It’s easy to focus on the what’s not going right. We’re wired that way from when we were primates: potential death at every corner. Sometimes I wonder if we aren’t back there. Look around. We are so afraid. The bummer is, the more you focus on that, the more it builds.
Like the other morning, the wind blew my hat off as I waved to a friend driving by. Annoyed and slightly embarrassed, I turned my bike to retreive it and my skirt got stuck in the chain. When I bent to release the skirt from the rusty chain (that Jose should have greased weeks ago) I watched a motorcyclist crush my chapeau. My favorite hat lay smashed in the road. And my friend? I could see him laughing in his rearview mirror, stopped at the traffic light. His beep hello had started the whole series of events. I hated him now. Favorite hat, favorite skirt, ruined. Angry energy built frenetically around me. What next?
I stopped. Stood there; skirt in chain, crushed hat in the street. I took a deep breath, exhaled fully. I took another long inhale and long exhale and told myself, “It’s just a hat.” And a skirt. And a friend. And an employee. As the list grew, I smiled, then laughed at the situation. I noticed the blue and pink morning glories climbing over the chain link fence on the overgrown lot next to me. Another deep breath and I noticed a small purple blue flower growing in the crack on the pavement just by my foot: lovely. A breeze wiped the sweat from my face and a car ran over my crushed hat but this time, the air lifted it and I watched it float and roll crookedly, nearly magically, to where I could almost reach it. I pulled the skirt from the chain leaving a small tear and told myself, “I’ll find a patch.” I lowered the kickstand as a young boy passing with his mom picked up my hat and handed it to me. “Gracias,” I told him. He and his mom smiled sympathetically. I punched out the flattened top. It still fit and regardless of the tire tread pattern on its weave, my nose appreciated the shade. I hiked the skirt and felt the warm sun on my calves as I mounted the bike to slowly pedal home.
I can’t believe that even primitive man didn’t stop to smell some flowers along the way. I don’t believe that she didn’t smell the scent of a leaf before she stuffed it into her mouth or, once she had fire, didn’t enjoy the aroma of the food she had cooked wafting into her nostrils. Perhaps she picked a similar purply blue wild flower to garnish her plate. Appreciating the little things and being present for them makes life more bearable in the worst of times and more wonderful in the best.
This holiday season, give yourself the gift of present moment awareness. Happiest of Holidays.