Tag Archives: rest

A Faraway Look

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Daydreaming is amazingly useful. No matter what teachers and bosses and impatient parents may have said over the years (never to me, of course, wink-wink), that pleasant fugue state of seemingly purposeless internal wandering is where a great deal of terrific, very purposeful invention and problem-solving happens. It takes us to inner regions where we are unencumbered by rules, editing, and logic, and can let the what-ifs of experiment and hope play together until, sometimes, they produce brilliant results that endless hours and years of study and labor might never have fostered. How can we expect to engender anything grand if we don’t aim for the seemingly impossible?Photo: Faraway

Consistent study and labor are, of course, quite necessary if we are to be able to even conceive of what exists and how we intend to alter it; to begin with no facts, no tools, no notions of probability or potential will inevitably leave us puzzling fruitlessly for ages before we ever approach a fantastic and outlandish idea, let alone a useful one. But once the seeds have been sown, we can’t assume that there would be no purpose in additional time and imagination spent on divining what to do when they begin to grow as well. The dreamers of the world have nurtured at least as much meaningful and helpful stuff as the mere scientists and scholars and brawny-brained geniuses have done, but with less hoopla, and it seems to me that we should be wary of working too hard to bring fantasists down to earth too soon.Photo: Fruition

Assume, when you see me in an apparently abstracted slide toward the comatose, that I am in fact inwardly journeying toward a dazzling insight or earthshaking invention or two, and leave me in peace. I shall emerge, in due time, bearing the harvest of this grand exploratory trip. Or at least I’ll have had a refreshing nap. I’ll happily leave it to you to determine the value of the difference, if any, between the two eventualities.

Lounging Around

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There’s nothing like a long stretch with a too-busy schedule to remind me how important it is to slow down and do some meaningful Nothing once in a while, even if it makes me miss one or two seemingly crucial other things. Every time I remember to take that kind of break, I notice that no matter how much I think I was letting go of, leaving undone, and missing out on doing, the world has not once ceased to turn. Civilization has not only not ended while I was ‘off duty’ in a moment of relaxation, but has very likely been somewhat improved by having a little break from my ignorant interference in its progress.
Photo: Laid Back Loveliness

Sometimes it’s really useful to deliberately put my head in the clouds. Or to stare at the floor, for that matter. When I stop gazing exclusively at the stack of paperwork in front of me, thinking only of the next three items on my to-do list, or listening merely to the rattling of the voices on TV, telephone and in email correspondence that are all demanding my attention, I can notice that I’m walking across incredibly worn but still vibrant Majorcan tile in a room full of paneled walls and acres of ancestral portrait paintings, and that’s just en route to some other thing entirely. I might get to that Other Thing and find that it’s only a small courtyard, but one full of sunlight split into dazzling rays by a fretwork of wrought iron artistry that may very well have been behind deadline in its production because the artisan thought it was more important the work be done well and beautifully than that it arrive on time.
Photo: A Gathering Place

Why do we persist in making little things mean so little when they can make a great change in our perspective? Don’t we fuss enough when we think the universe is treating us so neglectfully and with such unwarranted disdain? I think it’s only fair that if I want to be treated with any sort of respect by the universe, perhaps I ought to give it some of the same attention and admiration as well. Far better than wasting my precious life resources on endless effortful chores that will only wait for my return anyway, is to spend a bit of that time instead on admiring the goodness of a threadbare Turkish rug and relishing the thrum of steady conversation about unimportant yet interesting details of the day’s quiet events, talk between real people who stand on that very same carpet at the very same moment and, amazingly enough, listen when I reply.

Seeking Sabbatical

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Everybody needs a break. Not everyone gets one or is in the position to take advantage of it, but when the opportune moment arises, it’s a gift that should be savored. After all, it gives us far more energy for going forward with style.Digital illustration from photos + text: Recess

Gently into the Night

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digital illustration from a photograph

Reparations

While the quiet of the evening draws its curtain on the noise

Day had clamored ’til its leaving, I will lie in calm and poise,

Gently as a bed of lilies bends in summer’s kindest breeze,

As the cat turns, curling, ’til he’s found his pose of greatest ease;

While the dusk falls, silent, deeper into night, my eyelids close

Heavily…I’m soon a sleeper in the stillest of repose…

Midnight finds me softly dreaming, all the day’s loud clatter gone,

‘Til birds chatter at the streaming light of the approaching dawn

While I lie in silent dozing where no sound comes breaking through,

All that shouted ceases, closing restive lips—and spirits, too,

Slip like shades and never flutter more than deepest sleeping sends

To the surface from the utter place of healing and amends;

I will rest here in the solace and the silence so supreme

It can quiet every call as I lie still and, gently, dream…digital illustration from a photograph

Kick Up Those Heels and Run

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I was watching a television interview with a couple who had just come in from horseback riding on their beautiful Montana acreage. The man was walking his horse to the gate the woman rode up, dismounted and pulled off her horse’s tack. Both horses were beautiful, healthy and contented looking animals, and clearly had bonds with their riders. But when the woman took off that bridle, the mare kicked up her hooves and ran into the pasture at top speed, rocking like a foal over the tussocks with her tail streaming behind her.digital illustration

There was no sense that she wanted, let alone needed, to get away from her Person. Still, she seemed to relish the unencumbered moment and revel in what she could do all of her own volition in it. And that, I think, is a wonderful thing.

