Learning to Live in the Moment

i believe in the power of three. when something crosses my path 3 times i know to pay attention. the universe is trying to tell me something. this morning i felt tired even before i finally crawled out of bed. but i did. because i had to. and after taking the little to preschool, i made a pot of coffee and instead of jumping right in to making the to-do list or checking the e-mail, or just heading straight to the studio, i sat with a magazine...just trying to wake myself up...and there it was...3 times...in the same magazine...in 3 separate articles...live in the moment. it was said in several different ways of course, but essentially it all boiled down to that. live in the moment. be present. wake up. don't waste energy on the past or the future...you are here, now.

wow.

ok.

living in the moment is difficult. or it is for me. i imagine it is for you, too. as women, and especially as mothers, our lives somehow, over time, become not our own. we tend to everyone else, we do and do and do...usually several things at once, and often to the point of complete depletion and exhaustion...and we can't remember how we got there. (here.)

and of course, there is always the past to contend with. could be yesterday's argument with your spouse, could be the nasty divorce ten years ago, could just be what didn't get crossed of the to-do list, could be anything, that as we devote our time today to it, it is no longer in the past, it is here with us, in the now, taking more moments from us. and it is really really hard to live in the moment while dwelling on the past. i know. believe me, i know. and speaking of that, has anyone else noticed facebook bringing so many different parts of our past back front and center in our lives? it is really kinda freaking me out a bit. whew! wears me out sometimes! (maybe i should count that as number 4?)

my daughter, it seems lately, is constantly asking me to play with her. (she used to be a pro at playing by herself) and i find myself saying, much to my chagrin, "hold on a minute", "in a minute", "not now", "later"....ya'll know what i'm talking about. i tell myself that i'm not a good "player". and i'm not. somewhere along the line i have forgotten how. i have this insatiable need to constantly be doing something productive, and play seems so counter-productive. but it's not. it is living in the moment. and children are masters at it. (now that i think about it, i think when i play with her that is when the extra stuff creeps into my brain...cause i'm not too busy to fend it off...ok, sorry, had my own little aha moment here!)

play is as vital to our soul as breathing. as an artist i know this. i have spoken here before about how i often feel guilty when my work is not as "hard" as it is "supposed" to be. that little voice that says "who do you think you are to have fun at work?" and we all know the guys who everyone says about them, "they work hard so they can play hard". and they do. guys just don't seem to grapple with this the way women do. they have no problem laying on the couch watching football all day in the middle of a filthy room. they can take off for the weekend without a second thought to all the things left undone at home. amazing. infuriating. but i wish i was a little more like that. don't you?

but this living in the moment thing is not just about playing baby dolls with a kid, or seething at the man because he can do it so effortlessly and we have such a hard time with it, it is about being really present with whatever task we are engaging in. be it the feel of the paintbrush on the canvas, the sounds all around us as we walk through the neighborhood, the way the child's imagination works as we get down on the floor and pretend to be the puppy, even the gratefulness that can come up in us as we wash the clothes or do the dishes...."i have a family, they are happy and healthy, we have good food to eat, and beautiful dishes to eat it from"...trying not to multi-task every single thing, trying, just trying, to live in the moment. to be aware. to be grateful.

and be on the lookout for those "threes" in your life...never know what you might find!