Asking ourselves, “Where am I right now?” gives us a chance to step outside the internal dialogue for a moment of peace. Look around you, take a deep breath and notice what you see, hear and feel. Present moment awareness is the point of power and choice. It frees us from our compulsive thoughts. (Laura Harvey)
Okay. It’s time to organize. Or, should I have started these projects years ago? I haven’t been allowed to lift anything heavier than five pounds for more than a month. Now that my cataract surgeries are completed my eagerness to begin is heightened.
My eight-year-old grandson Dakota wants to help. He eyes the paper shredder. “Anything to shred?”
“No…Wait!” Folders lie stacked on top of one another. Copies of short stories already published. Stories I abandoned—for good reason. Early chapters of my books, The Curse Under the Freckles, Stinky Rotten Threats, and The Ugly Mood Storm. The Ugly Mood Storm, the third book in the series, will come out in October.
Sure. I could recycle the pages without shredding, but my young buddy likes the noise and the action. He knows how far away to keep his fingers from the blade, the source of the noise he enjoys.
The past returns as I open each folder. Mistakes circled in red on the page. Mistakes made in life jump out as well. Years cycle through as I open each worn folder.
“Oh,” I say.
“Something wrong?” he asks.
“No. It’s just a name of someone I used to know.” Someone who died.
He pauses to make sure I’m okay.
I celebrate the messy, beautiful present, my young grandson on the floor next to me.
Dakota continues to work, sorry when the shredder needs time to cool, sorry when the last sheet becomes a mass of white slivers. Then he is happy to play another game.
I take a deep breath and notice the whir of the air conditioning on one of the latter days of summer.
“See you next Thursday,” Dakota says.
His enthusiasm brings me a gift no amount of money can buy.
In the scheme of things where am I right now? Not sure I know, but it’s a mighty fine place.
terrypetersen 
Hi Terry! This tale of Dakota reminds me of a news story I saw on CBS in my Kansan days — 50 years ago. A bank in Idaho had shredded a large number of canceled checks by mistake. They were customers’ legal documents, so they hired a bunch of college students to unscramble the jigsaw puzzle created by a paper shredder.
“In the scheme of things where am I right now? Not sure I know, but it’s a mighty fine place.”
This memory sponsored by the Dakotas, Kansas, and Idaho 🙂
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