it makes me feel ALIVE

This came up because I had a few conversations where I asked someone what thing in their life they had discovered and loved recently, and more than one person told me they hadn’t done that in a long time.

I left these conversations feeling unsure, sad, and a bit perplexed at where and what people are finding and inhabiting inspiration.

Now, I know that my particular subset of people skews heavily right now, because many of them are parents of young children. They work jobs, they do the carework of home, they fold mountains of laundry each day, they get up early and stay up late picking soggy bits of cereal off of their socks.

I get it. So do I. Yesterday was one of those days where so many different kinds of things happened in the day that I couldn’t remember how many days it had been. This happens often to me.

However this morning after nursing, making a long long list of things that need to happen, sharing a waffle that was also thrown at me, I turned on music. It isn’t something I’ve listened to much, it isn’t making a better person. It doesn’t wash my dishes. But it makes me feel ALIVE. It’s just a song I heard in passing in the car as I was getting milk, bananas, eggs too late at night, bleary with the thoughts of the day..that kind of trip to the store.

However, I am always looking for something to feel alive, feeling, sensing into what that might be so when it shows up, as it often and surprisingly does, I am ready for it. I’m ready for it. Ready for the ear worm, the poem that I read over and over and over til it’s awkwardly etched in me for a few weeks, the fleeting weeks of wild roses blooming, the sweet new ridiculous way the baby learned a word playing in my head.

It allows a change in the topography for me. It does something to blast color through the blur of my days. Do you do this? What keeps you curious? How do you stay curious? What do you let surprise you?

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The first Being and Breathing was so lovely. Subscribers will get access to this as well as everyone who came! Come to Being and Breathing in August 23, 6-7 pm PST. Can’t wait to see you there!

More classes are coming in the fall! I am working hard on them over here and can’t wait to share more soon.

Consider signing up to support this work of writing and investigating aliveness! And do it with me through the meditation series. Everyone who is a paid subscriber will have access to a growing library of meditations.