reality for pausing: alphabet treasure

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

alphabet treasure

today we drove to sanibel, which is supposed to have the best shelling variety in the U.S. (who knew the drive would take 2 hours one way? certainly not this guy!) we happened to go during high tide, so instead of walking onto luscious shores with prolific shell diversity, we had to dig in the sand a few inches to get to the loot.

super snark did most of the digging work (thank you to him—I was too cold) and I got to finger through the finds. we’ve added to our collection some new shells: we found three alphabet cones, some banded tulips, and also a beaded periwinkle, which is iridescent! http://seashells.org/ is a cool shell/sea life website that shows pictures of these shells, ide

ntifying and describing them.

yesterday we went to the paw park, a dog park and dog beach, in Venice. it was so much fun to see veggie dog swim in the ocean really far out after her ball. she’s been afraid of the incoming waves, even the small ones… and this time we went out in the water first, threw the ball in much further than usual, then encouraged her in. it seemed to make her feel more confident and she ended up going in much further than I would even go! as for shelling, this beach wasn’t such a hot spot, though super snark did find a few black shark teeth! (I didn’t find much of anything…but still a great day!)

super snark caught veggie dog's first venture into the turbulent waves of venice on video. (the vid is just under two minutes long if you feel like watching...)

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about this blog

Originally, I created this blog for family and friends to stay updated with our location and happenings while we were traveling the country. But only a few months after I began blogging about our travel adventures we drove into the sweet, slow town of Bisbee and ended up staying. We actually moved five times while living there, thanks to generous neighbors who asked us to long-term housesit in between our rentals. We are on the move once more, and so it seems we are habitually in transition.

Traveling and moving so often stirs up questions for us about what we really need to feel content, comfortable, and energized about life; it emphasizes for us our relationship and attachment to things--ours and other people's things that fill our living spaces; and it encourages me to appreciate the value in staying put, while realizing that frequent physical change underscores the uncertainty and occasions for choice that exist in all moments of life.

MARCH 2011

After a three-month pause for reflection, I'm coming back to this blog with a renewed perspective on what I want to share. I stopped blogging because with so many transitions happening in my life (moving, traveling, moving, and moving again in only a few months)--and, well just ordinary life happening--nothing seemed particularly notable for the sharing. I was feeling tired, overwhelmed, bored, dispassionate, stressed out, worried, weighed down. What did I really have to say? We all feel that way regularly enough, and who needs to hear more?

Pema Chodron touches on this in an article I just recently read in the March 2011 issue of Shambhala Sun: "When we look at the world around us--our immediate world and the bigger world beyond--we see a lot of difficulty and dysfunction. The news we hear is mostly bad news, and that makes us afraid. It can be quite discouraging" (48). Sometimes it takes unthinkable effort to stay encouraged by life when surrounded by so much obvious sadness and negativity--and it's difficult enough to summon the energy to reach beyond the anguish to share the beautiful moments. Maybe we even convince ourselves that the ordinary pleasures of life are insignificant in the face of such suffering. I don't understand the tricks of mind that I play on myself, but I know I repeatedly lose my vision for pausing in everyday reality, for seeing the smallest moments of magic.

Chodron tells us, there is a "basic queasiness that leads us to all kinds of self-destructive and other-destructive habits" and a "whole chain of events that emerges from our fear of uncertainty, of not knowing what in the world is happening or what is going to happen" (49). I feel an urgency to interact with this chain of events; to interfere knowingly--though perhaps innocently; to respond to my abounding fears and uncertainty with intent. I want to return to the primary assumption of this blog--a reality for pausing in: to not overlook or disregard the small points of joy, but to connect them; to appreciate the magic that is present in that which is obscured by routine; to actively express gratitude and to meaningfully alter the "chain of events that emerge" from my thoughts and practices, my surroundings.