Running To Stand Still

For me, life moves at mach speed.  Let's imagine moving through your day at warp speed.  Everything around you moves just as quickly.  You see yourself starting the day pouring coffee and rushing to get your little one fed, dressed and out the door so you can take the dog out and get the little one to school.  All while thinking about your projects and to dos and all of your scheduled engagements for the day and week.  Soon, you can barely visualize yourself as you are moving too fast.  Too fast even for your amped up standards.  Your environment speeds up with you. You are now only able to just catch a mere second of your three year old telling you about the dinosaurs at school.  A flash of his naked butt dance in the living room and a blink of his funny squishy face.  

When you finally Stop, you come to a screeching Halt.  Your environment and you are weightless and moving in slow motion.  The whirlwind and chaos stops.  You can see.  Life is at a normal pace and then you realize he is no longer three but now fifteen.  Where did the time go you ask?   

I have always said, I am running just to stand still.  Now, we all know, I will stand still if I just stop running, right?  Easier said than done.  Believe me.  Over the past few months, I slammed on the life breaks as I caught myself once again in my running pattern.   My worst fear is to have a one time Slam The Breaks moment where I lose it and say OH MY GOD.. where did the time go?  I don't remember this I don't remember that.  I want to live in the present.  Be here now.  I want to process the moment and let it linger like the smell of sweet honeysuckle nectar on a hot summer day.   I want to have nothing to do on some days but just be.   I want to pause even if the world around me keeps on spinning.  I want to see my three year old's naked butt dance.  I want to laugh at his stories that take an eternity to tell.  I want to remember and appreciate his little brown eyes that look up and down and all round hoping to spot something that will remind him of his new vocabulary.  The vocabulary that makes his zany stories funny and colorful. 

If I could describe my general state of being by a group of musicians, it would be defined, right now,  by the music and style of Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, Jill Scott, John Mayer, Ben Harper, Jack Johnson, and Tracy Chapman.   These earthy rythmic grooves provide the beat to which I set my pace these days.  I feel more connected and rooted.  I feel strong.  I feel peaceful and graceful.  I feel spiritual.  My relationships are fortified and genuine. I feel evolved.  

I look forward to a more balanced and centered evolution.  Until then, I will allow the cool groovy rhythms and lyrics to wash to over me and punctuate the present state.  Ebb and flow~

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