mindful

On our recent French pilgrimage, I was fascinated by the yellow fields -- and found myself taking photos of it as we drove by, every day!

Mindful 

by Mary Oliver

Every day

I see or hear

something

that more or less

kills me

with delight,

that leaves me

like a needle

in the haystack

of light.

It was what I was born for -

to look, to listen,

to lose myself

inside this soft world -

to instruct myself

over and over

in joy,

and acclamation.

Nor am I talking

about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,

the very extravagant -

but of the ordinary,

the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.

Oh, good scholar,

I say to myself,

how can you help

but grow wise

with such teachings

as these -

the untrimmable light

of the world,

the ocean's shine,

the prayers that are made

out of grass?

 

Overwhelmed by morning

In the past couple of weeks with Elena and her parents, I have experienced more sunrises than the past several years put together!  I’ve noted before (see my blog post here) that I’m naturally a late night person, so being in Milwaukee means an upside down schedule from my regular routine. 

I’ve been sleeping on a futon in the living room underneath four windows that face southeast, and the front of their tree-lined street in Wauwatosa. Like opening a Christmas present together, Elena and I giggle every early morning as we lift up each shade to discover the color-covered sunrise sky before us. “Other one, other one!” she tells me, then throws herself on my pillow in giggly delight.

This morning during Elena’s nap, I read the new Mary Oliver poem, “A Thousand Mornings,” also the name of Oliver’s new collection.  In those simple, genuine eight lines, I can almost hear Oliver’s own Elena-like giggles as her heart delights at being “overwhelmed by morning.”  

"Oliver describes herself as witnessing all these things asshe stands by her door every morning, notebook and pen in hand. But, she tellsNPR's Rachel Martin, she doesn't actually do that every morning. "Almost.I thought, gee, I do lie a little bit, and I should have said, 'which is theway I begin most mornings,' " she laughs."

Leaning on the pillows and windowsill, Elena and I stare at and name the colors of the sky. We talk about the raining Autumn leaves that we both love to kick and run through, then we touch the window and discover the day’s weather, “Cold!!” she pronounces with her face and voice.  I reach over to hand her Froggy, her favorite animal, but instead roll over and land in front of Elena, causing more giggles. “Almost, Buela, almost,” she encourages me—then she throws herself on top of me for a playful snuggle.

There is no better way to begin most mornings.