Today I promised myself a contemplative day. <\/p>\n
The last few weeks have again been chaotic and stressful. That should have been over last Friday, but instead Saturday and Sunday became more<\/i> stressful.<\/p>\n
Again, we’re not talking any big deal. Just the stress of life plunging onward in what’s actually quite a nice way. But anyhow, I promised myself a no-stress Monday.<\/p>\n
A contemplative day begins with either not turning on the computer at all or using it for wake up and morning chores, then closing it down. But it’s more than that. It’s turning off the phone and being glad I’m not expecting anybody to come to the door. It’s meditating and spending time with the dogs. Time not even to snuggle down with a good book because that would take me out of the moment. Time to just BE.<\/p>\n
Um … well, that’s the theory.<\/p>\n
The reality is that I last three or four hours without going online. And instead of hours devoted to Being In The Moment, I’m constantly telling myself, “No, you don’t need to know right this minute<\/i> when Dire Straits was founded,” and “I wonder what’s going on with that discussion about The Last Samurai<\/i>?”<\/p>\n
While I nearly always give in eventually (Leslie Howard, for anyone who needs urgently to know, died when his plane was shot down by Nazis, possibly on the rumor that Winston Churchill was aboard), I do try to keep my computer use “lite.”<\/p>\n
But the day usually ends up with me planning projects, paying bills, and cleaning or doing tiny repairs to the house. <\/p>\n
I feel better for doing these things, but bad for not getting a better handle on my monkey-brainedness. “After all, I tell myself, if you really<\/i> want peace, stillness, silence, and serenity, you’ll *&^# well sit your &%# down and start workin’ at ’em.”<\/p>\n
Still, I feel better for such a day.<\/p>\n
This morning, for instance, I laid out a plan for a closet and some shelves that had been ghosting formlessly around my brain for months. Then I looked at my finances and fulfilled a much-overdue pledge to myself to restore my neglected envelope system of budgeting. I paid off my bill at the hardware store (where they let me open an account simply by giving them my contact information, BTW; I love<\/i> small towns!). Paying that bill closed out a minor construction project that got ugly before it was done. The emotional closure was glorious, even as it was painful to watch the sum disappear.<\/p>\n
So in theory, I keep wanting all that Zen-like stillness and to gain discipline over my very non-orderly, trivia-collecting brain. In reality, my brain and all the rest of me find this far more satisfying.<\/p>\n
Of course, since I never manage to get to the meditative mountaintop, I really don’t know what I’m missing. But by golly, my bills always get paid on time and the dust bunnies scatter in terror of me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today I promised myself a contemplative day. The last few weeks have again been chaotic and stressful. That should have been over last Friday, but instead Saturday and Sunday became more stressful. Again, we’re not talking any big deal. Just the stress of life plunging onward in what’s actually quite a nice way. But anyhow, I promised myself a no-stress Monday. A contemplative day begins with either not turning on the computer at all or using it for wake up and morning chores, then closing it down. But it’s more than that. It’s turning off the phone and being glad…<\/p>\n