Life can be hectic and in the rush to finish one task to begin the next, one can miss the beauty to be found in slowing down. When you slow down, I mean really slow down, from the inside out, you begin to notice the invisible aspects of life. If you're paying attention, you begin to notice that many of those invisible aspects are lurking right inside of you just waiting for you to take notice. I've been doing a lot that lately, slowing down and paying attention, and without fail something mystical occurs. It is as if time and space move to accommodate my needs. Occurrences that I use to attribute to good fortune or a happy coincidence are really a reflection of my consciousness, as if my inner energy is manipulating the outer world.
Take, for example, a round of small errands (replace a battery, pick up this, drop off that, etc.) that I had to complete recently. Because of the heavily trafficked areas I had to drive through, they could have potentially taken a relatively long time and I knew that street parking would be an impossible nightmare. Regardless, I got into my car and drove on, mindful of my tasks but focusing instead on the rhythm of traffic, the green of a newly sodded playground, the blue of the sky. As I travelled in this manner, I noticed that in spite of heavy traffic, I seemed to be moving effortlessly through the streets. At every stop I made, a parking space was miraculously waiting for me just around the corner. One of these spots had 16 minutes left on the parking meter. This was enough time to walk around the block, descend into a subway station, purchase a new Metrocard, stop at a store to replace a watch battery and return to my car with 10 minutes to spare. Everything I did that day flowed effortlessly as if it was a choreographed dance. It was golden.
True, everyone has moments like these but as I said before, most are chalked up to good luck. But I'm discovering that "good luck" may really be good karma in disguise. More importantly, I realized that the more I slowed down from within, the faster and more smoothly things moved without.
My golden moments are occurring more frequently these days. So slow down, feel the rhythm of life as it moves around you and go with the flow.
Ballo ergo sum,
Always and always,
- Gitana, the Creative Diva
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
What a week!
My life may not always be what I want it to be, but gratefully I am never bored. I'm just too busy. For example, these past week has been one of those that was jammed packed from end to end. I spent last weekend nursing a sick husband, indulging a teenage daughter's need for a trip to buy some bling at the mall, listening to my teenage son's latest adventures as a fraternity pledgee (he has to memorize the Greek alphabet, among other things), and that was just the prelude to this week.
Monday: Late morning I cooked a large meal, enough for two days, because I was scheduled to go to Albany on Tuesday to lobby at the state level for equitable distribution of arts funding for cultural organizations of color. Spent the afternoon at a meeting designed to help me with networking skills in preparation to move my home business forward.
Tuesday: I leave midtown Manhattan at 7 AM on a bus filled with others committed to lobbying for more cultural funding. We are briefed on our mission, given instructions, sorted into teams and scattered throughout the NYS Assembly and Capitol buildings, meeting with our local politicians, representatives and members of the Black and Puerto Rican Caucas. It was a scary, exhilarating, enlightening and empowering day. It was also a very LONG day. We returned to NYC at 8:30 PM after nearly four hours on the road driving through heavy snowfall. I didn't make it back to my own home until a little over an hour later.
Wednesday: I spent the whole day in bed sick with a miserable cold that my husband passed on to me. Suffice it to say that Nyquil was my friend for the next 24 hours.
Thursday: Valentine's Day. Feeling rested and energetic after so much sleep, I decided to do some laundry. That was bad move number 1. After two loads I was wiped out again. I put in a third load and lay down for a nap. That was bad move number two. The hose broke on the washer in the middle of a rinse cycle. When I woke up and went down three hours later I was greeted by two inches of water on my basement floor. The ENTIRE basement floor from front to back was underwater. It took five hours, three buckets, two mops and 10 beach towels to finally soak up the mess. During this whole episode, my telephone lines went dead. Thank goodness for cell phones. My husband picked up Boston Market for dinner. That was the extent of my Valentine's Day.
