Thursday, August 2, 2018

And Now I'm Here: The Mindful Roadtrip

We are on our third Mindful Family Road Trip. This is a tradition inspired by my Executive Coach, mentor and Friend Nancy Dorrier.

A Mindful Family Road trip is a practice in Being. Being in the moment. For this trip, it started off with a dinner the night before we left. I sent the boys next door to the Dollar Tree to pick out four fresh notebooks for us to use on the trip. When they returned we worked on our wishes for the trip in both destinations: Santa Fe and Vail. We also wrote our checklist of things to remember to take—everyone participates and “owns” what makes it into the car and what didn’t. We forgot our fishing pole: even with the list.

A Mindful Family Road Trip takes the road less traveled. We found this Tiny House far up the mountain from the little village of Tesuque, north of Santa Fe. To our delight, it is nested over a set of orchards lost in time. We have the valley to ourselves: two ponds with a cistern that once drafted water from the nearby river. It was and is Utopian –even covered over by time and the absence of the farmer. A network of trails take the traveler past apple tree, willow, campfire site, rocky ridge, a darting cotton tail and an old paddle board Edward immediately rehabilitated and enjoyed. It’s pretty special: not a human in sight: we are enveloped by nature, held in this nest: a perfect place to practice mindfulness and being together.

We were welcomed by a teasing thunder-lots of threat in those dramatic clouds but very little rain. The cool air was enough and we settled in with agreement it was time to meditate and do some writing. As I set the bell on my Insight Meditation Timer thunder opened our silence as well as closed it, as if to say nature was in the mindful moment with us. We sat for three minutes and then wrote for four. The topic was “meeting the Tiny House” and the prompt was “I saw the feather in the window sill”. We write by hand (the brain-to-hand connection is key to creative writing) and each of us shared our writing with another giving feedback (two to three phrases directly taken from the reader’s writing and read aloud). Each of us had precious, personal observations of our day together –memorializing what matters most. The responder allows a space for recognition and appreciation and invites careful listening.

On the second evening (enjoying a vegetarian version of Cowboy Nachos-even the cowboys are eating healthy) we made a list of all that happened yesterday. Some wrote in prose style-others listed with detail how we as humans met the day and how we were inside of that day: actions, feelings, interpretations and joys. Edward (age 10) ended his writing with “I went back to the house and listened to book, made dinner, and now I’m here”.


And now I’m here: watching the sunrise drift up over the mountain’s edge. Two boys reading, wrapped up in blankets on the floor of this tiny house. It is quiet save for the wings of a hummer and the turn of a page. This is mindfulness.

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