The Cleansing Blessing of Being in the Present Moment

The view from my window: the sky's gorgeous layers of grey, dark and darker grey, and also white and brighter white. Quite monochromatic. Definitely a change in the weather common to the beginning of September and a welcome break from last week's heat. I took several pictures through the open window's screen which gave it an effect I loved. I tried three times to move the pictures to my computer. Nothing connected. So here's the first best thing about today. I chose to do nothing about it. What a blessed relief.

This is a perfectly ordinary Monday for me. I'm sitting at my computer first thing in the morning, wondering what I'm thinking and liking this idea of doing nothing. What if I acted as if I didn't have to do anything at all about so much that goes on in my life? What if I acted as if the me I meet this morning is just a perfectly fine version of me? What would happen if I didn't worry about my leg pain which really concerns me? What if I acted as if everything my husband does requires no help or opinions from me? What if I acted as though I'm not waiting for one single thing?

The kind of nothing I'm thinking of is a surrender to the moment, to living in that moment. I can choose to rearrange my mood by struggling with iphoto or my camera, or I can do nothing at all about it. Who really needs to see those pictures?  Last week my acupuncturist suggested every few hours or so, I check in to the present moment by taking a minute to notice the colors or shapes or sounds or textures in that moment. Nothing more. Just be in that minute. I choose to think this has contributed to sleeping better at night. For a few minutes a day, spread out through the day, I stopped the chatter. Yesterday a very bouncy song ran through my mind, you know, the kind of thing you can't get rid of? Then I missed it when it wasn't there, because it too became a moment of dodging the commentary constantly going on in my monkey mind. Now I sing it on purpose and enjoy the moment of doing nothing more than singing.

I like the Hebrew word dayenu. It means "it is enough." For today I am waiting for nothing at all. For today I'm celebrating what's right with the moment. It's another thing I'll add to my hourly moment of being in the present moment and doing nothing about it. Whatever I am is enough. Dayenu.

Baruch ata adonai...I sigh a great sigh of relief. I am here. I am just here in the cool breeze of this grey morning. I just am. Here. Amen