Simplicity

Passing Time

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Lately I’ve been reflecting on the passage of time.

For one, it’s been a while since my last entry here. In some ways, that feels like a lifetime ago. And in others, it feels like yesterday. So much has happened and changed since then…and yet, I still have this same quiet place to come and reflect in the same way, as if no time has passed at all.

I took the photograph above in early November — right in the thick of the transition from Autumn to Winter, before anybody was ready for snow. Clearly, this tree wasn’t ready.

But you know the funny thing?

The date is now December 3rd. About a month later, that tree has still not dropped its leaves. Winter will become as official as it can be in eighteen days, come the Winter Solstice. Will it still have the leaves then? I really wonder.

You’re guessing I’m using this as a metaphor, I bet. If so, you’d be right.

We humans so often struggle with time. Preparing for something, we feel like we don’t have enough of it. Anticipating something, we feel like it cannot move fast enough. When we aren’t sure whether or not something will work out or happen, we want nothing more than for it to happen….but when it does finally happen, we wish we had a few more days, weeks, or months to actually get ready for it.

We struggle to enjoy where we are. Right now.

We struggle against change in the moment, but — after a few years have passed — that change has become the “new normal” and we cannot imagine anything else.

Why is change so difficult? Why is it so hard for us to adjust to new places, new people, new roles? Why are we constantly wrestling with time — bending it, rushing it, twisting it, trying to stop it?

In some ways, these tendencies seem inherently, gloriously, messily human. But I wonder. I wonder about the true purpose of a human being. Hear that? Human being?

We were made to be. Heck, it’s in our very name, as human beings! If we were to focus on our being….and just resting in that being…and allowing the world around our being to grow, change, develop, as it will, in the meantime…..and allowing our outer selves to adapt and change accordingly….how would life be different? How would we experience time differently?

This tree is acting more human than treelike. Nature is usually much better at being than we are.

I challenge you, dear reader, to experiment with just being. See for yourself.

Canvass

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After our recent move to Minnesota, I’ve been contemplating how much the “canvass” on which our life is painted can change, when changing cities (and/or states and/our countries).

You start to sub-consciously expect new feelings on your skin, when you first step outside every morning. You unknowingly become accustomed to certain kinds of vegetation wherever you look. You start to get used to a certain level of moisture in the air, a certain particular color in the sky above.

You go out and about, living life like you do, and the things you see in your peripheral vision are different. The types of stores, cars, street signs — yes of course. But even (and especially) the types of natural scenery that are un-self-consciously existing where you are, as if there were nowhere else they could be in the world — almost as if all of the world could easily be home to them, since the whole world is contained within them as it is.

I grabbed the photo above while out running errands, just a few weeks after we had arrived. I was driving home after a standard Trader Joe’s run, backseat full of bags of peanut-butter-filled pretzel pillows, fresh flowers, bananas, and the like.

And there it was.

If I would have been too caught up in my “life,” as we humans most often define them —  to-do list(s), counter-arguments to something on which my husband and I had been disagreeing, or worries, perhaps — I would have totally missed it.

But there it was.

I didn’t miss it, and I was moved to consider: where else but the “Land of 10,000 Lakes” do you just encounter a scene like this while out running errands?

This is definitely one of the perks of having a Minnesota canvas for our lives.

What is your canvas? And how does it affect you, as you live?

A Front Porch in Summertime

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Front Porch. Summertime.

Front Porch. Summertime.

Like churches and synagogues and temples, I have a thing about front porches.

How can you not like a place where you sit, just being? Unlike sitting inside a house, when you are on the front porch, you are at least marginally involved in the world around you. You can hear your neighbors, if not wave hello to them. You can enjoy the dappled sunshine during the day, the crickets at night.

I like to rock in my rocking chair on my front porch. I like to read. I like to drink coffee.

The porch pictured here is the porch from my last house. You know what I most liked about this porch? The plants providing privacy in front. When you sat on this porch, you were mostly hidden. Flowers and greenery were all around. You could see but not be seen. You could observe the world but not be observed. I thought of this porch as being almost a “secret garden.”

I loved this porch especially.