Never be afraid to sit awhile and think. (Lorraine Hansberry)
Think. Not over-think, worry’s first cousin.
I’m on my way to an exercise class. The class is my chance to kick, run, jump into a V-step or Charleston left, then right—all in my own clumsy timing. I’m definitely back-row inept. So what if the person in front of me is five foot eleven and I need higher heels to hit the five-foot mark. At least I won’t confuse anyone behind me.
Traffic is light for a Friday morning. I sit, drive, and take in the moment as my ’97 Toyota follows the familiar route.
The sky is blue, clear. And I breathe in and out slowly with the hope that my spirit can find similar clarity. A bird crosses the road. Too low. It almost hits my windshield. I’m reminded of the sparrow that lay dead in our driveway yesterday. I’ve seen too much loss lately. Large and small. I realize I can’t discover the beauty of each moment when I’m running on high speed in multiple directions.
My unwritten chore list is long. Again. I am hosting a friend’s birthday party this weekend. My office is also my grandchildren’s play area. The carpet is filled with tiny pieces of paper, remnants of kid art, what my mother called snibbles. Actually, I never heard the word anywhere else. So I asked my brother Bill if he knew anything about the word.
He speaks fluent German, and years ago, before we both had kids, he beat me at Scrabble. Regularly. I saved the score sheets and averaged the points. He was three points a word more proficient. But did he gloat? Heavens, no. We played cooperative games to see how many points we could gather together. Well over 700. That board grew with diverse, well-connected words and designs. Now Bill works to recognize people, not politics. The people of Palestine. Persons. Individuals. Not a lumped nameless mass.
This is where my thinking leads me now: I am proud of my younger brother.
He found snibbles in the Urban Dictionary. My bro, both intelligent and resourceful. And the sunshine outside seeps inside me just a little bit more.
In the meantime, daffodils are beginning to bloom. Grass pushes up green blades from thawed earth. The goldfinch has started to display his warm-weather feathers.
Beginnings. Each moment. As I sit. In the car. Or on the porch. As I stand. In the line at the grocery. Waiting. Anywhere. During celebrations and during painful times. Think, Terry, with expectant awareness. And live in the now. The naysayers will come. Ready to criticize another for hair or skin color, race, intelligence, or immigrant status. Ready to separate us from them, to say one group is more human than another.
But, you can’t be knocked over by hate, Terry, because you are caught off-guard in your own trivial considerations. One more time. Catch the beauty. Know it is real. Gain strength. Opinions change. Truth does not. Think. Think. Think…
terrypetersen 