June 18, 2014

I am practicing sitting in this moment, feeling the joy of now, not letting this day be about waiting or anticipation, or about fear or second-guessing, but about the joy of this precise and exquisite moment:

¤ about the butterfly, black with orange gilding and white wing spots, that visited me just now as I wrote the word “joy,” dancing in circles in front of me twice, and carrying off across the meadow;

¤ about the wind, the breeze, the spirit-breath, that is just now breaking the too-warm stillness;

¤ about the perpetual fly buzzhum, the background soundtrack of this wooden porch;

¤ about the cicada whirr in the tree above my head, noise so loud that when the cicada pauses for a momentary breather, my ears burn in the void;

¤ about the robin red-breast, spring-tall, summer-thin, as winter is far away;

¤ about the periodic chicken sounds—I actually heard one purr!—and the “gifts” they like to leave on the doormat; and about the duck that thinks it’s a chicken sister;

¤ about the songbird—drab brown but with a speckled throat patch—that flew right over my notebook just now and peeped a short song at me before flitting away; it later returned for water, and I was very still as we watched each other;

¤ about the warmth of this moment—of the direct sun, of the coffee in my guts, of my heart as it beats and speeds with caffeine and wakefulness;

¤ about the turkey vultures that have returned to this valley bowl on reconnaissance, that can soar now without flapping given the airstream;

¤ about the racing-striped dragonfly, white paint against velvet black;

¤ about the two quail, twiddling and piddling down by the log;

¤ about the memory of last night’s twenty-plus deer in the span of an hour’s drive; and the two heartsqueezing fawns, growing but still with their precious spots;

¤ about the sound of redwood wind, like the distant roar of a waterfall somewhere up around the corner, punctuated by meadow birds’ chirp and trill.

The air is alive and full…of motion and soundwaves and sensory heat.

I will practice no foreboding joy.

This is enough.

Banish fear.

My heart unfolds with gratitude and love in this now.

This moment, these senses—it is all enough.

This is not just summer.

This is not just vacation.

This is not temporary.

This is living.

This is be-ing.

And it is enough.