Concentration

The old map showed it, clear as day, a trail angling off to the north from a paved path I usually take out and back. So we explored it yesterday, on a cold, cloudy afternoon when the leafless trees held no secrets.

It looked like little more than a deer trail at first, but the logs flanking it gave it respectability. Before long there was a sign: Pine Branch Trail. Thinking it might be a distraction from the ultimate destination — a Nature Center — we ignored it and pressed north. We made it over a bridge, down a paved path, back into the woods on the Snakeden Trail, then crossed Glade and into the forest where we started. 

I'm speaking as if great distances were covered, and they were not. But new territory slows the walk, makes one concentrate on the subtleties. And concentration refreshes the mind. 

Looking at Clouds

This morning I awoke to the house at rest, a house that somehow held 22 people for a sit-down Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. 

An outside table was pulled in, borrowed chairs were tucked under it, and the best china was pulled from its sleeves, dusted off and actually used.

Today, I could do some Black Friday shopping, I could catch up with classwork .... or, I could do what I most want to do, which is to look out my office window at clouds scudding across the sky. 

Deep Breathing

Though I try and clear my decks for a true meditation session several times a week, I consider myself a remedial student at best. Worse than remedial, because it seems like it was easier to avoid distractions when I first began than it is now. Not sure why that is!

But in one way this new habit has taken hold, and that is in the practice of deep breathing. My falling-to-sleep routine consists of deep, counted breaths, my falling-back-to-sleep routine too. I have more luck with the former than the latter, but in both areas, I'm definitely better off than I was before.

And then there are those moments. You know the ones I mean: sitting at a long stoplight or in the dentist's chair. Waiting for a file to load. The small anxieties and trials of daily life. 

Since I began meditating — thanks to my former workplace, which still allows me to join their morning meditation group — I use deep breathing all the time. And it almost never fails to still my racing heart. I'll be meditating again in a moment. My shoulders are dropping a notch or two right now in anticipation.

Think Zebras!

Doctors are taught that when you hear the sound of hoofbeats, think horses not zebras. It's a saying I've always appreciated, worrier that I am, a reminder to see the molehill instead of the mountain. But even doctors know that in some situations, it's better to think mountains — or zebras.

This is especially true in Maryland, where five zebras escaped from a farm and 30 days later have yet to be caught. Zebras have been spotted grazing in suburban yards and dashing across suburban lanes. 

Officials tell folks to be careful around the wild animals, that they cannot be caught, they must be corralled. Funny, I was just reading about zebras in the book Guns, Germs and Steel (more on this classic in a later post), how, unlike the forerunners of the horse, zebras are impossible to tame. They cannot be lassoed, and they have a tendency to bite. 

The Maryland zebras are living proof of these biological and historical facts. 

(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Summer Tasks

Here it still feels like full-on summer, but with autumn officially beginning next week there's more urgency to complete the tasks of summer — everything from weeding the garden to bathing the dog, a task that may happen later today, depending upon energy levels of both dog and humans.

Perhaps I should say tasks made easier by summer in the latter case, actions more easily performed outside that in, like the sudsing up and rinsing off of a sometimes cantankerous canine, or the cleaning of a feather- and seed-layered birdcage.

On the other hand, it's also nice to read, write and think outside, to look and listen and remember, storing up the cricket sounds and bird calls for a leaner, bleaker season. Those activities should not — and will not — be forgotten. 

Function and Form

Most of the time I float along in my English major bubble, writing posts and essays, paying little to no heed to how things work.  I turn the tap and water flows. I flip a switch and lights come on.

But lately I've been forced to take measurements, consider function over form, to — in my own small and limited way — think like an engineer. 

This shouldn't be difficult; two of my siblings are engineers. However, they ended up with all of the math genes, while I muddle along in a touchy-feely alternative universe. 

Until recently, when I've been forced to pay attention. Take the bathroom shower, for instance. I jump in one every day; most of us do. But it took me weeks to realize that a fixed glass panel by the shower controls in the new bathroom would prevent me from setting the water temperature before I get in. 

Turns out, there's a remedy for this — the shower controls can be moved closer to the entryway and away from the shower head — but had I not thought differently for a moment...  I would never have known about it.

Spacious Mind

A happy mind is a spacious mind, intoned the voice that I have come to associate with calm. It's the voice of the Headspace application (its founder, as a matter of fact), and it has been my guide on this several-month journey I've been taking recently, dipping my toe into the shallowest end of the deep waters of meditation.

Any progress I've made has been courtesy of my place of employ, which has sponsored Headspace meditation sessions every workday since mid-March, most of which I've attended.

