AWAKE AT NIGHT

 

"The clocks tick less loud in the sun."

2 a.m. 

Here I sit with my journal and pen,

Surrounded by dark in a circle of light,

A ticking clock the only sound.

What a metaphor this late at night

To be awake and hear time passing.

So seldom this happens, 

A ticking clock for the marking of time.

But tonight it's clear,  

The surrounding dark, with no day near.

The comforting dark and ominous clock.

It may not be good

To hear your present become your past

One tick at a time. 

Better when birds are tuneful, deer awake, distractions circling.

Instead, this hush, broken by metronome, less than a second.

The hands of the clock pushing time backwards.

Watch them advance.

Further and further, till so much lies behind,

Almost naught left ahead.

It's all beyond now, the tocks have all ticked.

Before my ears the days have passed,

Yet the clock keeps on ticking. 

Is it healthy to sit in this spot of light listening?

To study the old tyrant, time?  

I'll go back to bed and wait for the morn. 

You do the same.  

The clocks tick less loud in the sun.

ON A SATURDAY NIGHT

 On a Saturday Night

Time is different the older you are.  Have you noticed?  Although there's less future, there's so much past that life feels very full.  My life span feels huge--my brain, heart, memory, thoughts all burgeoning.  Every little thing recalls something else.  Knowledge is boundless.  I have familiarity with decades.  Different fashions, periods, wars, manners, technology.  My very skin could burst with all that's inside me.  

It's the same for all of us.  We know about birth, we know about death, we know about life, we know about loss, we know about love, we know about hope.  Sometimes I think that I know everything that matters.  How to read a poem, how to root begonias, how to comfort myself, how to make Moroccan chicken and perfect grilled salmon, how to find God.  How to survive just about anything, certainly more than I ever thought I would have to.  

Who of us knows what time we have left?  But the years behind overlap with what's to come and life seems whole.  It seems complete.  It's a miraculous feeling, this fullness, this plumpness of life, as if it stretches endlessly.  

Tonight I sit indoors and hear the cicadas and tree frogs and perhaps a coyote far off.  I can predict just when the train whistle will sound.  The dog snores softly with his head propped on the roll of his bed.  I'll be in my own bed soon.  Tomorrow I'll feed him again and let him out and make tea and dress for church.  There I'll light candles for a person important to me whose mind and heart are confused.  

But tonight all that has gone before seems enough, satisfying, like a good meal.  The days we've been alive are just right; let's have no quarrel with them.  Each has built us, has given us something, has held us up and enlarged our soul.  God is at the center of this.  God has been here all along, for me first in my mother's love, my father's interest, and in our small families of four:  the one I was born into and the one I gave birth to myself.  

What a blessing this feeling is.  I am writing it down to preserve it in words, because not every day is so overflowing due to, really, nothing at all.  God is here this very moment.  

Thank you from Nina Naomi

MAYBE TIME STOOD STILL

 

(I found this at Barnes and Noble)

 Don't let yesterday take up too much of today.

After Bonfire day (Post: A Bonfire Day, 3/21/22) when I set my thoughts and prayers to flame to free the future from the past, I bought A Journal for Self-Discovery in Nature; a charming little book with sketches, prompts and space.  It is a most inviting place.  It begs for stories and goals, things imagined or true, the random or the persistent . . . .   A place to make so fine that it could slow your breath. 

Perhaps you have a special place to write too.  Here is what this workbook pulled from my heart this morning. 

• Keep love alive.  Offer it, accept it, take care of it as something fragile.  Friendship the same.  Good things are fragile; like plants they need water and a tender touch.  Love doesn't thrive if neglected. Or usurped.  It may change into habit or routine or even die. We know the phrase, "a wandering eye?"  Even companionship needs a watchful, not wandering, eye.  Think how your companionable dog attunes to every sign of what you want. 

• Accept the past, bad and good, what you would change and what you would never.  We can not win a fight with the past.    Acceptance is admitting the truth of whatever happened, whether by me, by someone else, or to me.  As simple as that.  The most unbelievable things happen; believe them.  There's no way out but there is something better:  a way forward. 

