The Zen of Today

How shall I spend this Monday? Contemplating the simple pleasures of a cool September morning with my dog. Enjoying a bowl of warm oatmeal and a cup of strong coffee while I type this post. Standing, wrapped in my red robe, on the back stoop and "seeing" the lush green freshly mowed lawn, the product of a wet, cool summer. Planting "five dollar" rhododendrons in the side yard with dreams of them someday reaching 20 feet. Enjoying the Purple Queen Cleome and planning to buy more next spring.

Simple pleasures. Taking the time to just be still and look and enjoy this one moment, this one day, fully.

I could be making a long list of "things to do" today, but I want to have a better day than that. I want to feel my way through the day, as it progresses. Right now it is cool and silent. A good time to read or write in my journal. G is at work. Riley is watching the front lawn. I would like to choose the path not taken rather than the familiar one. I would like to be an empty bowl. Open to whatever comes.

Later, as the day warms, I want to open windows and clear the air in the rooms which have been closed all summer, unused, neglected. My studio. There are unfinished fragments of work scattered over the work table, sewing table and even the chair. I feel the need to remove everything pinned to the walls, clear the floor of piled boxes of fabric and supplies, make way for something waiting to be made.

I want to be ready. Open to possibilities. Ready to catch ideas as they appear because once lost, they can't be retrieved.

The sun has arrived. The day is warming. I am open to whatever comes my way. I will say "yes" to life today. That is the zen of today.