Some days I'm a hopeless case and can barely follow the instructions. But other days I can feel myself in another place, one where thoughts flit into my mind and just as easily float out again; one where following the breath, flowing with the breath, is becoming a little more second nature.

Today, when I heard this line that a happy mind is a spacious mind, a mind that has room for other people, other ideas, I'll admit I broke the first rule of meditation. I didn't let that thought move through and out. I savored it a bit, I pondered the implications.

Equating happiness with spaciousness, yes, it works — though you could just as easily equate it with coziness and smallness and manageability. But in this case I imagined the clear sky that you reach when you soar above the clouds. The spaciousness of the heavens, of the mind unencumbered.

Going Nowhere

I've considered and forgotten several post ideas as this rainy day makes me sleepy. So far I've spent way too much time reading the newspaper. I've looked up recipes, made vague notes about what ingredients I would need to make them, then decided salad for dinner again isn't such a bad idea.

I've answered emails, tidied the kitchen, refreshed the cut flowers, written in my journal, eaten yogurt and strawberries, and brought my crocheting downstairs — though I've yet to touch the hook.

I tell myself that when one is normally a tightly scheduled person, it's healthy to do nothing for a few hours  — but of course, I don't believe it.

Outside, the world is green and dripping. I was out in it early, committing to the walk before I knew it was drizzling and not wanting to miss the birds calling to each other at daybreak. My shoes won't dry for hours.  But that's just fine — I'm not going anywhere.

(A rare photo of the house without cars in the driveway.) 

Roaming Free

What happens when a post idea flies through my head while I'm trying to participate in the meditation  program my office offers at 9 a.m. most mornings?

It flies through, that's all ... and is lost to posterity.

Meditation means clearing the mind of not only worry and clutter and pointless rumination, but also of the ideas that are sometimes worth developing in this blog.

There's always a chance that this idea will reappear later, of course. Ideas do that sometimes. But there's a greater chance that it's never coming back. And that's all right. Harvesting thoughts can be a tiring business. Better sometimes to let the mind roam free.

Intentionality

In the guided meditation I've been doing through work we've been exploring the idea of intentionality, of directing our practice toward others who will benefit from it, those at home or in the (now virtual) workplace.

It's something I recall doing at a yoga class I took years ago, devoting the effort, the realizations and the calmness to a cause beyond ourselves. Back then one or two of my children were still in their teenage years, so I never had a lack of intention.

But I've realized today as I've pondered this practice (not during the meditation itself, oh no, never then; I'm not thinking about anything then!) is that it's familiar from even longer ago. It reminds me of something I was taught in my Catholic grammar school, which was to "offer up" our daily trials for the poor souls in Purgatory.

I'm not sure Purgatory is still a thing (a place?) anymore, but the notion of directing our collective effort toward a greater good very much appeals to me. It means that there is a reservoir of good will abroad in the land that we can add to and draw from as needed.  And surely we could all benefit from that.

Breathe In, Breathe Out

A nascent meditation program at the office has me listening to guided exercises that instruct us to "breathe in, breathe out" and to exist in the present, because that's all we have.

The irony of doing this in the workplace does not escape me — future-oriented as it is and has to be — but my neck and shoulders constantly remind me that I need to chill out, so I close my eyes and try to float in the moment.

I concentrate on the breath, on the inflow and outflow, the filling up and the releasing. It's true, the present moment is really all we have. There is a seat on Metro, there is a journal I can write in. And, later, there is a walk that will take me where I need to go.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Blog, in a Nutshell

Sometimes it all comes back like the rekindling of an old passion — the reason I started this blog, which is the walking and what it leads to, the new ideas, a fresh way of looking at something. Though I post about books and music and writing and more, it was walking that started it and walking that energizes it still.

No surprise this came to me yesterday, when the air felt more like spring than fall and a pair of doves rose up and fluttered off as I strode too close to them. I heard geese, too, a flock that has decided to winter here, I guess.

The light was soft and the scenery, to quote Hemingway, a movable feast, and I gobbled it up as I ambled past. Thoughts floated by, some of them even worth keeping. So I rushed home and wrote them down. And there you have it — the blog, in a nutshell.

Contemplative Tasks

A walker in the suburbs spends a lot of time thinking. So does a writer in the suburbs (or the city, depending upon whether I'm working at home or at the office).

I think best, though, when I'm doing something else. And I was thinking the other day (see?!) about how certain tasks are perfect for contemplation.

This will come as no surprise to monks and nuns who pray ceaselessly whether they're hoeing a field or baking a fruitcake. They've long since realized how much physical labor lends itself to thought and prayer.

