along a neighborhood street, the sadness of a neglected area that is just passed through, and joys of laughter I hear in people playing, dancing, and living near me. It is just a soulful expression of life to move and feel my senses feel and reach to this place of life.

In walking, I can challenge myself to know myself more, to grow through exertion, or to belong to a community or a friendship. It is the greater feeling of joining others in movement, hopefully forward, that allows for me to experience who it is that I am, and where it is that I want to be, amongst the many sights, sounds, and complexities of life.

People walking from place to place in 30th Street Station in Philadelphia