Shouldn’t we all remember, from time to time, to throw off the traces of what we must do, throw our propriety and responsibility and all of the trappings of expectation and normalcy and Requirement and just cut a little caper? Isn’t there a reason we are capable of being free, adventuresome, unpredictable and happy? I’m pretty sure that the earth will not stop rotating on its axis if even the most high-powered and busy, the most seemingly essential and useful people on it, actually get out of harness once in a while and take pleasure in the moment with childlike innocence. And I’m even more sure that once anyone has taken the break that offers such a sense of independence, ease and simple happiness, he/she can return to work as a healthier and more productive person; whatever might have been missing or diminished in the time of absence is caught up and refreshed, right along with the person who does it all.

What could be better than to return to our day-to-day Normal life refreshed, renewed and recharged because we dared to demand a moment of freedom and playtime! Yes, we do have to demand it. It’s almost unheard-of that anyone would hand any of us a one-hour holiday, let alone a day or two. Why should they? Every one of us has a whole list of things we need, or at least want, others to do for us, so we aren’t likely to cut each other a break from supplying our wants and needs unless and until they buck their bonds, too.

It won’t do to be rude and selfish about it, but I would advocate for our all keeping our eyes open and ears pricked up so we can notice any opportunity to stand up for our good health and happiness. And take it. And take off with it!

One Stormy Day…

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digital illustration from a photoApologia

Bleak indigo and velvet was the sky

That hung above that cold portentous noon

More chilling than the goddess of the moon

If she had bowed her sorrows down to die—

My own, I could not grief so sharp withhold

But wept as though the torrent ought to drown

Me in the rivers of her velvet gown

And leave me breathless on the stones and cold—photoBut blue is not my cloak, or yet my skin

As much as dark the tenor of the day

And when the storm had lastly passed away

I felt the night might swallow up my sin—

Now sorrow’s misery that spoke you grief

Forgiven falls in sunset’s sweet relief.photo

And So, Good Night

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photoBedding becomes at a certain time the only allowable necessity in the list of must-have, must-acquire things: a soft, squashy place in which to drop into docile dreams and a few gentle coverings to keep the nighttime’s monsters reasonably at bay. In the great grand scheme of everything, it is plain that eventually nothing matters so much to us as a modicum of food and a good night’s sleep, and that, with the essential and desirable bits of bedding to line the nest.

These are nearly universal enough desires that I think I can safely claim they’re innate and downright laudable human compulsions. And if that’s so, why then I’m quite happy to claim that as the possessor of an extreme quantity of the urge for lengthy, peaceful sleep and lots of delicious food, in that order, ergo I must be a particularly outstanding specimen of humanity. Fortunately, this approach to a philosophical stance on my being excellent by virtue of having a notable love and appreciation for the most desired of goals is so far removed from logic as to be virtually unassailable. Unassailable, at least, by persons deeply asleep, which in this tautology we all ought to be. Therefore, I adjure you, let us all seek and dive into whatever glorious sleeping comforts we can find, and make no more pretense of being productively awake.photo

I Think I Must’ve Dropped It Here Somewhere

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Peace of mind and clarity can be mighty hard to come by these days. Half of the time I have a tendency to suspect they’re things I once had access to or even owned in small quantities but somehow misplaced. Don’t mind me, I’ll be crawling around here on hands and knees with my compatriots. If we look like we’re hunting for lost contact lenses while not actually awake, you might well be right.

graphite drawingRespite

Among the herds and hordes that clamor for attention undeserved,

Some few remain that will not yammer but sit back, demure, reserved—

Odd, in the cacophony of wild, attention-grabbing rush,

That what finally wins from me my focused notice is mere hush—

The effect of surfeit, excess, ultimately in the riot

Of the maelstrom, is what checks us in our racing: simple quiet—

So I seek the silent moment, empty spaces, basic form

Of absent noise and crush and foment, then go back to face the storm.

Beauty Sleeps

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Masked Olivia

The sleeping lady whose closed eyes

Conceal the wisdom of the wise

Contain the laughter children know

And barricade a world below

Keeps in closed eyelids cool release

And in her heart a realm of peacegraphite drawing

Don’t Waste Too Much Time on Reality

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digital illustrationRestorative Dreaming

A pensive morning in quiet shade

Of this is inner contentment made

A sip of silence, a moment’s rest

In the garden corner I love the best

With butterflies skimming the border’s blooms

Voile curtains billowing out of rooms

A book of poems upon my lap

Read in short bursts between nap and nap

And the sound of a bicycle coming near

To bring the post of love-letters here

I’d rather recline in this reverent haze

Than waste on reality any daysdigital illustration