Friday: In the middle of the continuing basement clean up, I receive a call from my mother to tell me that my nephew, who lives in Switzerland with his mother, was at her house and would only be there for a very short while before having to leave again. In what amounted to a minor miracle, I managed to contact my two children who were travelling home from opposite directions, re-route one to my mother's house, intercept the other one en route and land at my mother's house in less than half an hour. (Again, thank goodness for cell phones.) After a short visit with my nephew, my brother and my folks, it was back home to cook a belated Valentine's dinner and continue the clean up.
It is now Saturday. Day Three of drying out the things that got wet in the basement. In spite of how messy things became, I am grateful it wasn't worse. My computer and nearly all of my crafts equipment and supplies were spared. It's still too soon to tell what else may have been damaged but I'm sure it was nothing of great value. I actually took time out to rest and watch some movies with my family. I'm still fighting a cold but that, too, shall pass. All in all, this has been an eventful week.
And guess what? Tomorrow is Sunday. I'll get to spend another week sorting through all sorts of adventures, misadventures and minor crises. Frankly, I really hope I'll be able to do this sort of thing for a long, long time. Like I said at the beginning, my life may not always be what I want it to be, but gratefully I am never bored.
This is my life.
Ballo ergo sum,
Always and all ways,
- Gitana, the Creative Diva
Monday: Late morning I cooked a large meal, enough for two days, because I was scheduled to go to Albany on Tuesday to lobby at the state level for equitable distribution of arts funding for cultural organizations of color. Spent the afternoon at a meeting designed to help me with networking skills in preparation to move my home business forward.
Tuesday: I leave midtown Manhattan at 7 AM on a bus filled with others committed to lobbying for more cultural funding. We are briefed on our mission, given instructions, sorted into teams and scattered throughout the NYS Assembly and Capitol buildings, meeting with our local politicians, representatives and members of the Black and Puerto Rican Caucas. It was a scary, exhilarating, enlightening and empowering day. It was also a very LONG day. We returned to NYC at 8:30 PM after nearly four hours on the road driving through heavy snowfall. I didn't make it back to my own home until a little over an hour later.
Wednesday: I spent the whole day in bed sick with a miserable cold that my husband passed on to me. Suffice it to say that Nyquil was my friend for the next 24 hours.
Thursday: Valentine's Day. Feeling rested and energetic after so much sleep, I decided to do some laundry. That was bad move number 1. After two loads I was wiped out again. I put in a third load and lay down for a nap. That was bad move number two. The hose broke on the washer in the middle of a rinse cycle. When I woke up and went down three hours later I was greeted by two inches of water on my basement floor. The ENTIRE basement floor from front to back was underwater. It took five hours, three buckets, two mops and 10 beach towels to finally soak up the mess. During this whole episode, my telephone lines went dead. Thank goodness for cell phones. My husband picked up Boston Market for dinner. That was the extent of my Valentine's Day.
Friday: In the middle of the continuing basement clean up, I receive a call from my mother to tell me that my nephew, who lives in Switzerland with his mother, was at her house and would only be there for a very short while before having to leave again. In what amounted to a minor miracle, I managed to contact my two children who were travelling home from opposite directions, re-route one to my mother's house, intercept the other one en route and land at my mother's house in less than half an hour. (Again, thank goodness for cell phones.) After a short visit with my nephew, my brother and my folks, it was back home to cook a belated Valentine's dinner and continue the clean up.
It is now Saturday. Day Three of drying out the things that got wet in the basement. In spite of how messy things became, I am grateful it wasn't worse. My computer and nearly all of my crafts equipment and supplies were spared. It's still too soon to tell what else may have been damaged but I'm sure it was nothing of great value. I actually took time out to rest and watch some movies with my family. I'm still fighting a cold but that, too, shall pass. All in all, this has been an eventful week.
And guess what? Tomorrow is Sunday. I'll get to spend another week sorting through all sorts of adventures, misadventures and minor crises. Frankly, I really hope I'll be able to do this sort of thing for a long, long time. Like I said at the beginning, my life may not always be what I want it to be, but gratefully I am never bored.
This is my life.
Ballo ergo sum,
Always and all ways,
- Gitana, the Creative Diva
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)