Bask In Your Own Presence
As a child I recall my mother having a yellow post-it pad next to the telephone. It would be perfectly flush with the edge of her desk calendar, task items written in precise Catholic school cursive. Instead of crossing something off the list, she would tear off the top sheet and rewrite a new list so that even the list itself was presentable and neat. I always wondered when the list would end. When would the post-it pad cease to exist?
As I stare at my own list next to my computer, my sloppy cursive and crossed off items proving that I'm not my mother, I know the answer to my 7-year-old mind's question: the list never ends. The striving will continue. And there will always be something to do.
I'm in the process of finally furnishing my second bedroom, something that has sat vacant for 20 months, a faint echo reverberating off its walls every time I walk past it or shut the hallway closet door. I've decided to turn it into a mediation/yoga/office space and have made it my mission to find the perfect boho chic pillows and funky wall hangings to adorn its naked walls. I find myself standing in the doorway periodically, laying out the room with my mind and filling in the gaps that still need fine tuning. Once I find a different lamp. Or the art I ordered finally arrives. Or the fake plant in the corner lets its leaves settle. Once these things fall into place, then it will be perfect. Yet the ripple effect doesn't linger too far from those thoughts. Because once the art comes, it will shift the shape of the room and something else will be needed. Once I put together the desk, it will require some sort of decoration to go along with it. The right size candle or a container to house my pens and pencils. It's a small example of what goes on in the inner workings of my mind. How on a much grander scale I am always trying to figure something out. Proof that my future-focused mind wrestles with trying to find presence and acceptance for what currently is. Proof that the lists will carry on for eternity.
There are a few emails I subscribe to that I will religiously read on the daily, Danielle LaPorte's Daily Devotions being one of them. Just for a moment, she asked, can you not long for anything? Reading those words felt like running into a giant force field, ricocheting me back into my reality of insatiable desire. Oh. What if, you mean, I practiced being present? What if, just for a moment, I could crave where I currently am?
Today I sat in my unfinished meditation room, snuggled up against my plethora of pillows, watching the smoke of my sandalwood incense twirl through the air. I purposely left my phone in another room, knowing that its proximity always tempts me with distraction. Could I, instead, delight in where I was? Savor the moment that I was living in instead of trying to get somewhere? Even though there were uncrossed items on my list, more furniture to buy and rearrange, a blog post to write and content to create and a workshop I want to take to learn about day trading, which makes me laugh just writing those words. All of those to-do's are entirely created by me. All of the pressure to do them and the timeline in which to get them done – entirely crafted by my own sneaky brain. Could I, instead, not long to achieve or fulfill or create? Could I, gasp, just simply be? Bask in my own presence? It feels wildly rebellious to metaphorically burn the expectations that are simmering in my mind. But oh, what a pleasure to be able to rest with what is. To relinquish the desire to control or produce. To realize that there is so much beauty to witness if you make the decision to see what's right in front of your eyes.