• When something wonderful happens savor it, prolong it, let it spread and give it a special place in your memories.  Today nestled in sleep I heard loving words and woke smiling.  Not words from a dream or a memory, but words being whispered.  Today I lived for the moment, the shining warm moment of requited love.  Today I let those words permeate me with no other thought intruding.  Today is never yesterday.  Today is always now.  

• Seek out the places where you find yourself.  Where is your place?  I go into the woods to find myself.  I go into the woods to find God.  I go into the woods to find peace.  To be delighted by soft green moss, spreading clover and variegated  pine cones.  What words fill-in-this-blank for you? By a lake?  On a hill top?  Under the open sky? On a walk?  Into a church?  There is no one who doesn't have a place.  

• Be vulnerable in love.  Say words that show trust.  Some words of love come trance-like from the soul.  "Love me," is a deep request, a beautiful admission.  The feeling is one of air--fresh, clear and warm.  Or like a circle of lamplight inside the night.  Words of trust make us feel clean as from a shower, soft from the soap, ready for bed.  Windows open, moths hitting the screen.  It could be years ago. Or maybe time stood still.   
  

 

 

 

TIME PASSES; THAT'S ALL IT KNOWS HOW TO DO

 "Teach us to number our days." Psalm 90:12

You come home and pour tea or coffee and all around is silence.  You might feel lonely. Or you might feel free.  Maybe nothing is more relaxing for you than solitude. 

The weather is cold and the kids are restless.  You might be overwhelmed.  Or you might join in the fray. A snow day becomes a play-day. You laugh more than you have for ages.  Your children love your company; time enough for silence. 

Everyone's days are different.

Yet, time passes; that's all it knows how to do.  Sometimes it's hard to keep the days from blurring.  Retired now, and in the Third-Year-of-Uncertainty, my first waking thought is often to focus on what day it is. We're so used to wondering where the week has gone, or month, or  even year. Such has it always been, but even more so now. Nothing is less forgiving than time.  

Experts say we need something to look forward to.  Maybe it's not that trip to Alaska this year.  Maybe it's learning to make candles or build a fence; or (you fill-in-the-blank).  I'm guessing that each of us has a project to finish, something we liked when we began and couldn't imagine abandoning.  A friend of mine is re-reading the classics.  A relative is clearing a trail to the riverbank.  Another friend is knitting baby blankets for her unborn descendants.  

Some people, children mostly, complain of boredom.  Amazing, given how much they have yet to learn. Perhaps they confuse the need for attention with boredom.   

I don't get bored but I can get depressed; depression is a known by-product of this pandemic. Strange, but nothing alleviates a difficult feeling like giving it its due.  If I say, "I am unhappy," the sadness begins to lessen.  Same with anxiety or fear.  Don't you find this to be true?  It's as if hard feelings want us to acknowledge them.  "Yes, sorrow, I know you're there, I'm not ignoring you."

We went to the funeral of a beloved man this week.  His wife said that she is grateful for the long goodby they had. She shared a picture on her iPad of him resting deeply during his final hours. Time seems to have slowed for her in his last illness. I expect she'll be OK coming home to a new silence. Her faith enfolds her securely and she mirrors it to others.  

Like the low winter sun and the passing of time itself, the pandemic casts a long shadow.   But shadows exist because there is light.  The dark casts no shadow. So we could say, "Yes, shadows, we know you are there.  Thank you for reminding us that where you are, there is also light." 

                                                                  Nina Naomi 

WHAT INNER JOURNEYS WILL WE TAKE THIS YEAR?

Things I've found, read, thought of, or happened this past year that helped me, and I hope you: 

We don't have to try to live each day to the fullest.  Each day is full on its own.  All we have to do is notice. 

All you can control is you and all I can control is me;  then let us be at peace.

Time speeds up and slows down, shortens and lengthens according to a formula we can't change. No hour feels exactly like any other hour.   If time is the interval between two events, the interval is ever different.  There is clock time and there is felt time.  We can be at one with that; time has its own temperament.  

