Being Still With My Self

When I was in college, I spent long afternoons looking at the sky through the giant eucalyptus trees just outside of my bedroom window.  The Santa Ana winds would blow through the leaves, and the air filled with spice.  I spent hours, being still, alone, with only my Self.  Silently, I'd just think about things.   I pondered.  I contemplated.  Letting ideas flow from one point to another, not looking for answers.  Just letting thoughts amble on by, of their own accord.

Since then, the last three decades have held more than 15 million minutes.  Fifteen Million.  In all of those minutes, I have taken precious little time to just be still with my thoughts.  Not that I haven't taken time for myself, because I have, especially in the last ten years as my children grew older.  But, in the face of establishing careers, raising children, and attending to the activities of daily living, I've forgotten how to be still, by my Self.  To be still with my Self.  Those of you at my stage of life are probably in the same boat.  And if you are a couple of decades earlier right now, in your child-rearing years, you are facing this reality every day.  Barely enough time to do the work at hand, let alone squander time contemplating the journey of life.

This lack of time spent in stillness and thoughtfulness over the years has hampered my ability to do the important work of integrating what I have learned with who I am and how I face things today.  I wrote about how important I consider this in my last post.  But it's not that I have lost the ability to be still with myself, to quietly contemplate my journey...I'm just a bit rusty.  The knack I used to have for letting go, and just letting my mind wander, or sometimes having my mind focus in on something it deemed important, seemingly of its own volition...seems to be almost like a physical skill, like bike riding.  If you don't ride for years, and then you go out and ride twenty-five miles one day, you'll be stiff for a few days after.  I think that being still, for me, is like that.  I'm out of practice, rusty.  Once I start exercising those (?) brain cells, (?) neurons, (?) my soul or spirit (?), I have a feeling that it will come back to me, like riding a bike.

It isn't a coincidence to me that many of the "How To" books on writing suggest, each day, simply letting the mind wander, and then journaling the results, without interruption or edit.  It's a step beyond my old process of just staring at the beautiful blue sky, to record on paper what is happening in my psyche.  Since I am sitting on my deck right now, and because the weather is amazingly wonderful, for Portland, I am going to end this post, and just be still, with my Self.  I'm going to look at the sky above, listen to the little fountain and the bird song from the forest.  I'm not sure, but I bet that I will find a few moments of joy.  I'll let you know tomorrow.