Late August, 2022
The poet Mary Oliver once said, "Attention is Devotion." I've discovered just how true this is. Never have I felt the presence of God more completely than in these past few months, as I push myself to be ever more present, feeling the moment, noticing the leaves, the way my children's hair feels under my fingertips, the taste of the air in summer - so hot and humid you can almost feel the rain that will come like foreshadowing - the opposite of an aftertaste.
I was alone. I went for a walk, noticing the heat at my elbows, the breeze lightly trilling the leaves. Endless shades of green - greens that don't exist in any manmade form. I almost want to laugh at it, this world I spent so many years seeing, but not living inside. The splendor of nature - how did I never notice it before? Even in a cutesy neighborhood, nicely paved streets, SUV's driving too fast, their chrome bodies glaring in the heat. Even here, in this artificial suburban construct - even here, there is intense beauty.
I wonder if the struggle of life is really just human beings learning to live in the moment, this one here and now, this nanosecond, not rushing through to the future or dwelling obsessively on the past.
Sometimes lately I feel like crying, I'm so overcome with the world. The sky, the trees, the eyes of the people I love. Endless, deep eyes. Barreling down toward the center of it all.
I want to have moments like this every day - I know they are fleeting. I know how often I am consumed with work or laundry or wanting to sleep or not being able to sleep or getting the kids up or making sure they brush their teeth. The minutiae of everyday life can be grating. I suppose there is beauty in the ordinary - I know there is. I need to learn how to be present for that, too.
I am alone and it is quiet and I am reveling in it, sitting at the dining room table in my favorite spot, writing away. There are windows and bookshelves and turquoise armchairs and it's so open that I see the trees, all in green from outside, the green of what seems like a thousand trees. I wrote about this green in a poem I've submitted. It feels almost sacrilegious to mention it here.
There is still so much light left - late August, and dusk doesn't really set in until 8:30 or 9. I have an urge to go somewhere beautiful, even though it's beautiful here. To run away from the cell phones and computers and endless updates from the news, which is always bad.
But writing here and now is good, too. Listening to music, knowing that this time belongs to me, that I will continue to write, to create art, as long as I am able. This song I am listening to is called November by Max Richter and it makes me feel....EXALTED. I don't have another word to describe this. It's like the universe painting in color, color I can feel. I can't expain it, or why, but I suggest you listen to the song and go out somewhere, even remotely picturesque, even if it's winter as you read this and all the trees are bare and the snow is dirty under a gray sky. Just listen. Attention is devotion. Remember to reach back in and touch the light.
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