Just One More Minute

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bed

I slept in this morning. I typically get up at 4:30 a.m. every morning, weekdays and weekends, but there are some mornings when I just don’t want to get up, and I don’t have to, so I sleep in. All I have to do is say to Eric, “I’m staying in,” and he turns off the light, hustles the dogs out, takes care of their breakfast and Dexter’s medicine for me. When they are done eating, Sam (the baby of the family, but maybe the laziest of us all) comes back and gets in with me. This, the comfort of a dog sleeping next to me, makes it even easier to drift back to sleep, to stay in.

From time to time I wake up, always thinking to myself “just a few more minutes.” It’s so cozy and nice, and I don’t really have anywhere else I have to be right now. This “just a few more minutes” typically becomes at least two extra hours of sleep. On days like this, I’ll tease Eric if he takes a nap, saying I already took mine.

After I got up, I was thinking about this “just a few more minutes.” I was thinking about all the other places this manifests. I remember every kid I’ve ever known begging for a few more minutes of play, just one more half hour of TV, just one more book, just one more cookie. I was thinking of the other ways it comes up for me, just one more bite, just one more page, just one more mile, just one more episode of whatever show is on HGTV as I ride the elliptical at the gym, just one more day. Grief arises as I think of those I’ve lost, how we both wished for more time, another day, another moment, just a few more minutes here together, how those lives were over too soon, how there was so much more living and loving to do, how hard I prayed that they be given more time, how angry and hurt I still am that it was denied.

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This is where we live our lives, in these few minutes. If we are lucky, we have a succession of them, minute after minute, moment after moment, but our experience is only in this single, small measure of time. One breath, one beat of the heart, one flash of experience, one chance, one kind act, one moment of connection and compassion. We long for there to be another that follows it, but the wisdom that lives deep in our soft animal belly knows that we must savor this one, the one just now, to squeeze everything out of it we can, to really see it, to notice, to open our heart to it, because this is all we can be sure of. In this moment, we can know that we are here, we can be here, brave and open and vulnerable and tenderhearted.

What do you plan to do with your one minute, kind and gentle reader?

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?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
~From Mary Oliver’s poem, The Summer Day

Gratitude Friday

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This post started as a mashup of The Little Bliss List and Joy Jam, and as such is meant to celebrate: the little things that brought me hope and happiness this week, the sweet stuff of life, those small gifts that brought me joy this week. By sharing them, I not only make public my gratitude, but maybe also help you notice your own good stuff and send some positive energy out into the world.

1. The kindness and generosity of friends. A poetic message from Sherry, a thank you from Andrea, a gorgeous and silly hat from Susie, a pack of poetry and the sweetest squiggly doodles from Laurie, a link to a funny video from Chloe’, interesting questions and the space to answer them and a kind heart to listen from Kimberley, clarity and an open heart from Kathy, laughter and wisdom from Susan, kind words from Beth, a guest post on Niight’s blog. It is so good to be loved, to be surrounded by such wise, creative, open hearted women.

spritehat

2. Good food. Scrambled eggs with spinach and whatever else I might find to throw in. The perfect avocado. Pancakes with strawberry jam, both homemade.

3. Snow. Just enough to make everything sparkly and quiet for a single, glorious morning walk.

4. Downton Abbey. I watch it online, which means not until Monday, which makes Monday something to look forward to. If you like this show too, and you haven’t yet seen the spoof, Downton Arby’s, go watch and have yourself a giggle.

5. Feeling full of ideas, and sensing the Universe’s support of them. A force of pure love and power conspiring to make sense out of the longing, the calling, the hunger in my belly, my heart. It’s a busy, productive, fertile time for me, sometimes so strange after such a long season of fallow.

Bonus Joy: Another week with Dexter. Some of it was very exciting for him, like the part where he chased a cat down the street (I explained to him that this would not have been as much fun for either of us if he’d been hit by a car), and the time he ran in to his doggy friends Roxie and Riley at the park and got to walk with them for awhile. I asked him this morning to be my valentine and I think he said “yes,” (it was that or “give me a cookie”).