Walking, of course, is one of the most contemplative occupations, which is a large part of why I do it. Others include weeding, mowing, sweeping and ironing.

Each of these deserves its own post (and some have them), but I'm focusing today on what they have in common, on the pulling and the stretching, the pounding and the smoothing — on all the repetitive motions that exercise the muscles so the mind can roam free.

(Once freed, a mind can go anywhere.) 

The Thinker

For the walker, what you do with your feet is simple. You put one in front of the other and move forward.

Much trickier is what you do with your arms. If you're fast-walking, you pump them until they look like the connecting rod of a steam locomotive or the blurred, dust-kicking feet of a cartoon roadrunner.

If you're a bit slower, you swing them at your side, freewheeling, in time to the music in your ears or the rhythm of your heartbeat.

And then there is the meandering, meditative walk, which is best accomplished with arms behind and hands clasped behind the back. It's open, stilled and expansive — and it, more than the famous seated Rodin, is the true posture of the thinker.

There's only one problem: When I walk with my hands clasped behind my back, I feel much wiser than I actually am.

(Photo: Pixabay)

Late-Day Stroll

Copper and I had a delicious late evening walk the other night. There was a sliver of a fingernail moon just setting in the west, along with the sun.

There were birds darting everywhere, finishing up their late-day chores before bedding down for the night. There were bats, too, I suppose, just starting their day, though we didn't see any.

Mostly, we just strolled at the pace that has become our own, which is to say much slower than either of us goes individually. He sniffed, I mulled. It was meditative, like pacing a labyrinth.

It was the perfect way to end the day.

To the Corner and Back

After weeks of wimpy walking, nursing a case of plantar fasciitis, trying not to go too far or too fast, supplementing the strolls with 20 minutes on the basement rowing machine, I've realized something I've known all along but recognize more clearly with each passing week.

And that is ... I'm not just walking for my health.

Even a slow stroll stimulates thoughts and ideas more than the most energetic rowing session. When I'm rowing, all I think of is, when can I stop. When I'm walking, I never want to stop.

This link between mind and feet is something I've written about often, and I'm not the only one. A New Yorker article lists fact after fact about how and why we think more clearly and more creatively when we're ambling along a city street or woodland trail.

So if I have to raise my heart rate on the erg, I'll do it. But walking will remain — even if it's just to the corner and back.

Foot Feel

"Nor can foot feel, being shod." 

I was barefoot this morning when I ran out to retrieve the newspaper, and this Gerard Manley Hopkins line came to mind. My feet feel all too much because they are shod, and when they suddenly aren't, every speck of gravel is an ordeal.

But my feet have adapted to the world I live in, just as the rest of me has. If tiny pebbles affect my soles, then how much does the rest of it — the clatter, the commute, the deadlines — affect my soul?

More than I can imagine, I think. Which is why I write this blog.

Missing Fob

It wasn't in the inside pocket of my too-small purse. And it wasn't in the roomier confines of my tote bag. It wasn't on the desk or in a drawer. Which meant one of two things: Either I had lost my fob, my entry ticket to this office suite, or it was in my pants pocket.

It's the latter, I just learned. And I'm filled with relief. Which makes me think about how closely we hew to the small landmarks of our routine. How the absence of one tiny item can unsettle and disrupt. Today I'll use the front door instead of the rear, and plan trips out to coincide with receptionist availability.

But maybe this is a good thing, something to keep in mind when routine ossifies. That we are only a loss or two away, not from inconvenience — but from liberation.

Tick Tock

The house is as quiet as my house can be, which means that in addition to the blood rushing through my ears I'm also listening to the twitter of parakeets and the steady tick-tock of the cuckoo clock.

The "cuckoo" part of the clock has been long since been disabled, but the ticking mechanism remains. The metronomic beat of this timepiece is the soundtrack of my life.

On the rare day when the clock's not wound, the stillness is deafening. I can hardly hear myself think.

Which raises the question: What has all this ticking done to my brain? Has it weathered it with pockmarks? Or has it smoothed and polished it, eroding those pesky irregularities that often stand in for real thought?

Things to Come

Well, the jig is up. The summer jig, that is. It's in the 50s as  I write these words on the deck, swaddled in my warm winter robe, the fuzzy white one. No slippers, only my outside crocs. I could use a pair of fuzzy socks, too.

Copper, however, is in his element, prancing in the bars of sunlight that stripe the back yard at this time of day and year.

He responds just to the weather at hand, which, if it were the prelude to a hot summer day, would be just fine, no problem. But I know what he doesn't: that this is just the beginning of the chill, that there will be rain and snow and early darkness.

Sometimes I long for an animal brain.