Tag: vacation

Summer Song

barnstormingblog2 Comments

;20120726-212655.jpg

“In summer, the song sings itself.”
―William Carlos Williams
A couple days spent at the Pacific Ocean in mid-summer is a rare concert experience: the song sung by the constancy of the tides, the hymn of waves rolling and tumbling over the sand, the cries of thousands of gulls and other marine birds as they flock and swoop en masse.

Today a different flock appeared on the beach–a small group of nuns in traditional habits on holiday, walking through the cold salt water in their lace-up black shoes, waves lapping up their skirts, soaking them to their mid-calves. Their smiles were huge; I could hear their hearts singing praises.

And so: summer sings with wet feet, happy faces, and flowing soaring wings of freedom.

20120726-212838.jpg

20120726-213007.jpg

<a

Stretched Thin

barnstormingblog2 Comments

“I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”
— J.R.R. Tolkien

It is not supposed to happen while taking vacation days from work.  I’m supposed to be well-rested, eager to return to work and ready for the next challenge.  Instead, some viral crud has collided with my immune system and won;  I’ve spent the last 24 hours with chills, fever, muscle aches and no appetite.   I was thinking my strange dreams and overwhelming laziness over the previous two days was just the real “me” coming out while on vacation, but now I know it was the real virus instead.

I try to go at 100 miles per hour in my professional and personal life to get everything done, rarely taking breaks as I feel I’ll never regain the momentum needed.  I’m finding that approach to life can’t be sustained, either because my body can’t do it any longer, or more likely, my brain doesn’t easily stretch that thin any longer.    I’m realizing there may a steady pace that is sustainable and I need to find it.  Right now that pace is from bed to bathroom to computer and back to bed.  I hope to aim for a little more adventure tomorrow.

When I am stretched too thin–when tears flow easy–it is time to slow down and taste the bread and not worry about buttering it.

It is time for the body to be restored by the Body.

Blown Away

barnstormingblog2 Comments
photo by Nate Gibson

“Flung is too harsh a word for the rush of the world. Blown is more like it, but blown by a generous, unending breath.”
Annie Dillard

It isn’t possible.  The five year old me who had a sudden terrifying revelation that I would some day cease to be has become the almost fifty eight year old me who is more terrified at the head long rush of life than of its end.  The world hurtles through space and time at a pace that leaves me breathless.  Throughout my fifty-plus years, I have felt flung all too frequently,  bruised and weary from the hurry and hubbub.

Good thing there is someone else breathing each breath for me or I would have never made it another minute.  I’d be down and gone in a heartbeat.

Now comes a few days of breathing space, taking a respite from routine.  I’m lifted lighter, drifting where I’m blown, less weighted with the next thing to do and the next place to be.

Instead I just be and always will be.  Be blown away unending.  Blown by breath that loves, fills and nurtures, its generous promise hopeful and fulfilled.

The old me simply ceases to be.  Blown away.

If only the five year old me could have known.

“Wherever I am, the world comes after me.
It offers me its busyness. It does not believe
that I do not want it. Now I understand
why the old poets of China went so far and high
into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.”
— Mary Oliver

photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Nate Gibson