Be Still
Posted on September 28, 2007 - Filed Under Personal |
I´ve been trying to figure out how to get balance back in my life. I´m not a very balanced person, really, working too hard one day, not enough the next, never ever finishing the mountain of laundry (and that´s with someone actually doing the washing for me!).
Then the other day, after the whole thing with the $900 scam and Irving and the fight, etc. I was outside washing dishes in the pila and suddenly realized . . . I am not enjoying anything. It was a beautiful sunny day, palm trees rustling in the wind and a perfect blue sky. And what was I doing? Scrubbing day old spagetti sauce off plates and thinking about all the work I had to do and how ugly my half-finished house is and worrying that we won´t finish the main room before my sister comes for Christmas.
What a waste of a gorgeous day!
Since Irving had taken Dante out and Dorian was down for a nap, I made a cup of coffee and went and sat under a grove of palm trees, facing away from the pila full of dirty dishes and the half-finished house and looked up. I looked up because right in front of me was a pile of dirt and lime for mixing concrete and a rusted tin fence made of bits of roofing. But when I looked up, all I saw were treetops, waving in the breeze and that crystalline sky.
As I sat sipping my coffee, a nice peaceful feeling came over me. And that hasn´t happened in a very, very long time. You know that feeling you had when you were a kid, laying on your back in the warm grass, looking up at a sky so bright and blue you felt like you might fall right into it, with that perfect feeling of well being? That´s how I felt, just for a few minutes. It was wonderful.
That´s when it hit me. I need to get outside. I´ve been holing up in this tiny room with the computer and two kids for so long, of course it´s all getting a bit nuts. Even when I take a break from the computer, we don´t go outside, unless I have to do dishes or wash dirty blankets or something.
For the good of all in this family, I think it is time to get off the computer, go outside and try to reclaim some of the joy I used to feel. That awe at living in a country where bananas grow right outside my window. The joy of being able to speak another language. The thrill of watching my son discover new insects and flowers right under his feet. That´s something I´ve lost and I want it back.
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