I can measure my life by what is going on within me, rather than by a pre-pandemic lifestyle.  What motivated me last year?  What will my projects be  this year?  You too.  What will our inner journeys be like in 2022?

We don't have to wait until we're too busy to say no.  We can say no because we don't want to be too busy. 

Our sadness can be a mild alarm signal, triggering more effort to deal with our challenges.  Sadness can send us to our tool kit:  a walk, anyone?  Some time alone, or with friends?  What action is needed?  What change to be made?  Welcome, sadness. 

Find what you do that's so absorbing that you forget the world exists, then do it more often.  

Beware of destination addiction.  If happiness is always the next  activity, the next outing, the next day--anywhere but here--it will never be where you are.  It will never be now. 

Make yourself a little world where you can be from time to time alone and perfectly at home.  

Useful metaphor (though easier said than done):  Do not let anyone rent space in your head unless they are a good tenant.

Virginia Woolf suffered from depression and died from it, yet she wrote,"Happiness is in the quiet, ordinary things.  A table, a chair, a book . . .  .  And the petal falling from the rose, and the light flickering as we sit silent."   We can look to those small things if we're depressed too.  

 A truth I've learned from experience:  you can recover from loss, even a loss that squeezes your heart with iron fists.  

Pause and look for the bits of magic that happen each day.  

Time spent caring for plants is meditation in motion.  Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of our soul. 

Every year I'd like to make my needs simpler. 

When I need a guide, God is the best one I've found.  

"I want to think again of Dangerous and Noble things.  I want to be light and frolicsome.  I want to be improbable, beautiful, and afraid of nothing as though I had wings."  If Mary Oliver could say this when she was 68 years old, we too can cultivate our own unbounded spirit.

So many years ago Rachel Carson (1907-1964) wrote, "There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature--the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter."  This is still true. 

Bell Hooks, whose death we are mourning, said, "Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving.  When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape."   Such consideration this shows.  And such appreciation of solitude.    

Forgiving makes us feel free and light.  Let's forgive those we can, even ourselves. 

 

 

 

 

SUMMER STILLNESS

Summer Blooming Local Crepe Myrtle

If there's any time of year that we might leave our worries and our schedules behind, it would be now--summer.  We rent a cabin, set up a tent, open the summer home or hang out in the back yard, sprinkler spinning.  Whatever our summer traditions are, whether from childhood when grandparents and cousins joined in, or newly born, this is when a memory or a yearning kicks in.  

When I was a child, as a school teacher my mother had the summers off.  She stayed outdoors, laundry drying on the line, reading and studying.  She packed me off to summer school classes for enrichment or to the local pool.  I went to Y camps, Vacation Bible Schools of all denominations, and to my grandparents'.  I read books lying on my bed.  We slept al fresco on our upstairs screened porch.  My brother and I rode our bikes everywhere, though not together, he with his friends, I with mine.  It may not sound like stillness, but in a way it was.  Worry-free is its own stillness. I know that now.  

When my children were toddlers we lived in a country parsonage in Illinois.  We had a backyard wading pool and swing set.  I put a hose at the top of the slide to cool the aluminum and the children slid or tummied-first into the pool where the dog waited for them.  Only the cat stood aloof.  I made Kool-Aid popsicles and we dribbled watermelon down our chins.  If you ran through the sprinkler right before bed you could skip your bath.

When my law practice was full-time summer meant swimming after work or over lunch, fewer meetings, an abbreviated court schedule and judges, lawyers and staff on vacation.  Law is a profession that measures workdays in tenths of an hour. It can be a job, like many, where time is brutal. But not in July and August. For eight weeks no one hurries. The  summer pace of law is a respite for everyone, including the clients. 

Now we spend time with grandchildren.  Today returning to her house with my granddaughter, we saw young parents hanging out across the street.  In-arms or belly-wiggling, a gaggle of babies squirmed and reached, blankets and all kinds of toys spread on the grass, moms and dads chatting but at the ready.  Hard work, I know, but what great neighborhood camaraderie!

