Practice, practice, practice

People who know me well tend to think I attempt too much--always writing, musicking, promoting, working, more musicking; planning, planning, planning. Even my "relax alone" nights consist of something yummy for dinner, a little something for dessert, and four hours of movies.

The trip to Spain has completely heightened the intensity of my life's needs and wants. Right now I'm so stressed with determination and purpose and trying to get back to some imagined state of being that I almost can't stop and breathe.

I'm realizing that truly the only way, step by step, for me to get to where I need to be mentally is to stop.

Just...stop.

And breathe.

In essence, I'm trying to re-teach myself how to sit in a living room chair and look around. My feet are propped on my turquoise footstool, and my upper limbs lie slack on the the chair's worn wooden arms. Nice pictures on the walls. There's a rip in the tooled leather of the old 40s chair. Gee, look at the thread hanging off of the old 30s armchair. My toenail polish is scuffed.

I'm teaching myself how to sit quietly and simply look at my immediate sourroundings; not because they need cleaning or reorganizing or anything need be done with them, but just to notice they are there. Kind of like I do when I go hiking in the woods, only I don't need to use gas, and I don't need to get up there before the heat of mid-day, and I don't need to take water or exert anything at all.

I'm teaching myself a small but significant meditation that will allow me to gently re-focus on just being, and not doing. If my life can't be simple, than at least I can temporarily train my brain to be. There's a singular glory in the act of intentionally NOT accomplishing anything.

I'm going to start making a regular habit of doing nothing. And I mean, NOTHING.

Excuse me....I've got to go some stuff. Err, I mean, I've got to go do no stuff.