It's All About the Little Things

Several weeks ago, I was traveling from Ohio back to Indiana.  It was a stunningly beautiful January day when I left Kent, Ohio.  It was one of those "sky is clear blue with tiny strands of white clouds hanging like lace curtains" days.  Exquisite travel day.  It was one of those days when if I had been hiking, I would have noticed details like bugs on leaves, tiny pine cones in the grass, how the sun forms rainbows on leaf dew.  I am sure you've had days like that. 

But I was driving.  Home.  I instead I turned my thoughts inward to family, friends, love and beauty and the timelessness of enjoying NOW.  The winter sun, absent or clouded in winter in NE Ohio shone brightly and warmed the interior of the car, it felt just like summer and oh how good this felt at this moment to have that warmth on my fingers clutching the wheel and on my face.  Soaking up the much need Vitamin D.  Welcoming that light in that moment, opened my heart.

As I was driving, I noticed small birds flying and ugly trash blowing across the road...the contrast of beauty and ugliness, reminders that living in the moment means accepting what we judge as good or bad and dealing with it without judgement because it is just THERE in that moment and like trash blowing across the road or birds flying across one's line of sight it will be gone in the next moment.  For me this brings freedom; freedom to not be burdened by little birds that fly into your life or trash that blows through.

At the end of the day, I was greeted by the most beautiful sunset I've seen in a long time. It capped off a day where I was thankful for the tiniest thing.  The colors of that sunset blended into the most spectacular colors, pinks, purples, dusty blues and yellows.  It filled my warm heart with such gratefulness.  I felt as if Mother Nature had painted that for me so that I'd remember for a long time that if you let things build up inside, if you spend your moments dwelling on the what ifs and what wills of life you miss the what is right there in front of yous. 

 And it is in these moments, the right now moments where inspiration and gratitude reside.  I love looking at the big picture but also that day was reminded of all the little pieces that build up to make that big picture.  If you walk too fast with your eyes all the way into the future, you miss the building blocks upon which that big picture rests.  

Time, Time....Its Tickin'

Growing up in Indiana, I never had to worry about the time change.  It never did.  Seasons came and went with a natural rhythm and we humans adapted.  Farmers plowed in the pre-dawn light and we stood outside on the cold street in skirts in the dark waiting for the bus to take us to school.  We huddled in clumps for security and warmth, girls on one side of the street, boys on the other.  Sometimes, when it was really cold, we stood together on a neighbor’s porch, thankfully, running to board when the big, yellow bus came to a stop.  No one worried about us out there in the dark by ourselves…it was a growing up ritual, waiting for the bus in the dark.  And time marched decisively over us with no thought for our petty concerns.

Indiana succumbed, finally, to the pressure of the world and adopted Daylight Savings Time in April of 2006.  Thinking that it was more important to manipulate time for its own purposes than to live by the cycles of nature, they caved to all 48 of the other states need to control nature.  The first year I ‘sprang’ my clocks forward I was never right.  It was like my body said, “what the ????” and refused to ever catch up that lost hour of sleep.  It wandered the halls in confusion, sleep deprived and slightly “off” for the 7 months of Day Light savings time.  I kept encouraging it to get with the time but it refused.  You could tell it was not just me that was suffering because everyone spent that first summer feeling just a little like they were always in some kind of time warp.  Glazed eyes and yawning we welcomed the fall and its change back to ‘normal’.

I live in Ohio now so Buckeyes have been springing forward and falling back since time began evidently without consequence.  I still feel slightly boggled the first week or two after the switch but feed my body extra caffeine and use the time switch as an excuse to sleep more and be late to work.  “Oh, yeah, I’m trying to catch that lost hour of sleep”, I tell my boss….he’s not buying it.

So, those of us old enough to remember when time didn’t change because we wanted more daylight to do business with New York, to remember when neighbors didn’t mind if cold children huddled on porches, old enough to remember that darkness really isn’t scary and that sunrises can be inspiring, will need a little latitude from you for a few days as we wander around trying to find our place in time again, muttering under our breath about how we don’t understand why we have to change time to begin with.   Don’t blame it on the farmers because they have always done there thing by the sun’s rhythms and will continue to do it whether the clock says it’s time to or not.