Day 80
Sometimes life is so chaotic that we need to take a step back (or two steps … or three …) in order to get a handle on things … to find our center.
And doing so sometimes is through meditation … which I’m pretty sure would drive me over the edge of a very high cliff. I can’t be still … or quiet … that long. And if I have to sit and actually THINK … my mind eventually comes around to counting … yeah, yeah we already talked about that! Anyway, finding center for me does not involve meditation unless it’s sitting at my favorite outdoor restaurant (Delizio’s) contemplating whether or not I should get another glass of Moscato.
I read the book Eat, Pray, Love (by Elizabeth Gilbert) and then saw the movie and for both I could barely (and we are talking sticking my fingernails, if I had any, into my forearms to keep from screaming) stand the middle portion of the memoir. It sounded akin to torture. Sitting for six or eight hours a day, day after day, meditating. I’m sorry I just don’t get it.
I’ll find my center doing something else!
My friend is off at a retreat this week … a yoga retreat. And finding one’s center doing yoga I would assume to be very popular and easy. This retreat, however, sounds more like a grueling bootcamp with sessions beginning at 6:45 (yes, in the morning) with minimal time spent eating or enjoying anything save for yoga poses with lights out at 9pm … with plenty of time to meditate in the dark, I guess. Um, no thanks. I think I’d rather find my center digging my toes into the sand with a little umbrella drink or a salted rim in my hand. “Sí señor, I will have the gazpacho with the shrimp. And sí, another margarita – gracias.”
Finding center … I imagine we all find it in some way … eventually. We go to spas. We work out. We paint. We shop. We find what works for us and continue doing that until it no longer works and then we find something else that brings us back to ourselves … so that we feel good, whole, calm, centered.
In the midst of all this packing and boxes and disarray I have been feeling very displaced. I do not like untidiness … and that, in itself, with so much stuff all about, is making me edgy and a bit “off”.
And then tonight I found my center again. Amidst all the tape and boxes and packing materials I found it. No, it wasn’t in meditation or prayer or a spa treatment or yoga … but mine came in the shape of a pizza box. Granted I’m allergic to yeast and gluten, dairy and tomatoes … but every once in a while you have to say GI distress be damned and give in to an ooey, gooey, hot and cheesy, slightly spicy and oh so nice-y … pizza!
After 3 pieces and an extra morsel of Italian sausage I am good to take on another few boxes of packing. I’ve regained calm. I might be a mess tomorrow … but for right now … I am centered.