Sunday, February 23, 2014

returning adventure


reflecting ponds

And I'm back! Again. I'm hoping not to have to be away so long anytime soon. I just had to simplify for a while there. Things have been intense and while I've tried to enjoy it all, some of it has been really hard. The hardest part was that for a while my dear dad was in hospice care, but the good thing is that he seems to be doing a lot better. I am definitely enjoying that news! I finished up my last full-time quarter at school and am very excited to just be able to focus on one class at a time from here on out. And to be able to focus on some other things than just school and work! This week that has included reading Rebecca Solnit's A Field Guide to Getting Lost, which is rocking my world with possibilities! I am really discovering through my school projects how much I love writing and the structure of Solnit's essays excites me in the same way books of quilt patterns used to. Now to figure out how to build in time for a writing practice... I know it can be done.

So here's what I've been learning about enjoying so far. Even in the hardest parts of this winter, there have always been things I'm enjoying and it has been good to recognize them. They may be small, but seeing them reminds me that life is a rich mixture of good and bad, happy and sad. And enjoying is really about being open to the whole catastrophe, to quote Jon Kabat-Zinn and Zorba the Greek. There is enjoying in loving someone so fiercely that you don't want them to go and in realizing how your love for them extends way beyond their physical form, that your love for them extends even into everyone around you. In fact, where isn't it?