If you haven't had the chance to take advantage of summer, there's still time. Slow down.  Leave the clutter, make no-cook meals with all those fresh veggies at the market or in your garden, grill some fish, kick off your shoes as soon as you get home.  Put no demands on anyone, especially yourself.  You know what works best.  

I almost feel nostalgia for last summer when we had so many friends for patio visits, separate chip-and-dip bowls and long conversations, albeit six feet apart. With everything outdoors we could let the inside go. To combat the stress, we were easy on ourselves.

I want to carry over some of that summer stillness to now.  To listen to it--the cicadas at night, the Cardinals at daybreak, your favorite warm-weather music. The sounds of children, of water splashing, of bare feet running in the house . . . .  To feel it--the heat and humidity, yes, but also the fresh breezes and cool rain.  Dewy mornings, sunny afternoons, shaded eyes, air-conditioned cars . . . . To touch it--dragonflies gently perched on your hand, combing wet hair.  What says summer to you?  Maybe the stillness is not so much external, but is in our hearts as we pause and appreciate the season. As my yoga teacher says while we settle, waiting her guidance, "Take a breath . . . ."                           

                                                       Nina Naomi

 

 

 

TIME MOVED LIKE HONEY TODAY

 

Monet, "Sunshine and Snow," 1881

Time moved like honey today.  Maybe for most of the pandemic for those of us who from need or choice have been home-bound.  For a change the days have not been over before we've had a chance to pay attention to  them.  Slow like honey; sweet like honey.  When ever have Mondays been like that?  And in spite of the 1/6 events in Washington; in spite of even those.  Congress meets, the cabinet defects, we are another day closer to the inauguration and still the day redeemed itself, as days have a way of doing when we let them.

That's one of my intentions for the new year, to keep whatever good the pandemic has given birth to.  The habit of zooming with friends far away.  The habit of asking how others are doing and really wanting to know.  No more pro forma these days.  The habit of listening, tuning our ear to the nuance of fear or loneliness.  Bringing the indoors out with fire pits and blankets to live in consonance with the season. 

But perhaps most of all the new way of making the best of the worst.  When the mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6 most of us watching the news felt our connectedness to eachother, much as we did on 9/11.  I don't know what all the ramifications will be.  But I'll be paying attention and looking for whatever small part is open to me. 

For now I'll still be doing it from home, whose every nook and cranny I've come to love more during these ten months of seclusion.  The place where we're safest from the virus; where the masks come off and we can hold each other close.   During these months I've lifted so many prayers from this space and had so many of them answered.  One of the unspoken ones today, when time moved like honey.  

Thinking of each of you,  Nina Naomi

 

 

 

 

A LIFE THAT TAKES ITS TIME

Somehow we believe  our lives are more worthwhile when we do as much as possible.  There must be research on this.  Our Puritan heritage?  The status of busyness?  For many, most of the day is planned time. True for me for most of my life. 

I was given a lovely present, A Book that Takes its Time by Irene Smit and Astrid Van Der Hulst.  It seems like the perfect present for these days.  In North Carolina coronavirus cases are still rising and my life is the most unhurried it has ever been.  Same with the rest of our family.  On-line summer art classes; working from home; child care; walking the dogs; weighing who we can visit with and where.  The children have been told that Fall semester will be distance learning again.  So although life is crazy there is also more time to breathe.  Right now my husband and I are sheltering at the beach where nothing much needs doing.  I hope your mind has a chance to clear too.  

This book has pull-outs, punch-outs and fill-ins.  Among them are 48 Notecards on which to write a Beautiful Moment.  

I love filling these in.  I went back in time for some moments, ones that are precious.  Like, May 2005:  my son calling to say "No son ever loved a mother more than I love you."  (That may be my lifetime #1.)  Another from May 2005:  when I told my mom, "Mom, we have no issues," and it was true, always true.  

Other simpler recurring Beautiful Moments:  my husband making my morning tea; sunset from our Adirondack chairs;  when I hear the words, "Hi Grandma."   I wrote one today.  "Today I found 20 Augers!"  Those little predatory marine sea snails that leave a spiral shell that resembles a slender screw or an auger.  I like to think it takes a trained eye to spot that many in the piles of broken shells left after the tide recedes. 

