Gray perspectives

It's raining today. Gray. I noticed my mood shifting to gray also, as I could not let things go so easily that happened during the day. Then I felt the urge to look at a blog I had written when I was having happy thoughts.

My mood shifted into a subtly more content one. I noticed the change. This act of noticing reminded me how important mindfulness is in daily life. I am so grateful that I took an 8 week class on Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction. It has been one of the most important things I have done in my life that has continued to affect me positively on a daily basis.

I am also amazed at how I see information on mindfulness all around me now that I am looking for it, when I saw nothing before. For example, there is a great article that was published yesterday about mindfulness and its effects, including how it works in helping you make better decisions.

I imagine walking through the slot canyon pictured above and not being mindful. Yes, you could probably do it still, and mostly come out unscathed, with maybe a skinned knee or elbow, but why would you?

Why would you walk through this beautiful canyon, with water so cold it felt glacier fed, lapping at your ankles, and sun beams chasing beautiful oranges, browns, and reds out of the shadows into your view at every moment? Why would you choose to tune that out and be distracted by thoughts you were having about something else (work, relationship issues, finances, your car needing an oil change, etc.)

This hike, the pin pricks of icy water against my skin, the sound of the water gurgling through the canyon and then picking up into a rushing noise as we approached the waterfall, the beauty of the canyon walls, and the joy at the feeling of the sunshine as it washed over me and warmed my skin when I emerged from the canyon, I love remembering every bit of it.

Mindfulness is such a gift.

As Everyday Mindfulness (@mindfuleveryday) tweeted about recently,

"Mindfulness does not prevent you from thinking about the future or the past, but it allows you to do so on your own terms." 

And, as I have found, it allows you to truly be present in what you are doing now.

Things Sublime

Today was a beautifully sublime fall day.

Sunbeams

Today I felt the soothing warmth of the sunbeams as they gathered me in their embrace.

The lesson I still need to learn

There is a quote I read somewhere recently, that basically says, if the same thing keeps happening over and over to you, it is because you have not yet learned the lesson you need to learn. My lesson is apparently embedded in a couch.

It is too late, and I feel too tired to try to piece it together now. The lesson or my couch. Yes, that couch. The new couch. The couch the dogs luxuriate on during the day while I am at work. There is now a big piece missing from the top middle cushion. Apparently, our younger dog's days of couch chewing are not over.

Perhaps, he began chewing today while looking out the window from just the right spot, resting his head there. Chewing. Watching the squirrels gather up the seemingly limitless number of pecans from our yard and carry them to far away trees in other doggy kingdoms. Idly chewing.

Perhaps.

Perhaps he was mad that I only played Frisbee with him for 5 minutes on my lunch break, when I came home and let him outside to explore the wild fringes of our back yard. Was it his fault that he was tempted away from the Frisbee by whiffs of exotica? He had to determine certain crucial things in his limited time outside. Sniff. Was that a cat that had stopped, four hours ago, in the corner of our yard? Sniff sniff. The black one or the striped orange tabby? It takes time to deduce these things, and you have to have the nose for it.

Whatever the reason, the couch ate it, in the end. To make matters worse, the hair of the dog that bit it lay flatly upon it and did nothing to help.

And I discovered, upon arrival home from work, that I apparently still had a lesson to learn about life that the universe felt could best be taught to me by a couch. My new couch. The one that yesterday was king of its domain. Sitting silently unscathed in my living room as I wrote about my recently departed, chewed upon old couch, whose own glory days were long past.

I think this time the lesson a couch is trying to teach me is one about forgiveness. Forgiving my furry, adorable, little black and white rescue dog for chewing part of the new couch. Forgiving myself for being mad at him. I am working on both of those tonight as I write this.

The couch is just a thing. I repeat this like a mantra in my head. The couch is just a thing. And a soft, dark chocolate throw blanket covers up the chewed away spot quite nicely, as it drapes across the back of the couch. And my dog provides unconditional love and affection and daily moments of laughter and entertainment.

I know what is more important here logically. I like to think my heart knows it too.

I'll wait to see if the couch believes me or if more lessons are yet to come.

The couch

Today I gave away a couch. Not the comfy couch in my living room that my dogs love to curl up on in a ball and fall asleep for hours on. Not the same couch that they lay on, stretched out on their backs, legs splayed out towards all corners of the world, wagging their tails in effervescent happiness at being alive and allowed to sleep on such a wonderful thing as a couch.

Not that couch.

The couch I gave away was an old couch, a couch that had already been re-invented with a new couch cover sewn for it and put on over the old, stained cushions. The couch with the second cover's fabric chewed off the cushions in the corners. That couch, relegated to a back room when the new comfy couch (with the unchewed cover) was welcomed into our home. That couch was the one I gave away. Finally. After it sat for months in the back room. Taking up space. Space we did not have to give it. The space it took made the back room feel too cluttered.

So, last Sunday, a cool, clear day in the Fall, we dragged it out to the corner of our yard. We put a free sign on it. We live on the corner of a busy road so I was sure someone would see it and want it. They could buy or sew a new couch cover for it and it would be perfectly fine.

A month before this offering, we had put a used toilet by the same corner with a free sign, not really thinking someone would take it but hoping someone would want it so we didn't have to haul it to the junkyard. It was gone in 30 minutes.

The couch sat out majestically in our yard, the flowers blooming brightly across it, holding onto summer just a little bit longer with its pattern of beautiful flowers with sun kissed pink petals and emerald green leaves on a background of pale cream. It sat all day.

I sighed and went to bed. It felt to me as if maybe it was not meant to go. Maybe I should try again to love it. Maybe I was giving it away too easily.

The next day it was still there. The romantic view of my flowered couch, as seen from my cozy living room, was not the same view I saw up close, with the chewed fabric and the spots and stains from a life well lived by a couch that was loved by a house full of messy kids, busy parents, and slobbery dogs. It was no less perfect for its imperfections. But I could see how someone else might not see it in the same light that I did. Memories yet to be made do not cast the same glow to an object as fondly remembered ones tend to.

I went to work Monday and hoped that someone would come by who could overlook its imperfections and see the possibilities, the warm, cozy, comfortable memories it still had left to give. I had all but forgotten it as I drove home, confident someone had found it by now and lifted it into their truck and heart.

As I turned on to our street after work, I saw it still sitting on the corner. Now sitting in the shadows, it was hard to see the beautiful blooms. It looked dingy, old, and alone. My heart sunk. Could no one use this couch that we had moved on from? Just because our relationship had ended did not mean it was not a good couch, a great couch, that just needed some tender loving care to perk it back up again.

I wondered, would I really be able to take it to the dump or would it end up in my back room again if no one else wanted it?

I decided to leave it outside until the end of the week since we were not expecting rain. If it was not gone by then, we would take it to the dump. I tried to harden my resolve. It helped that my family was not willing to bring it back into our house again, and there was no way I could carry it back in myself.

Tuesday came and I left for work, thinking about calling to rent a truck to be able to take the couch to the dump on Saturday. Then the call I was not expecting came. The couch was gone! Just like that. I felt like a weight was lifted from me. Someone else could use our old couch! Someone else saw the potential in it and was willing to give it a home. I felt so good about both giving away our couch and clearing up space in our house that I decided to say goodbye to something every day that was taking up space (physically, mentally, spiritually) and say hello to the rest of my life.

This is the first post of that journey.