reality for pausing

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

A list from the past few days:

*Susan, my Sunday evening Ashtanga yoga teacher, gave me her newest copy of Shambhala Sun. I'm not sure why she decided to give it to me rather than someone else, but I felt it was very special that she did think of me. It was the March issue and it wasn't even March 1st yet! Also, she couldn't have known, but one of my favorite authors was smiling from the front cover: Pema Chödrön.

*Veggie Dog's lover ears

*After three years of dating, Snark has finally watched with me, from beginning to end, an entire Harry Potter film (The Prisoner of Azkaban)--oh, the simple pleasures!

*He also made me a delicious, big bowl of salad (my favorite!) for dinner, ready for me when I arrived home after Sunday's yoga class

*My generous, sweet-hearted boss

4 comments:

e said...: this list made me smile. and realize how much i miss you. and realize that it's been months since i've made note of things like this.; March 2, 2011 at 9:05 AM
Da MaMa said...: Glad you are back blogging...I have really missed it! Love the rocks!!!!! Everyone that has seen them wants to buy them!! Only 1 week and I will be there! :) :) Can't wait! Love & Miss you...
DaMaMa; March 2, 2011 at 5:19 PM
sassy said...: e, i miss you too...

sometimes it's really hard for me to pay attention to these things. i was trying to remember what that's called in the rhet/comp field when you where certain glasses and see something in a certain way. what's it called? i know you'll remember.

since i love making lists, i guess that's an easy place for starting, though. hey, can it be called a list even if i just note one thing? just wondering...; March 3, 2011 at 5:01 PM
sassy said...: da mama! i am thrilled about you being out here so soon! i couldn't stop talking about it at work today, about how the mamas will be here in just a few short days!; March 3, 2011 at 5:02 PM

Post a Comment

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.