Today's Treasures

I have a large decorative bottle full that belonged to my mother.  I imagine her bending and picking up each one, then washing it and dropping it through the narrow mouth into the bottle. 

If you have some time, try remembering your Beautiful Moments.  Where could you keep them?  On craft paper in a tin or jar?  Part of taking care of ourselves.

There's also a chapter in the book by Lissette Thooft (Dutch writer, b. 1953) about another way to live more slowly.  It has to do with waiting for things--sort of like we are now.  Waiting to see friends, waiting to travel, waiting to hug each other when greeting, waiting for a vaccine, for normalcy, in America waiting for the presidential election . . . .   While our waiting now is nothing any of us particularly want, in general, experts say,  anticipation is good for us; anticipation produces dopamine, the chemical that makes us feel good.  Things and experiences gain value when we wait for them.  We've all noticed that haven't we?  What we may have taken for granted 6 months ago we now yearn for. 

The instant gratification we've become accustomed to may be a form of greed.  I know I can get almost angry just watching my computer buffer.  Perhaps patience is a kind of generosity  People who can have whatever they want as soon as they want it may end up feeling empty and disappointed (or in debt). Waiting for something good may bring us greater satisfaction.  The quiet enjoyment of a goal reached.  It may make us realize that life is worth waiting for.  

More on this charming book later.  

 






    



  

  














 

THE GOODNESS OF MEMORY

Leaves burning remind me of Fall
The kids playing on the swing set while I rake
Matching green sweaters with hoods, pumping, out and back 
Sarah with her little bones, happy; Adam in boondockers, whirling  
We're feeling the chill, our hands and cheeks as the sun sets 
Damp earth, smokey air
Dinner at McDonald's, baths, soft pajamas, little feet, wet hair
Fragrant life
There's nothing wrong with my memories, nothing at all 


Sometimes it feels calm, the movement of life, the blessing of the surrender to time. 

Nina Naomi

"NO IS A COMPLETE SENTENCE"

I could be quoting Annie Lamott or Psychology Today or Mindful.org or Megan Le Boutillier or any number of sources or people.  I could be quoting my Dad when he wondered what my teenage self didn't understand about "no."  

But there's another kind of "no," the no that's needed when we're deciding how to spend our time.  After all, what else is irreplaceable, limited and will cease at an unknown point? The Stoic philosopher Seneca (4 BC-65AD) said to guard it as we would our most precious possession. I know I don't do that.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who ended his days in a concentration camp, said that "Time lost is time when we have not lived a full human life, time unenriched by experience, creative endeavour, enjoyment, and suffering."  Most of us don't wish we had more time to suffer, but we know what he means: time spent grieving is time wisely spent, time spent empathizing is time wisely spent, likewise time spent sharing another's sorrow.  

There are times, though, when we must say no.  These include the times some of us are tempted to say "yes" because our culture prizes busy-ness, or because we see people on social media whose lives seem curated to perfection.  Or in a work setting, because we are trying to get ahead, build a business or reputation, or just stay afloat, and we are afraid to turn down any opportunity.  Not FOMO exactly, but perhaps a lack of faith in ourselves or our future if we take a moment to breathe.  As a lawyer, it took a long time for me not to answer the question "How are you?" with anything other than "Busy" or worse, "Super busy," whether it was true at the moment or not. Busy had status.

We should strive, experts say, to say "no" without guilt, even when the alternatives we are choosing are doing something for our self or doing nothing at all.  We don't have to explain.  "No I can't" or "No I'm already over-committed" is enough.  This leaves no room for challenge or pressure.  

Saying "no" to ourselves can also be part of our self-care.  Creating protective boundaries not only for others to observe but for us to respect as well.  Like saying "no" to apps that send us alerts multiple times a day.  Or "no" to obsessively checking our email (yes even work email). Or to checking our phone before we've gotten out of bed.  It's a way to choose how we spend our time.  A way to remember it's not always something that matters.  We matter too. 

