Pandemic Side-Effect: Wanderlust

Windows: that's what they are, from inside the Pandemic into the outside world. 

The Retailers found me in attractive links inside of our Social Media: clothing lines quickly shifted to easy-living, stay-at-home clothes. Solid colors. Simple-to-choose, alluring. 

The Institutions Found me: Virtual opportunities abounded toward the end of summer: a program at the Met, a series by the Asia Society in Hong Kong I have loved. I signed up over and over again, my schedule filling with webinar on top of webinar. 

The Mindfulness teachers found me: a weekend retreat with Pema? for $150? You bet. And, it was wonderful. 

The little windows are so-as I wrote-alluring, it's easy to live a day (days) virtually, not realizing there is an underpinning world of work and interests I was already committed to: continuing to transition the museum; managing a museum in Covid; managing a museum in the wake of George Floyd's death (and Briana Taylor...and so many more); continuing my already-virtual Mindfulness Teacher Certification Program. 

This week I am remembering the Underpinning: what was already here for me to lead, love and work on for myself and those nearest. 

Supporting a family that recently returned to in-school school. 

Running an Art Museum and launching a project to build a second location. 

Supporting my own practices of faith, mindfulness, pocketsunrise and yoga. 

That Underpinning is something: a body of work that can easily take 24 hours a day. Thich Nhat Hanh wrote "mindfulness is bringing the mind home to the body." and to bring this mind home to this work is this life's work: this life in this moment. 

In a work retreat on Friday I wrote down five priorities. And now, as I schedule my time, each moment of being in wanderlust and allure has a practice of a new, second moment: does this time I am so easily scheduling support my priorities? 

And if so, how directly? 

What is the return on my time? 

And...it might just be joy, and do we ever need more of that. It might just be taking a weekend, with nothing virtually scheduled, to stare at the leaves from the couch. Taking a long walk with a friend. Ordering in dinner. 

I am working to quiet the inner-critic: that by making a conscious, loving choice, I am here in this moment more fully, more intentionally. Wandering on the inside instead. 

Silence is Learning to Be with the Noise

It's not often I find it: silence. Ours is a small house with teenagers growing larger. They room together so there is a constant channel of roommate dispute: the level of cleanliness, the stolen charger, disagreements on bedtime: the usual human conflict. 

Covid-19 and it's call to shelter shrank our house, and after one careful trip to New Mexico in August, scanning the window of 4-day Fall Break this weekend, we decided it was worth it to drive 20 hours round-trip for 60 hours on the ground.  I found a beautiful home in Tesuque on the north side of Santa Fe: a land held by Sunrise and Sunset: my kind of theater. I shopped earlier this week and we brought (most of) what we need in terms of nourishment. And, because it is so special, this place, there is no reason to leave, no where to be, other than right here. 

This is mindfulness: We prepare ourselves for the intention of sitting in a mindful space, making sure we have what I need in terms of comfort and sustenance and learn to sit with ourselves. It's not always like you think it might be: there is no zafu (pillow) always available, a zen-like hall or even a bell. Sometimes we just have to let ourselves sit: wherever we are. 

And there may be noise: the hum of a refrigerator, the background of an ipad game, the rustlings of a family member. Yesterday it was the silliness of three boys on a hiking trail (husband included). Baker (14) has recently taken several fall campouts and he's learned a thing or two about what happens when you spend time around a bunch of teenage boys. Usually on the hiking trail I am the first: blazing, map checking, leading. Yesterday I took fourth position, happily, and left them to their jokes and human noises. 

I sat with the level of silence I had: the distance of being last in the line, hearing the hum of their playful hiking ahead: Edward calling out "Mom?" every ten minutes or so to make sure I was in the nearby. I spent time in meditation most of the hike: breathing, counting, scanning and sensing the stillness. I was very quiet: a nice counterpoint to how I was responding to the difficulty of the hike and the little time we had to acclimatize to the altitude. 

But I found it: the silence that happens when there is noise all around you. I think this might be mindfulness: being with what is: worry, stress, anxiety (a lung-busting hike) and going slowly on your own time to experience what there is to experience--the way you can and are willing to. 

And I am finding it now: watching the sun catch the mountains so slowly I can't really see it. Watching my coffee steam and thinking about how I can help today go by as slowly as the sunrise: pine needle by pine needle. So the next time you're invited to practice mindfulness, or you wish you had a mindful practice, maybe you already do and all that's left to do is just be where you are.