Stillness

Image credit: Photo by Baloulumix on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons

I was cleaning up outside earlier today, an activity I'm finding much more soothing than cleaning up inside the house, because it turns out that Nature is less destructive than my family, so I get to enjoy the fruits of my labor a little longer before entropy takes over and sends everything back into visually displeasing chaos.  At some point, my pesky back pain kicking in, I sat down, and thought, "Wow, this is wonderful! I'm sitting here and it's so peaceful," which was followed immediately by, "But if I'm going to sit here, I should be writing something or reading something or doing something."

But it struck me that the guilt was misplaced. The stillness was a necessary part of writing and a form of reading and an aid in doing. So, I stayed there for a while and did a little of the work of letting go, just by the slightest amount, of the to do list, which seems to be harder for me than doing the things on it. And then I wrote it down, here, to help myself remember it.