Seneca talks about how one who borrows the smallest, cheapest item acknowledges the debt but even the most grateful cannot repay the time they have taken from us.  Nor can we reclaim the time we have given away.  So if tomorrow is a work day or school day we set our alarms.  For what is already scheduled we hope we have made good choices, that we would utter the same "yes" or "no" again.  For what is to come let us make choices that we don't regret, either now or in the future.  Let us fearlessly recognize that "No is a complete sentence." This is something we can work on; it would be time well spent, wouldn't it?                
                                                             Wishing us all Success, Nina Naomi

"LIFE IS LONG IF YOU KNOW HOW TO USE IT," SENECA

On the Shortness of Life by Seneca (4BC-65AD), the Roman Stoic, is a brief work that is so full of ideas that are current.  How can it be that someone from the 1st century can tap into our needs today?  It speaks to the universality of everything human I think.  It's like when I happen to check audience stats and see that someone in Andorra has looked at this blog, or someone in Czechia, the Netherlands, Portugal, or the UK. We must all have universal interests and thoughts.  We're not so different from one another, maybe not at all different from one another.  That may be true across time as well, across centuries, not just across the globe.  

Some things we are all drawn to.  The sea is one. -- Not today exactly, as we in North Carolina watch Hurricane Florence make land fall and flood our rivers, as our causeways are closed and we have evacuated with our re-entry passes in hand.  As we wait to either lose power or for its return and the branches crack and the trees thud.  No not today.  But most days.  Most days we all enjoy the tides, the mystery of the forests, the views from our mountains, the healthy endurance that nature requires.  We know that going out is the same as going in.  

So as we have the day off and I have a momentary return of power, I am reading Seneca.  How apt to read a Stoic philosopher during the silences and surges of a storm.  Let's begin with the quote,  

"Life is Long if You Know How to Use It."  

Seneca is a chider in this essay, a bit of a scold.  But what he says makes sense to me.  Think about these two statements:

"They lose the day in expectation of the night, and the night in fear of the dawn." 

 "But putting things off is the biggest waste of life:  it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future.  The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today."

Or this one, 

People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy." 

I am guilty of all these things, I know that.  Losing a day or night to agitation when my worries have gotten the better of me.  Putting off something I want to do.  Allowing screen time to suck away the hours. Neglecting the joy of being outdoors.    

Or this  worst--letting memories of a bad day color what could be a good day. Or a past hurt destroy the present. I like the way Seneca addresses this.  Focusing on the bad he says is like punishing ourselves for our misfortune, increasing our ills instead of lessening them.  Isn't the original loss or hurt punishment enough, he asks.  Lingering in our suffering, coddling it with attention, is like pleading for more lashes.  If that profited us, he writes, if a night spent in sorrow instead of sleep brought relief, that would be one thing.  But it doesn't.  

I'm not suggesting we all read Seneca's Consolations. Or become Stoics. But I do like it that a literary form that dates from the 5th century BC can reach us today. That the need for consolations from life's ills was the same then as now. That part of Seneca's philosophy was that contentment could be reached through simple living, reason and social equality.  Especially the contentment through simple living part.  

So I've signed up for a 14-week MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction)  course at the Center for Integrative Medicine at Duke University Medical Center.  Something I want to do that I'm not putting off!  It's part mindfulness (staying in the present non-judgmentally), part meditation and part Yoga.  Maybe a bit of Roman stoicism, I'll find out.  No pleading for more lashes in this course I bet!  I'm ready to put in the work.  

With thanksgiving for my long life, Nina Naomi 





 

  

POCKETS OF TIME

Don't you love the phrase "pockets of time?"  It's so accurate.  The pocket of time in the morning with coffee or tea. The pocket of time before anyone else is up.  When the children are napping, or watching their favorite show, are at school or on a play-date.  After the house is clean (or maybe while cleaning it), before a night out, before tucking into bed.  Sometimes the walk to the mailbox or a chat with a neighbor is a pocket of time.  Even grocery shopping alone can be a pocket of time.  Time to regroup, to connect with ourselves or someone else, to be with our own thoughts. A "pocket of time" means something good. 

