On January 14, I told you how life (and death) was showing me that life is too precious–too precious to waste on not enjoying breathing, eating, laughing, seeing, walking, smelling, thinking, feeling, loving.
Why do we waste our precious moments getting pissed off, taking things personally, worrying about someone’s perception of us? (They ain’t thinking about us.)
But there’s also this–getting pissed this morning at the asshole Camaro weaving through pokey Greensboro traffic is precious.
Getting equally pissed later at the blue Camry (do the cars have to start with C-A-M?) who diligently drove one tick under the speed limit through my favorite country roads (can’t we just drive a civilized 50?), and made me two minutes late for my morning meeting (I made me two minutes late)–also a privilege.
“Again! Again!” That’s what Noah says after I read “Clifford and His Pals” at bedtime.
I say, “Okay,” and I read the story again.
I tell myself I’m doing a long run of a show, and this time I’m going to find something new in the Big Red Dog’s tale.
Sure enough, there’s a different illustration or a story point the next time as I read and smell the top of our 21-month-old’s sweet head.
And that’s what the planet says every morning at different sunrise hours all the time–again!
Again! I’m being told again. Life is so precious, and the seconds hurtle by us like racehorses. Not to be reined or held, but for us to gasp at their power, speed, and beauty.
Since that January 14 post, so many souls in my immediate circle have left.
Life is saying this to me again, and so I say it to you again. “What do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
In the same poem, Mary Oliver writes
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention,
how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed,
how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Yes it does, Mary.
Maybe for you today there is something you want to step toward but for some reason you stop yourself–feeling like an imposter, fearing a life on the streets, admitting you love musicals.
Let my nudges be your nudges. Take one step in that direction today. I will bet you a fro yo that it will reveal another step you can take, and things will start to get clearer.
Thank you for reading this, and thank you for letting me share with you. It makes my hurtling seconds precious.
