Since my mother's battle with cancer, my brother's near miss with death this year, and a particularly nasty blow to my own personal heart, I've decided that I give a lot away. I'm not keeping much for myself. Having become acutely aware of mortality in general, I see there are things I wish to do, and places I wish to go. Time is short. What I wish for myself is mindfulness. To be present in what I am doing, to be able to be alone with myself, and to quiet the never ceasing thoughts flitting across my brainscape like little armies. That is my goal. To be quiet. To produce no thought. TO. JUST.BE. It sounds so easy.
This however is the goal. To learn to be mindful for some portion of the day. To just exist, and breathe. To leave the emotion and carnage of any particular day in its own little moment in time, carefully placed, like an elf on a shelf. Thus rendering it and the minion thoughts attached to it harmless. While I spend time just being for 30 seconds, half a minute, or five, or ten, until it expands into a segment of quiet time worthy of living.
“You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and
listen. You need not even listen, simply wait, just learn to become
quiet, and still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to
you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your
feet.” ~ Franz Kafka
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