Foggy early.
(I didn’t sleep well last night.)
Giving way to a mind-clearing, mid-morning breeze.
(Write. Photograph. Plan. Dream. )
Full-sun by midday.
(Get outside.) (Get stuff done.) (Find fun.) (Play.)
Colder air moves in late afternoon.
(Wrap up the day. Catch up the day.)
(You go first. No, you.)
((How was your day?))
Star-sprinkled clarity early evening, followed by moonshine late.
(Tuck in, count blessings and stars, hope.)
Fair skies predicted come morning.
Sometimes health looks like going to the gym. Sometimes. But not today.
This morning, health looked slow and leisurely. A bit of reading. A bit of writing. Admiring the sunlight reflected on the wall. Sitting in silence. Counting blessings.
Sometimes health is doing the chore. Tackling the list. Holding myself accountable. Working late. Finding a way. Making the appointment.
Health is in the doing. And in the done.
Health could be brewing another pot of coffee and pouring it out in my favorite cup. Turning up the heat to take the chill off. Taking a nap. Or a long, hot bath.
Almost always I’ll find health outdoors. I know I’ll feel uplifted out there in the air. I’ll discover something that betters me. Happys me. Fills me with hope. Last night three deer crossed my path on the way home. And night before that, a boy two houses down sang his hallelujahs to the stars above. And me, his unknown audience in receipt of a gift he never knew he gave.
Health is found in the unexpected gifts I discover when I’m not looking for them at all.
Sometimes health sounds like music. Violins, maybe, in a certain kind of mood. Or music I can wear when I dance around the kitchen. Oh … that pure joy I feel right then is most certainly health.
Good health feels like the trust of relationship, the honor of marriage, the longevity of friendship. Good health is in giving. A bouquet of flowers. A good listen. The holding of hands. Sharing a meal. Sending a card.
Good health is knowing what I need and bypassing what I don’t.
Good health is today. This morning, this afternoon, and tonight.
Here’s to you … and to your health too.
This time of year, I follow light around the house like a puppy after its best friend. I am sun hungry, and I measure rays stretched across hardwood floors and count minutes of daylight like coins in a bank.
It’s easy to feel miserly, hoarding each minute of light, a bit bitter at the hours of darkness.
Much better to feel grateful and celebratory for the minutes I have. To delight in howsoever I choose to spend them.
I sit on the porch, cupping my tea, on watch as the sun recedes from view. Wrapped in a blanket against the increasing chill, I’m basking, sun on my face. Today’s last rays a deposit I took the time to make.
The light of faith and hope and prayer notwithinstanding, It is up to me, I think, to find my own light. Make my own light. Be my own light.
Live the light.
I have missed writing.
The scratch of my pen on paper. My cross-outs and do-overs. Arrows moving lines I’ve written up or down. Reading aloud to my husband before I hit publish.
Writing quiets the clamoring, broken, and frightening world around me. Almost and only when writing am I able to hear myself think.
I have only recently connected dreaming with doing. Sometimes doing must be scheduled – in pen – as are doctor appointments, duties, dates, and dusting. Making time for what matters requires its own kind of focus, a conscious relocation from the bottom of the list to the top.
There’s need for determination. Hope. An awareness that what feeds my soul is at least as important as what I feed my body.
And so I’m writing again.
It’s been scheduled.
one hopeful year 