Loving ourselves and life from where we are
I’m counting down to contentment — to the starting date of my new sacred journey course,“Creating a Life of Contentment," which begins Sept. 15. For one entire year we will travel together as intimate companions: to relax, let go and rest into Love; to discover the bliss of our own life. You can learn all about it here.
Savoring
I am a “born savorer.”
It’s a wonderful gift to have received from my father. Unfortunately, it came at the expense of a personal loss to him, to our entire family.
Here’s the story.
My dad’s dad was a robust man, hearty, smoked cigars, drank a bit, loved to play cards and pool with his buddies. He was the founder of a successful community organization. I hear tell he was also prone to stress. Enough so that he died of a massive coronary in his sleep at age 43. This left my dad, an only child, fatherless (he was 17), and my dear grandmother a widow for most of her life. She never remarried.
I grew up knowing this and gazing at a picture of Grandpa—the grandfather I never knew—atop my father’s bedroom dresser. Attached to the photograph was an aged and yellowed slip of paper :
“You’re only here for a short visit.
Don’t worry, don’t hurry and don't forget to smell the roses.”
That photo and sentiment holds a prominent place in my heart. I knew from a very young age that life could be short and sweet, enough so that we should savor it every day ... that we are blessed to be alive.
Now, mind you, I don’t always do that. I forget. I get caught up in life as if it were a floating cesspool of junk, chores, ailments, just like anyone else. But, thankfully, many times I do remember ...
I remember that life is fleeting.
That life is fragile.
That life as we know it can shift on a dime and be completely different 60 seconds from now.
And that people we love (or hope to love) can be gone.
When I remember this I do stop and sometimes I even, quite literally, smell the roses.
This happened the other night while we were eating dinner. My husband commented on all the new roses that had popped on the bushes in the yard. I had trimmed them back in the spring to nothing. They bloomed once. Now, with further trimming, they were blooming again.
These are the most fragrant roses I’ve ever smelled. Over fifty years old, they are Old English climbing roses, bred for fragrance not color. They are the palest of pink, so delicate!
And their aroma is enough to stop a busy woman in mid-sentence, lure her away from the dinner table, sink her nose into their luscious centers and take the deepest of breaths.
Ah, the joy of smelling roses.
Contentment comes to us in subtle hues and scents. We simply have to answer their beckon call.
As delicious as they are, even grilled whitefish and zucchini drizzled with buttery garlic sauce can wait. The scent of wildish roses is much more soul-satisfying.
How will you stop and smell the roses today? And if you don’t have roses in your yard, what can you sniff and savor?
Contentment may be only a whiff away.
You have to sniff out joy. Keep your nose to the joy trail.
~Buffy Saint Marie
No comments:
Post a Comment