I’m throughly enjoying my extra day away from work and putting extra effort into resting and being easy with myself.
I did my best to pretend these 24 hours could exist outside of time and reality, but at regular intervals I was reminded that the world around me is still on fire, both figuratively and quite literally.
The red light streaming in through the windows I’m forced to keep closed so not to let the falling ash and smoke smell in is a bit distressing but nowhere near as bad as the constant stream of bad news that seems to come through my phone both on national and quite personal levels.
The personal is paradoxically not personal to me and therefore beyond the scope of what I can share here, and the national is so universal it’s almost not worth mentioning at all.
I’ll simply say, the few moments of peace, no matter how small, have become critical to my well being and cultivating a practice of gratitude, savoring, and presence are essential to my sanity and stability.
I haven’t been meditating like I used to. The mornings are too rushed and the evenings find me falling asleep as I try to count my breaths and stay aware of my surroundings. Meditation started to feel pointless. That isn’t true. I know meditation is one of the best things I could do for my mental and physical health. I stopped because I felt like I was failing. That’s the simple, solitary, and stupid reason.
Tonight the weather is changing. The forecast is calling for all four seasons to make an appearance before the week’s end. Today we saw summer with 90-degree temperatures, but tomorrow will bring winter with a 60-degree drop and a chance for snow. In all my memories of our wild weather, I can’t find another change so drastic between two days.
In light of the weird weather and the chaos and hopelessness all around me, I’ll need solid ground and solid people more than ever this week.
Lisa Marie Blair 