During the holidays it’s a challenge to find silence, solitude and simplicity, much less write about it. The house is now back in order and I’m here at the cottage for the week. When I arrived yesterday there was a little too much silence. Not a hum from the furnace when I turned up the heat -- not a good sign. I won’t go into the details, but suffice to say that twenty four hours later the furnace company has come and gone and I can hear the hum. What about simplicity, you ask? I’m certainly not willing to return to the simple life before furnaces; was gathering wood and keeping the home fires burning all that easy? As for solitude, there wasn’t much of it while I was arranging for repairs.
As with any situation that disrupts the routine, I learned from this experience. What particularly struck me was how it kept me in the present moment, in the NOW. Although I thought about my creature comforts—that I was cold…when would the oil company come—I didn’t become obsessed with them. In fact, much to my delight, I didn’t feel sorry for myself or do the poor me routine. Rather, I sat on the deck experiencing, This is what’s happening now, as I observed the immediate activity of sea, clouds and gulls.
Um, this is the present moment. Be with it.
Please don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t just in the NOW. I did anticipate a future with the furnace humming but I wasn’t anxious about it.
This is simplicity, simplicity of being.
As with any situation that disrupts the routine, I learned from this experience. What particularly struck me was how it kept me in the present moment, in the NOW. Although I thought about my creature comforts—that I was cold…when would the oil company come—I didn’t become obsessed with them. In fact, much to my delight, I didn’t feel sorry for myself or do the poor me routine. Rather, I sat on the deck experiencing, This is what’s happening now, as I observed the immediate activity of sea, clouds and gulls.
Um, this is the present moment. Be with it.
Please don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t just in the NOW. I did anticipate a future with the furnace humming but I wasn’t anxious about it.
This is simplicity, simplicity of being.