Despite the constant laments about not having time for this or that, writing or exercise, or quiet observation, I sometimes have to acknowledge those moments of success when time and I seem to get along.
I was up early this morning. I awoke breathing short and fast from a dream in which I drove a car (I suppose my car) with two passengers in the back seat through a stop sign and over a bank and into the river. We were airborne and I was apologizing just before we hit the water.
I sleepily made a breakfast of toast and bacon, mimosa and coffee and sat to read and write. On our morning walk as the dark gray pre-dawn hours gave way to a lighter gray I watched a gang of crows leave a barren tree top. Their movements made me think of musical notes dancing across the sky. This was one of our few walks where I wasn’t hyper vigilant. The dog did his thing, sniffing and trotting and I was a little lost in reverie. When I looked down at him, his snout was covered in streaks of slobber from his last jowly shake and I realized I hadn’t really been focused on him… I had managed to pay attention to the trees and the puddles and the narration in my head – which shifted from cleaning the dog hair from the car to not having space in the garage because of my stuff to maybe purging some stuff to how much physical space a person’s life takes up as measured by self-storage units. Getting lost… mentally wandering, seeing and hearing birds, not looking out for whatever would disturb us was nice – a minor success.
Yesterday, I walked for forty minutes on the treadmill. The day before I ran for twenty. Today I’ll try to run again. I know this won’t last. Already the dog is bored and whining for attention, but it seemed worth pausing to savor a few tiny victories … rescued moments from the normal day-to-day.