Being in the day

The rain is pounding on the metal roof here. Ting, ting, ting of comfort. This fall I bought a new red raincoat and it just happens to work perfectly with my old red blundstones. So there is today's outfit. I will likely walk at the rink so as not to get fully soaked. Move. Move. My body craves movement in the morning. And so I listen. Sometimes we need to listen to the words that are not being said, to the things we cannot hear. Sometimes we need to listen to what we are feeling.

When I hook I listen to what I am feeling. It is how I decide what to make. Walking helps with this. It is a time free from distraction, walking surrounded by trees, birds, peoples homes and yards. These things seem to walk along with me as my mind roams, and weaves in and out of ideas. And most of the ideas are not much, not even much good. They are like dreams on the edge of sleep sometimes. I think though that they build on themselves. One loose thought meets another time and time again and eventually a spark flies and my brain lights up. I light up and I see a possibility.

Reading does this for me too. It carries me away to Edinburgh or North Carolina, or New Zealand and creates these pictures in my head. Sometimes they are connected to memories of having been there but often they are new pictures made up in my head by the words on the page. Books are fodder for our imaginations. Sentences create pictures in our head of places and people that never existed. A creative force, that is what reading is.

And to be in the moment without noticing that you are in the moment. Without thinking "I am here, this is good", that is grace. To just enjoy the walk, the book, the bowl of soup, the conversation on the street is real gratitude. To let yourself be lost in the day so you can love the day fully is grace. To turn the page, or take the next step, or choose the next colour, full on being and doing at the same time. This is a rich life.

And so the rain won't put me off today. Because my body  needs me to carry it, to look after it, to take care of it. I can feel the need to move, to let my mind wander. At the rink I do use my headphones to listen to music as I walk and I kind of walk dance around the track. And I know I must look a bit silly and I don't care, and nobody else does either. And sometimes the words in a song brings back a memory or lets me imagine a story as if I was reading. And I get carried away to imagination land. And after 12 or twenty laps I will go to the studio and make coffee and begin the day. I like the people I work with. I look forward to seeing them. And today I have a blank canvas on the frame and no idea what to make but I'll take a sharpie and draw something and it will be what it will be. And it will be enough.