Soul Happy

Sometimes in life you just need to hit the pause. Hide the cellphone in a closet, unplug the television, starve the senses from all the unbelievable undone going on. Under all that wild and buzzing noise, the latest breaking news feed, the tweets and all that we've never experienced, there is a sweetness waiting to be uncovered. Like a budding crocus, making its quiet entrance after a long, hard and chilly winter, the beauty in these stolen moments, they replenish, refresh and restore what the wild world threatens to steal. Even for a few moments.

My pause came disguised in an old Nike shoe box. Continuing my downsizing project, I retrieved the box from the shelf,  lifted the lid and peered inside. This box housed a plethora of old assorted cards; birthday, anniversary, get well, sympathy, Mother's and Father's day cards. Even a few photographs.  Dating back to the 80's and 90's, notes from our children written and I can see their faces all earnest in their adolescent attempt at loving us though words. These remnants from the past, they washed over me, flooding the heart with precious memories, and I read each line, as if for the first time.

I wonder if God smiles tender, watching us taking a break from all that surrounds, all that hurries us, scares us, makes us mad even. For me that day it was in a shoe box, this flashback gift, freeing me from the burdens of the present, gentle reminders that breathless moments don't necessarily require climbing a mountain or skydiving. Later, I stepped outside, listened to the trilling sound of a bird perched on a telephone wire, one of those original tweeters. And I breathed soul happy.

"All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone."

~Blaise Pascal~