There can also be pockets of time during commutes.  One family member commutes by ferry into Manhattan.  That is his time--one hour each way.  On the commute home he is heading back to his family of three boys under 5.  Our niece, his wife, finds her pockets when the boys are at preschool, or napping. Or a grandparent is there.  Two unflappable young parents living mostly on love.

Another family member keeps their baby strapped to his chest while he works.  Not sure he has a pocket of time, or his wife either, except for curling into bed together.  They are happy too.

 Sleeping Baby and  Watchful Mother

Some experts advise that we find a peaceful place for our pocket of time--a park bench, a cafe, by the kitchen window, on our balcony, porch or deck.  Sitting up in bed with a book or magazine.  But we can grasp a pocket without a special place too; even a standstill in traffic can provide a pocket of time. Time to take a deep breath, to let frustration go, to calm ourselves.  

Since I no longer work full-time I have many pockets of time, especially if I get up first.  Even when the house is crowded.  Time to blog, time to read, time to water the garden, or swim. 

This summer we are not taking a vacation.  We have a grandchild who arrives at 7:30 to spend the day while her mom and dad work.  That is a blessing, as all of us who are grandparents know.  Or as many of us remember from our own childhood with a grandparent, after school or in the summer.  Or perhaps raising us.  So we are calling our house Camp Cornwallis, after the street where we live.  I'm trying to make our nest a retreat, our home a kingdom, our town a destination.  That way the stay-cation is not second choice.   I think it's working!  Last week we had three grandchildren stay.  No one seemed to want to be anywhere else.  How glad that makes me! My pockets of time were fewer but that was fine.  I think my niece must feel that way.  

So if you live in town find a park bench.  Sit alone or keep an eye on the children.  Take a walk with a child in a stroller, or let the kids run ahead.  Feed everyone pizza and flop on the couch.  Let the house go and stay outside.  Eat leftovers.  Play music or enjoy the silence on your commute.  Walk the neighborhood.  Hide out in the garage or garden shed.  Find a place to float on your back.  Or dream about it.  Oh my, the list of how to find and enjoy pockets of time to nourish ourselves, to be ourselves, is endless.  Thank you God.  Nina Naomi

SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE BY SHEDDING WORRIES

I was in a church recently where a prayer card was handed out.  The prayer was by Thomas Merton (1915-1968)--American Catholic, mystic, Trappist monk.  Merton's prayer begins,

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.   

I do not see the road ahead of me.  

I cannot know for certain where it will end. 

Do we not all feel like this sometimes?  No idea where we're going.  No idea where our path will end.  What can we do when we feel like this?  Each of us may have a different answer.  Merton was a Christian so turned to God.  He says to his God,

"I know. . . you will lead me by the right road 

though I may know nothing about it.  

Therefore I will trust you always 

though I may seem to be lost. . . ."

This prayer helps me.  Some problems seem insurmountable don't they? We all have them.  Toxic people.  Deception or disloyalty.  Illness, aging, death.  Loss or fear of loss.  Even the young can fear growing older without the accomplishments they expected. A job, a spouse, a house, children, financial independence--each can seem out of reach.  Life has never been easy.

Would our lives be simpler, better, if we shed our worries about what we cannot change?  Experts seem to think so.  First to tackle is the PAST.  William Faulkner says "The Past is not Dead.  It's not even Past."

He is not talking about good things in our past, that is clear. But those things we wish had never happened.  

Because the past is immutable, we cannot wish actions or words away, hurt we either caused or endured.  Trauma fades, but something that devastates us fades imperfectly and not on our timetable.  We can only try to understand and fashion a narrative we can move forward with.  And as always, keep close company with those who understand and value us, whether one or many. A person, a pet, or even a memory. 

My own prayer is shorter than Merton's.  I simply ask God to help and guide me.  Or, the anonymous prayer "God be in my heart, and in my thinking."  That's it. No specifics.  No hamstringing God.  I don't have to define the problem, or fashion the solution. All I have to know is that I need help.

Of course this isn't foolproof.  Sometimes I ask too late, or with a hidden agenda.  But the gain from shedding worries about things we cannot change is immeasurable. We might call it the Peace of God.